Nightmare

I groaned lightly, placing the icy package of frozen mixed vegetables against my arm, feeling it stab at my warm skin from the sudden contact. I just shook my head, knowing I would have to get over it, knowing I could be in a lot worse condition. Walking into the living room, I screamed, to expecting to see Zacky sitting there, as if waiting for me.

“Why do you always scream when you come into a room and I’m there waiting for you?” He asked.

“Sorry, Zacky,” I apologized. “You scared me—I didn’t know you were there. Sorry.”

I fell on to the sofa, letting my head fall back with a sigh as I closed my eyes.

“You okay?” Zacky’s voice sounded a bit concerned.

“I feel like a crash dummy,” I mumbled, eyes still closed.

I felt the sofa beside me shifting, signaling Zacky was moving closer, probably to inspect me like he as usual after my training with Matt.

“What happened?” He asked, his voice low.

I knew that voice. It was his overprotective voice; at least that was what I called it. It was the voice he got when he saw that there had been some damage to me, even if it was as much as a broken nail. At that point, Zacky would get mad enough to be ready to murder Matt for what he did to me, and I would have to talk him out of it, calming him down.

“Matt slammed me up against the wall,” I said simply.

“What?” Zacky yelled, furiously.

I couldn’t help but laugh—he got the picture that I wanted in his head. “Not in that way,” I giggled opening my eyes to look at him.

Damn did he look hot when he was angry…

“We were training,” I clarified. “Matt was helping me as usual, doing nothing wrong, but then decided to lunge at me. My powers didn’t exactly kick in, and he ended up slamming me against the wall. He ended up cracking a few ribs and my arm broken. He healed it, but I’m still a little bruised, so that’s where the ice comes in.”

I heard Zacky growl. “I told Matt to be careful with you!” He yelled. “I swear, if he does anything like that ever again, I will kill him! I will rip him apart with my bare hands! If he so much…”

I sighed, watching this play out like I had done so many times before. Zacky would get so worked up about these things, sometimes it was funny, but other times, it was just annoying.

“Zacky, Zacky, Zacky!” I grabbed his arms, stopping him from talking, getting his attention. “Zack, calm down. Okay? It’s not that big of a deal. I’m just a little bruised; it’s not big of a deal. Matt is just doing his job. And you want that, right? You want me to be able to protect myself, right? If something bad were to happen, you want me to be able to take care of myself, huh?”

“If anything were to happen to you, I’d be there for you,” Zacky said confidently.

“Well what if you weren’t there?” I said. “It’s possible that I could get into trouble, and you’re not there to save me like you were when I was thirteen.”

Zacky looked at me confused. “You… remember that?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I was thirteen years old and I had been out with some friends. I was headed home with another guy that I knew from school, because he didn’t want me walking alone, and we were jumped by a couple of kids from school. They beat the hell out of him, while they bloodied me up pretty badly too, leaving me with a black eye and bloody lip.”

Zacky nodded at the memory. “I wanted to kill those bastard for what they did to you.”

“But you got me to the hospital,” I said. “You saw that I was there, unmoving, possibly suffering from a concussion, and you took me to the hospital, to make sure I was okay.”

“How do you remember that?” Zacky asked. “You were going back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness.”

“I didn’t really know what was going on, honestly,” I said. “But I remembered your eyes. That was the only thing I could really focus on and remember the next day when they asked what had happened. It was Johnny that told me it was you.”

Zacky nodded. “Johnny. Right.”

I smiled. “Yeah, but you can’t always be my savior like you were that night, Zack… that’s why Matt’s teaching me to fight. Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.”

Zacky sighed. “Alright. Sorry… Come here.”

I knew at that point, he was going to rub my shoulders, so I obediently moved closer to him. Zacky moved closer to me, moving his hands and fingers along the skin of my shoulders and neck, releasing all the built up tension from the lesson, making my eyes slide closed again.

“Hey Zack?” I asked.

“Yeah Starr?”

“That day that we were in the forest, when we ran into Vega, he said that he picked up the scent of water-mint. What did he mean by that?”

I felt Zacky tense up for a moment, but he resumed working the knots out of my
shoulders again as if nothing had bothered him.

“You… humans have certain scents, which is what allows up vampires to differentiate between them,” Zacky said.

“But there are billions of people on Earth,” I stated. “Isn’t that a lot of people to have different scents?”

“Yes,” Zacky agreed. “But it all works out somehow. Vampires don’t spend a lot of time memorizing someone’s face, unless they’re actually important. To most vampires, a human is just a source of food or entertainment.”

“So you just smell people out?” I asked. “Like a bloodhound?”

“I guess you could put it that way,” he said. “But how are we supposed to tell all those blonde haired, anorexic bimbos apart, like that Paris Hilton one?”

I couldn’t help but giggle at that. Zacky smiled, sharing the laugh lightly.

“Tell me more,” I said.

“Okay, uhm…” Zacky stopped massaging my skin, running is hands up and down my arms a few times before sliding his arms around my shoulders, pulling me back.

I fell back onto his chest, feeling his arms lock around me, keeping me there securely. I couldn’t help the smile that burst onto my face as I leaned back, resting my head against his shoulder, running my hands along his arms, knowing that I could stay like this forever.

“Human have their own distinct scent,” He said. “And you have a scent that is much different form anyone else on the planet.”

“What do you mean?” I tilted my head back so I could look up into his breathtaking eyes.

“Well, you said yourself that there are billion of people on Earth, right?”

I nodded. “Yes, of course.”

“Well, because there are so many, the different people tend to have scents that are similar, but with one things that varies, which in turn makes them different from their friend, and the next and the next.”

“Okay, I think I get it,” I said. “It’s like cologne, right? How there could be fifty colognes with the same base scent of some kind of woody, earthy scent, but then they differentiate by one having more of a floral hue, another with a citrus, and the like, right?”

“Exactly,” Zacky nodded. “But the thing about you, that makes you so different from everyone else, is the fact that your scent isn’t like anyone else’s. It’s completely different.”

“Is that why Vega said the scent was like nothing he had ever experienced?”

Zacky nodded again. “Yeah.”

“So… what exactly does water-mint smell like?” I asked.

“Well…” Zacky hugged me closer, brushing his nose against the side of my neck, moving upwards towards my hair. “You smell amazing, like I told you when I first appeared in your apartment.”

I couldn’t help but giggle feeling his lips brush against my ear.

“It’s a sweet scent… kind of like flowers, but only flowers that live in water, like water lily, or something sorta like that. But there’s also a type of clean, calming scent, like rain… you don’t ever find scents like that. That’s what was drew me to you, actually. When I first saw you just after you were born? That was what I picked up when I was out on the street with Johnny.”

“And then from that moment on, you couldn’t leave me alone,” I said meaning for it to be a joke. “Tell me, was I that cute when I was a baby?”

Zacky’s eyes sparkled. “You were beautiful, Starr… just as beautiful as you are today.”

The smile that was on my face slowly began to slip as I heard that. I exhaled slowly, letting that sink in. Zacky just called me beautiful. I turned my face so I could look at him, staring into his eyes.

“Zacky…” I breathed with a small smile.

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to kiss him, and I looked like he wanted to kiss me just as much. But there was only one problem that I noticed: every time that Zacky and I were about to kiss, someone would interrupt.

And I was pretty damn sure that would happen again right now.

“Hey, Starr?”

Right on time.

“Yeah Matt?” I recognized the voice without even turning my head.

I didn’t want to look away from Zacky. I wanted to remain like this for as long as possible, just staring into his eyes, with him staring back into mine. I wanted to stay in his arms. I wanted this feeling of being safe, secure, protected, completely happy, and dare I even say it, possible loved.

“Uhm, I was hoping that I could check up on your arm,” he said. “I just wanna check to make sure that it’s okay, along with your ribs… maybe even heal up those bruises.”

“Yeah, I’ll meet you in the gym in a minute,” I said.

Matt nodded, quickly leaving Zacky and me alone once more.

“I guess I should get these bruises checked on,” I told him, still staring into his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he agreed.

I nodded, slowly dragging my eyes away form him, looking down. He removed his arms from around me, and I stood up, walking around the sofa, towards the door.

“Hey, Starr?”

I stopped, turning around to look at Zacky’s gorgeous face once more. He stood up too, moving around the sofa as well until he was standing a few yards away from me.

“Yeah, Zack?” I asked, waiting for what he was going to say.

He sighed, glancing down at the ground, running a hand through his hair, before shoving his hand in his pocket, his eyes meeting mine, a look crossing his face that I had never seen before.

“Uhm, I uh…” he chewed on his lip rings.

Was Zacky nervous?

“I was wondering,” He started again. “If after you were finished with Matt, maybe you’d wanna go out somewhere with me tonight.”

A small smile graced my lips. “Uhm, okay. Where?”

Zacky shrugged. “I don’t know… you’re stuck here all day, in the underworld, with no fun… we could head to a club for the night. I know you used to do that all the time back in Chicago. So we could go and just have some fun.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that, Zacky.”

A small, sweet smile tugged on his lips, his eyes sparkling once more. “Okay. So I’ll see you later.”

I nodded again, before continuing my way out of the room, towards the gym, a big smile on my face.

Did that mean I was going on a date with Zacky tonight?