Blood ran over her skin, she lay against the wall panting, her clothes were tattered and torn, her hair hung over her face as she braced herself for the upcoming pain she'd grown all too sickeningly familiar with. She looked up at her attacker and sealed her eyes shut before anything could happen.
A blow to the stomach, a slap across the face, and a knee in an unpleasant area that could've been a lot worse, had Monica been a boy.
"Why don't you go back to America? No one wants your filth here." A blonde girl insulted in her Scottish accent.
"Why don't you get that tree up and out of your ass, you damned Scot!" She shouted back to her offender.
"I'm not so sure you'll be wanting to say that again, or anything of the like." She said, filing her nails.
"It appears you're just another stereotypical dumb ass blonde. I'm pretty sure I'll be wanting to say what I'm wanting to say and I'll say it with proper English too." Monica spat in a mock accent. She received a punch in her cheek after finishing her sentence.
"You were saying?" The blonde, Roberta, teased.
"Bite me!" Monica hissed. Roberta rolled her eyes in disgust.
"I'll save that for your zombie friends." Monica growled at the comment as she watched Roberta and her guilty posse walk back to her mansion. She doubled over and prevented herself from throwing up with a series of coughs and breathing methods.
She ran a hand through her dark brown hair and tried to take in even more air than she already had. Monica looked down at her feet and saw her book bag lying in the grass, next to it was her pentacle necklace. She grabbed her belongings, clasping the necklace securely where it belonged and heaving her bag onto her shoulder, before walking home.
"Damn Scottish broad," She muttered. "I'll get her someday, somehow." She drifted off drearily while making her way across the middle school next to her high school. She was stopped by a blonde-haired boy with glasses.
"I saw what those girls did to you." He said pitifully. Monica inwardly shrugged and bit her lip, having no choice but to take the pity of a child. She wiped the blood off of her face and pulled her loose hair behind her ears to appear a bit more friendly.
"You did, did you?" He nodded. "Well, don't worry about it. I have it under control. Those girls will find out how big of a…meanie… karma can be." She held her tongue before the young boy.
"Will that make them stop?" He asked. Monica looked back to see the rich trio loading themselves into a limousine.
"I can only hope it does." She murmured.
"What if it doesn't?" He asked again. Monica knelt down to him to reach his height and smiled kindly.
"You're just full of questions aren't you?" He shrugged. "My name is Monica, could I possibly have yours?"
"I'm Tony, I moved here from America a while ago." Monica smiled brightly.
"Is that right? I just moved here from America too. Is that convenience or what?" Tony smiled, feeling a lot better now that he'd found a fellow American in this foreign country, though he had friends and he'd had them for a while, an American friend that knew a lot about his home country was always nice.
"There were some boys that did the same thing to me when I first moved here."
"How long have you lived here?" She asked him.
"About three years, I'm twelve now." She smiled at the innocent age. "Don't you want to know how I got the boys to stop beating me up?" He asked rather excitedly yet urgently.
"Alright, how did you get them to stop hurting you?" She asked him.
"I had help from my friend, Rudolph." Tony said quietly. Monica nodded in response to this.
"It's always nice to have a friend back you up isn't it? Rudolph must be a good one to help you out with such a serious case." Tony bobbed his head back and forth.
"Oh he is, and I have to help him in return for what he did for me. I need your help too." She raised her eye brows in shock.
"My help? Why is that?" She asked through curiosity. More than likely it was child's play, but she hadn't played a game in so long so it didn't matter to her.
"Rudolph told me that if I find someone with that amulet," He said pointing to her pentacle. "Then I need to bring them back to him right away." She clutched onto her necklace.
"What do you mean? What does this necklace have to do with your friend?" Tony sighed.
"I'd prefer that we go to my house to talk about it, they're already there." Monica looked at him with confusion.
"They?" Tony led her to his house where he locked the doors.
"My parents are at work so it's okay for you to be here. Come down to the basement, I'll follow behind you." She shrugged.
"Okay then." She went to flip on the light switch but found that there wasn't one there. "Tony, where's the light switch? I can't find it."
"There isn't one." He yelled from his bedroom upstairs. She moaned, starting to get annoyed.
"A sixteen year old girl should not be at a twelve year old boy's house about to creep into his basement while his parents aren't here." She began to feel like a creeper of some sort once she descended down the stairs. Monica felt around once she reached the bottom of the stairs, no longer being able to rely on the railing for guidance.
She cleared her throat before speaking.
"Hello? Anybody down here? Tony said you needed some kind of help or something?" She thought she heard something but passed it off as paranoia. A strong hand grabbed hold of her shoulder, causing her to gasp and turn around quickly.
There was another boy about her age staring down at her almost furiously. He hissed at her, baring his fangs and held her secure in her spot.
"Tony!" Monica screamed. She heard him rush down the stairs as the dark-haired boy brought his teeth closer and closer to her neck. Before he could sink his fangs in, however, another boy stopped him.
"Gregory, must you? If Tony brought her here she may be able to help us." The older boy, Gregory, backed away from Monica, leaving her shaking in her boots. "You have the amulet we've been searching for!" The younger boy cried excitedly. Tony came down just then.
"What's going on down here? Why is everyone screaming?" He asked in frustration.
"Gregory couldn't keep his teeth to himself, darling." A gorgeous little blonde girl said, walking up to Tony and holding onto his arm. "I'm Anna, Rudolph's sister."
Tony introduced Monica to everyone else after Anna introduced herself first.
"This is Rudolph, Gregory, his brother, and Freda, and Fredrick, his parents. Everybody, this is Monica. I found the amulet on her when she was coming out of school." Monica said nothing, she only stared at Gregory who stared back at her without a problem.
"Monica, where did you get that amulet?" Freda asked her kindly. She looked over to Freda, finally breaking eye contact with Gregory.
"Oh this? Well I, um, I don't seem to remember. I've had it since the day I was born, that's really all I can tell you." She stuttered.
"Fredrick, it is most curious how a young girl could have come into possession of it." Freda whispered to her husband.
"Indeed it is." He said deep in thought. "Who gave it to you?" He asked Monica sharply, who grabbed onto the medallion from the unintentionally harsh tone.
"I believe it was from my mother. It's been in the family for generations, it's a tradition to pass it down to the first-born daughter." Fredrick nodded as Monica told her story. "I could ask my mother who first had it, she might know."
"Yes, do that at once." He commanded. Monica played with her teeth using her tongue, as she often did when nervous.
"I can't right now, sir, she's working until daybreak tomorrow." The head of Rudolph's family sighed and sat down on a basket. "If you don't mind me asking, why is this so important to you?" Rudolph spoke up.
"Something's happened to our family, something we thought we could leave in the past." Monica shook her head, lost in what he was trying to avoid saying.
"What are you talking about? None of you are making sense." She said, Tony spoke up just after that.
"They're vampires." He said, making Monica turn around and face him.
"What?" Monica didn't believe it, she thought it was just some kind of child's trick.
"It's true. Rudolph and his entire family are vampires, they were human before but there's a curse on the Sackville-Bagg heritage." Tony stated matter-of-factly. "The only thing that can help them is the person who wears a pentacle around their neck with a bat in the center that has rubies for eyes."
Monica fingered the charm lying so innocently on her skin.
"Let me see your fangs then, try to bite me if you truly are vampires." She rebelled. "I'm sorry but I stopped believing that the dead could rise a long time ago, Tony, but thanks for the laugh." She said cruelly. Gregory grabbed her by the arm and looked down at her.
"It's not a joke, we're cursed to roam as vampires until someone with the vampiric pentacle comes to our aid. Sorry to say that's you, love." He informed her. Monica shook his hand off.
"Don't call me that, unless you have a death wish." She mocked. "I still don't understand, how am I supposed to help?"
Anna decided to tell Monica her use.
"It varies depending on gender, had you been a boy with the charm on your wrist then you would've had to sacrifice yourself to the eldest daughter, also known as me," She added with a smile. "But since you're a girl with the charm around your throat, you'll have to either sacrifice yourself to the Lady of the clan, my mother, or," She hesitated before continuing. "You must mate with the eldest son before All Hallows Eve."
Monica stood there gawking at Anna. She blinked once or twice before attempting to gather her thoughts.
"Beg pardon? Either die or bind myself to Gregory for all eternity?" She asked cockily. Anna shrugged and nodded uneasily.
"Pretty much, and if you chose to mate with Gregory you two must make the ultimate decision of life as a human or the infinite existence of a vampire."
Monica ran a hand through her hair again before holding her own face.
"All Hallows Eve, Halloween, that's three weeks away." Monica muttered.
"Three weeks to make a decision." Rudolph added. She gasped and clenched her eyes shut.
"I want to help, really I do, but telling me I have either three weeks of life or three weeks of being single left, it's a bit much within the hour I've known all of you." She pointed out. "It just doesn't seem very fair to me, I mean we're perfect strangers and asking me to give up so much for you, quite frankly it isn't my cup of tea."
Tony bit his lip.
"You're right. We'll take up two weeks trying to get to know each other better then Monica can make her decision." He said.
"Sounds like a plan to me." Gregory said with a smirk. Monica rolled her eyes and scoffed.
"You say that as if I have a choice, but whatever. I have to go home so I'll see you all…later." With that, she tugged her bag back onto her shoulder securely and silently walked up the stairs and out of Tony's home. She looked back on her way off of Tony's property as if too double check that this was all really happening.
Monica shook her head and continued on her way home. There was definitely something wrong with those people. They had to be delusional or something.
"Ugh, vampires, engagement, and sacrifices all in the same day? Not even a month in and I already hate it here." She muttered to herself as she walked through the door of her house. She put her backpack down on the island in the kitchen and went upstairs to her room. "When did it get so cloudy outside?" She noted as she passed a window.
"You know what? It's probably just another prank Roberta set up." She thought as she grabbed an apple and took a bite out of it. "This is a trap for some kind of humiliation on my part. Well you know what, Roberta? I am through with you and your little baby bull sh-"
Monica was cut off as the window in her bedroom upstairs busted opened and a loud thud came from the same area.
"Great, now I've got a storm to put up with too. I guess I should check that before something gets damaged." She rolled her blue eyes again and darted up the stairs. When she got to her bedroom she saw that the windows were wide open, the wind forcing the purple curtains to flutter about ferociously. What she didn't see was something that could've caused the thud she heard as well.
"Am I hearing things now? Jesus Christ…" She closed the windows and locked them to prevent the wind from opening them again. When she turned around she was met with icy blue eyes, making her scream.
"What the hell do you want?" She shouted at the boy in her room.
It was Gregory Sackville-Bagg, of course. "Wait a minute, you… you followed me home?" The apparent vampire smirked, showing off his pearly fangs. "You are sick! Who sent you? Was it Roberta? If it was that sorry tramp I swear I'm gonna-" Gregory stopped her by kissing her.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" She shoved him off of her and backed into a wall. "Seriously! I don't know what the issue is with you Scottish people but honestly this whole ordeal you've just created for me is not going so well in my book. Alright? Now why don't you take your vampiric ass home, I'm sure Tony's looking for you."
"Why don't you believe him?" Gregory asked softly. Monica gave him a curious once-over before answering him.
"About the entire curse situation and vampires in the basement? It's kinda self-explanatory there buddy." She said to him in annoyance. He scoffed and sat on her bed.
"Hey don't sit on my bed!" She scolded him. Gregory smiled devilishly and laid on the bed instead. She stomped over to the bed and got on top of him angrily. "You're a stubborn individual." She stated, to which he smiled.
"Like it?" Gregory asked her.
"Hate it." Monica spat. She got off of him and sat on the chair by her desk. "Now, if you please, just let yourself out. Or do I have to escort you to the window?" She asked him mockingly.
"I don't want to go home, I want to get to know you better. We only have two weeks, unless you want my mother to have you for dinner?" He suggested to her. Monica didn't like where this was going.
"Alright, alright, we have two weeks to get to know each other, correct? So how about you leave me alone today and then we can have the other thirteen days to ourselves, does that sound like a plan to you?"
Gregory thought for a moment before responding. "No, no it doesn't." She threw a pencil at him in frustration.
"Well then what do you want to do, Gregory Sackville-Bagg?" She asked him with her arms crossed over her chest.
"I want to get to know you know. Sure, we've known each other for less than a day, but it doesn't mean we can't chit chat." He pointed out with a little gleam in his eye.
"You're just in it for the sex, Gregory. I know how boys work, believe me, I do. My ex-boyfriend was the same way. I thought he was the one, so I gave him everything he wanted, everything I had. Then he left me." She said with a shaky voice. Gregory looked her over prior to commenting.
"So you're not a virgin?" He asked. She shook her head.
"Nope, not since my sixteenth birthday. So I'm sorry to say that there will be no virgin sacrifice because there is no virgin in this household to sacrifice."
"We're not looking for a virgin sacrifice. We're looking for a way out, and we've found one." Monica looked at him in disbelief.
"So I'm just an escape route to you? You all are making me chose between two entirely different things within the course of the two hours that I met you. Two hours! Do you understand how horrible that is? To be put on the spot like that when you don't even know anyone you're talking to then being told that you're either going to die or give yourself up to the older brother, it's ridiculous!"
She leaned over the counter with her head in her hands, clearly frustrated and not in the mood to talk. Gregory walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry," He said, "I'll leave you to your thoughts. Until tomorrow, Monica."