Nightmare

I sighed, lying back on the soft bed, closing my eyes for a moment, that is, until I felt a body collide with mine, clearly jumping on me. I groaned lightly, opening my eyes to see Nikki, Adarina, and Zofie all on top of me, while Kriselle just sat next to where I was.

“Kriselle, you have no idea how much my lungs love you,” I gasped as I felt the three vampires crushing me.

She smirked. “Yeah, I figured you would say that… Okay, guys, get off her.”

She pushed her three friends off me, allowing me to suck in as much oxygen as possible. When I sat up, the four girls immediately grabbed me at the same time, in a big hug. I smiled, hugging them back.

“We missed you so much!” Nikki squealed.

“I missed my girl!” Zofie added with a warm yet crazy looking smile.

“I missed you guys too!” I grinned. “I feel like I’ve been away from here for such a long time!”

“So what did you think of staying in Tristan’s castle?” Adarina asked. “Was it creepy?”

“At first it was a bit strange and I was totally missing all you guys here,” I said honestly. “But after a little, Tristan wasn’t so bad. He’s actually kinda cool.”

The girls all put on an over exaggerated gasp, but ended up laughing in the end, myself included. We all just talked and caught up on what had been going on in our lives since I had been M.I.A. Apparently, things hadn’t really changed too much. The only thing that was different was the fact that Zacky had been completely miserable without me.

I told them how I mostly stayed to myself while at Tristan’s castle, not allowed to be outside of my room without Tristan’s approval, which was usually only when it was dinnertime. I told them that I just spent a lot of time watching movies and missing my life here at the house.

“We’re all so glad that you’re back!” Zofie cried, hugging me again.

I smiled, nodding in agreement, hugging her back.

After a few hours of hanging out, Adarina and Kriselle went to go spend some time with Brian, leaving me with Zofie and Nikki. We decided to go downstairs to find the guys, see what they were up to. Walking down the staircase, we heard voices coming from the main room, including Zacky’s, Johnny’s and Matt’s, but I also heard a higher pitched female voice that I didn’t recognize.

Walking in, I felt myself freeze, not able to move another step, glad that Zofie and Nikki were on either side of me, feeling my throat dry up instantly. Johnny and Matt were sitting on the sofa with their arms crossed over their chests, while Zacky stood up not too far away, his arm around another girl’s shoulders.

She was a little shorter than me, with dark hair and skin that was a bit peachy coloured for a vampire. She had snakebite piercings on her lower lips, was cute, with a nice figure, but what really stood out were her eyes; they were dark red, like two rubies.

“Starr, hey,” He said through laughs. “I want you to meet someone. This is Red Haylee Aranche, an old friend of mine.”

“More of a slut than a friend,” Nikki growled quietly from beside me.

Zacky glared at Nikki, but dismissed it, saying nothing.

I swallowed hard, my hand tightening into a fist, trying to calm my breathing down. Zacky still had his arm around her, not even coming over to me to hug or kiss me as he usually did when I entered a room that he was already in.

The girl removed her arm from around Zacky’s torso, walking over to me, extending her hand. “Hi Starr. It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Really?” I asked, not bothering to be polite by shaking her hand. “From who? ‘Cause I’ve never heard anything about you.”

She dropped her hand, giving me a small smile. “I’m an old friend of Zacky’s. He’s the one who told me so much about you. I guess I can’t really blame him for not mentioning me, I mean, as future queen of the underworld, you have much more important things going on that you need to focus on.”

I said nothing, only glancing over at Zacky for a moment, who was smiling like an idiot, hardly even noticing that I was there, his eyes remaining on Red.

“But like I said, it’s so nice to meet you,” Red smiled again, moving to hug me.

“Whoa!” Nikki shoved her back quite forcefully, stepping between the two of us, while Zofie pulled me back, both of them standing like they were protecting me. “Don’t you dare touch her,” Nikki’s voice was cold, her hands balled into fists. “How dare you even come back here.”

I saw Red glare evilly, pure malice shining from those eyes, but it quickly vanished as she took a step back. “Sorry, Nikki,” she said sweetly. “I was just trying to be friendly. But okay, I get it: she’s royalty.”

Matt quickly stood up, holding onto his girlfriend’s arm, pulling her away, trying to calm her down, while Johnny came over to both Zofie and I, putting his arm around each of our shoulders.

“Girls, why don’t we go get some food, huh?” He smiled, trying to ease the tension. “Starr, I know you must be starving.”

I just nodded absentmindedly, allowing him to steer his girlfriend and me out of the room, while Matt and Nikki followed after, the entire time, Zacky not once looking at me. His eyes remained on Red, starting right back into another conversation with her, the same smile never leaving his face.

“What the hell?” Nikki practically screamed when we got into the kitchen, slamming her fist down on the counter top, leaving a slight dent in it.

“Nik, calm down,” Matt told her, grabbing her wrist once more.

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Matt!” Nikki screamed, ripping her hand from his grasp, searching for something to throw at the wall.

“What is she even doing here?” Zofie asked, the irritation clearly present on her face.

“She just showed up,” Johnny said. “There was knock at the door, I answered it, and she was standing there. She claims that she just wanted to stop by and say hi, and to see how everyone was.”

“Oh, like hell she just wants to say hi,” Nikki grumbled, grabbing a drink from the fridge and twisting the cap open.

I sat motionless at the bar, not saying anything, just watching their reactions to this girl named Red. I didn’t know her, had never met her before, nor had any idea who she was, but I knew that I didn’t like her the moment I saw her in Zacky’s arms, and it was clear that my friends weren’t too fond of her either.

“Who is she?” I asked, my quiet voice making everyone’s talking cease.

Johnny sat down in the chair to my right while Zofie slid into the vacant one at my left.

“She’s an old friend of Zacky’s,” Johnny said with a kind smile.

I could tell by the way that he was speaking, he was trying to sugar coat everything, trying to spare my feelings and the sort. But I knew that I didn’t want anything smoothed over just for my sake.

“I want to know who she really was,” I told him. “I get that you’re trying to avoid the part that could hurt me, but I want to hear the truth… because obviously, there was more to it than what you’re telling me. Who is she, really?”

Zofie sighed, resting her hand on my arm in a comforting way. “Red is one of Zacky’s exes. They were together for a while…”

“Oh,” I answered quietly, understanding.

It all made sense now. Why they had their arms around each other, why he was staring at her the way he was. Red was his ex-lover.

“Starr, I’m so sorry,” Zofie said, pure sympathy in her voice.

I shook my head. “Don’t be, Zofie… it’s okay.”

“Okay?” Nikki shouted. “Okay? Starr, how can you say that? That whore has no right being here in this house!”

Nikki moved to throw the bottle at the wall, but Matt grabbed it from her hand before the bottle could be mashed to pieces from her sheer anger.

“I swear, I’m gonna kill him,” Nikki muttered to herself loudly.

“Nikki…” Matt tried to calm her down.

“No Matt!” Nikki hollered. “Don’t try to calm me down! I am way beyond that!”

“Nikki, this isn’t you—”

“My what Matt? My place? No! The hell with that! This is just as much my business as anyone else! Starr is one of my best friends and he didn’t even give her so much as a second glance while we were in there! I’ll be damned if I ever see that happen again! Especially when a slut like Red is in there, when it’s Starr that’s his girl!”

I sighed, folding my arms over the top of the counter I sat at, resting my head in them as Nikki continued to bicker with Matt. Zofie sighed with me, rubbing my back in a loving manner, wishing I could just forget about all of this—that I would soon wake up and this would all be a dream… a horrible dream…

Just another nightmare…

But the more I thought about it, I felt the crushing weight in my chest, knowing that this wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t going to disappear anytime soon.