Whoo, eighth chapter! *does a little jig* God I need to stop dancing, I really suck at it. Haha. Anyways...yeah, next chapter. Go read, have fun, and afterwards, you know what to do...
Chapter Eight
Murphy POV
I groaned and leaned over the sink, puking all over it for the third time since this morning. Who knew pregnancy could suck this much? Well, whoever knew, they could've given me a damn warning! As ironic as it sounded, I really wish I could die to rid myself of this excruciating nausea. I was sick and tired of it, and I had only been pregnant for a couple of weeks.
"Murphy, love? Are you feeling better?"
The hell I am! I wanted to snap, but I managed to keep my raging emotions under control, and instead I called pleasantly to my fiancé who was standing anxiously outside the door, "No, not really. Go ahead and hunt, I'll be fine staying here with Ella until you get back."
"But aren't you hungry?" Tristan questioned, and just by his tone of voice I could tell that he was uncertain about keeping me alone with my best friend. I rolled my eyes, and another wave of nausea hit me. I leaned once more over the sink, gasping, my insides shaking.
"Murphy?" I heard the door knob start to turn.
"No, no, go," I groaned, wondering if he was crazy. Me? Hungry? I would've laughed if I wasn't already about to puke.
I let out a soft sigh of relief when I heard Ella's voice from outside the door. "Ben and Jared are leaving Tristan, so you better go if you want to catch up. Murphy will be fine with me, okay? She promised me that she wouldn't bite me."
Despite how extremely icky I was feeling at the moment, I couldn't help but let out a short laugh, followed by a rush of nausea. I clutched my stomach with my hands and groaned. You're killing me, you know that? I thought to my baby, sitting down and slumping against the wall. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, waiting for the nausea to fade.
But I love you anyway, I thought with a smile. I bet you're going to be beautiful. Even more beautiful than Tristan. Hah, you'll probably be a little heart breaker when you get older. But not like Jason, I winced at the memory of my long-time human crush that had broken my heart more than once, and with no regrets. Not even one. No, never like Jason...
"Murphy?"
I snapped out of my thoughts as I heard Ella's concerned voice from outside the bathroom door. Lifting my head, I sighed in relief when I realized the nausea was gone, and got up slowly to open the door.
"I'm okay, I think," I murmured, my hands still clutching my stomach. I glanced up at Ella and smiled reassuringly.
"Wow. You look like hell."
I considered slapping her. Hard.
"Thanks L, I appreciate you telling me that," I told her sarcastically.
She giggled. "You're welcome. Come on," she took my hand and began leading me towards my room. I raised an eyebrow, confused. Once we had made it up the stairs and into my room, she closed the door, locked it, and turned to face me.
"Um, Ella, everyone is out hunting. And my parents and Dylan are at work and school," I stated, making sure she knew.
"Yeah, so?" she questioned, obviously not getting my point about the stupidity of locking the door when no one was home.
I sighed and shook my head. Sometimes my best friend was so clueless. Not to mention she lacked a considerate amount of common sense. "Never mind. What is it?"
"Okay, so remember when Tristan got his teeth stuck in the tree?"
"I don't think anyone will be able to forget that."
"Right. So anyway, when we all pulled him out, me and Ben kind of...fell on top of each other and rolled into some thorn bushes."
I winced. "Ouch." Thorns were excruciatingly painful, even for a vampire. They dug into your thick marble skin with ease, and when you pulled them out they left a small, ugly imprint that could last for days. I wondered suddenly what Ben must have looked like, with thorn marks all over his body. I bit down on my bottom lip to keep from giggling.
"Uh, hello? Murphy? Are you paying attention?" Ella snapped impatiently, resting a hand on her hip.
"Yes, I am. Continue."
"Okay, so then he started pulling them off me, and things started to get a little..." she trailed off, grinning mischievously. "Heated," she finished with a smirk.
I gasped. "Oh my God, Ella! You didn't?"
Ella nodded, and for reasons unknown to me, she looked rather proud of herself. "I did. And oh Sweet Jesus Murphy, it was amazing!"
"Ella, are you completely insane? You kissed him? What did he do?" Yes, I was horrified, because I knew what Ella was like when it came to guys. What she wants, she doesn't just get, she takes. Every guy that I remember having been involved with Ella always fell for her hard, and it wasn't because Ella wanted them to. It was because she had the looks, the attitude, and the charismatic personality that would make any guy swoon.
"Well...he kind of kissed me back," Ella admitted, smiling innocently.
Oh yeah, Ben was so screwed.
I groaned. "Ella, you do realize what you just got yourself into, right?"
"Um...no?" She looked scared as I began to stare her down.
"He is going to fall in love with you. Hell, he probably already has with that trick you played on him, rolling in the thorns and everything-"
"It wasn't a trick!" Ella protested.
"-and you'll probably fall in love with him. I mean, he's Ben. He's freaking irresistible." And you guys would seriously be great together, I thought to myself, and then continued. "And then, guess what? Bam! He'll turn you into a vampire like Tristan did to me."
"What's so bad about that?" Ella asked, raising an eyebrow at me. "I mean, you're happy right?"
"That's not the point," I said, grinding my teeth together. All right, so we're going to take this the hard way. No problemo, I could do this. "Ella, being a vampire isn't all perfect as it may seem. Yeah, we live forever, and yeah, we have supernatural abilities, but have you even thought about the monster you will become? Have you even stopped to think that I have the ability to kill you, right now, if I wanted to?"
Ella rolled her eyes. "You're not going to kill me."
"Ella, listen to me. I'm not saying that I want to. I'm saying that I could. You have no idea what vampires can do, what we are capable of. We drink blood, Ella. And no, not just animal blood. Human blood."
I really had not been planning on telling Ella that, but she needed to know. She needed to realize that being a vampire wasn't all fun and games. It was much, much more than that.
I watched as her eyes widened, and listened as her breath caught in her throat. I waited for her to say something, knowing that I had shocked her with this little bit of information. I had a sudden sickening feeling in my stomach that made me wonder if I had just ruined our precious friendship. Was she going to run away now? And if so, would she ever come back?
"Ella-" I frantically started.
"No," she whispered. "I understand. Really, I do."
"You do?" I questioned uncertainly.
"You don't want me to be like you," she said flatly, turning away.
"Ella," I exclaimed in exasperation. Taking her hand, I spun her back around easily so that she was facing me. "Ella, you're my best friend, of course I don't want you to become a vampire like me! I want you to have a long, happy, normal life. You don't deserve this."
"I don't deserve the gift of immortality?" Ella narrowed her eyes fiercely at me. "I don't deserve to have really cool supernatural abilities and a person I could love for eternity?"
Bloody tears sprung to my eyes as I fought with her, my hands clenching into tight, marble-like fists. "You don't deserve losing your family you have known for most of your life! You don't deserve the power to kill humans mercilessly and watching their precious life fade from their eyes!" I didn't stop for a breath as I continued to scream in my best friend's mortified face. "You don't deserve thirsting for blood every single day and knowing that you will never stop feeling thirsty, never stop feeling quite satisfied after sucking a human dry." My voice shook tremendously as I finished softly with a whisper, "So I'm sorry if I think that you don't deserve all that."
Silence.
I stared into Ella's eyes, trying to read what was there.
Hurt. Anger. Betrayal. And...what was that? A soft trace of...understanding?
"I didn't know you hated being a vampire so bad." Ella murmured sympathetically. "If you're so miserable, why did you let Tristan change you?"
"I'm not miserable," I stated firmly. "I'm very happy with Tristan. And I'm even happier now, with a baby on the way..." I touched my stomach lightly with my fingers and smiled. "But if you want to be a vampire Ella, you need to understand the facts first. When you're a vampire, you will never stop being a vampire. You have to be certain. Before Tristan changed me, I was certain because I would rather become a vampire than live life without him. But Ella...you have so much going for you. Family, friends, college...becoming a fashion designer. That's your dream, right? Never give up on your dream."
"I know," she said with a sigh. "But...Ben..."
"You can still be together, if you choose," I said gently, reaching out for her hand again. I squeezed it reassuringly. "But if you value your life Ella, which I know you do, he'll respect your decision about not becoming a vampire. I know Ben. I know the kind of guy that he is. He wouldn't want to change you anyway, he'd be too...proud to even ask you."
Ella smiled at me in admiration. "Wow, Murph. You've seriously grown up. I'm jealous."
I laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, well, immortality can do that to you."
Ella rolled her eyes. "Whatever." Plopping down on my bed, she let out a long sigh and closed her eyes. "So what should I tell our friends at school about you?"
"Hmmm...I don't know. Maybe you could say that I transferred to some boarding school in Spain." I shrugged carelessly.
Ella snorted. "Oh, now that they'll surely believe. Like you parents have the money for that, let alone money enough to buy you your own car."
"Shut up," I shot playfully.
"You know Lucas is still asking about you," Ella said with a smirk.
My eyes widened. "That jerk," I muttered to myself. Did he seriously like me that much, to still be asking about me? What a weirdo.
"Yup. And you know how you saw Jason kissing Mickie during their party?"
"That was a long time ago," I mused. In fact, that had been the night I had met Tristan. I smiled softly when I remembered how I had saved him from the demons, and then given him my own blood so that he could rejuvenate. We had ended up talking for a long time, me just sitting on his lap, having had no sense of time at all. I had fallen unknowingly in love with him then. That had been months, no, barely a year ago since that had happened. I couldn't believe just how much has changed since then. I had been a vulnerable, seventeen year old human then, heart-broken and afraid. Now, I was a pregnant vampire, not to mention engaged, and as strong as ever.
Crazy how so suddenly your life could turn into something totally unexpected and unpredictable.
"Well, they've been dating for a couple months now. Surprising, huh? Rumor has it that they might settle down." Ella let out a snort. "Yeah, highly unlikely."
I shrugged. "You never know, maybe Mickie finally knocked some sense into him."
"I doubt it. He's probably just using her because she's extremely pretty."
I opened my mouth to respond, but immediately clamped my mouth shut when I felt a new presence downstairs. My whole body tensed, and a low hiss escaped my throat.
"Whoa. What did I say?" Ella sat up and stared at my frozen face in concern.
"Someone's downstairs," I whispered, beginning to inch towards the door.
"It's probably just one of the guys," Ella guessed, not quite understanding why I was freaking out.
"It's not one of the guys," I hissed softly, opening the door a crack and poking my head out. The smell was oddly different. But it was something I had smelled before; I just couldn't quite place what it was. I turned around quickly, so quickly that Ella took a step back in surprise and whispered firmly, "Ella stay here, okay? And lock the door."
Ella rolled her eyes. "Yeah like that's going to help any."
Ignoring her, I slipped out into the hallway and quietly closed the door. As I made my way down the stairs, I began sending my thoughts out to Tristan, hoping that he would be close enough to hear them.
Tristan, somebody's here at the house. I'm not sure who it is, but it's definitely not a human. If you're close, swing by fast.
I made it down the stairs quickly but silently, and as I looked up, I instantly froze in my place.
Because there, standing in front of the opened doorway, was Ronalda. Wearing a bright red dress with her long, thick black tendrils framing her pale, stunning face, she looked like the very spawn of the devil. One of her hips was thrust to the side, her hand propped on it, striking her normal pose. Black leather boots covered her perfect, marble skin all the way up to her knees, where her other hand was placed, delicately fumbling with the ruffle in her dress.
I couldn't believe my eyes. This couldn't be happening; she couldn't be here. Not her. Anybody but her...
As we caught each other's gaze, a slow, dazzling smile split across her beautiful, yet ugly features. Lifting her chin, she let out a low, heartless laugh. My whole body shuddered at the sound. And then she spoke, and my whole world turned upside down.
"Hello, Murphy. Did you miss me?"
OHMYGOD! NO SHE DIDN'T!
*GASPCHOKEDIE*
Yup, you've read right. Ronalda is BACK!
...and with a vengeance.
Mwahaha. You know you love me. :)
So go review! Hehe.
~Mystic
