Hey!

I know, I know, it's been extremely long since I updated, I'm sorry :s

But, for those who like the story, I've got good news: I've written three new chapters in one day, and the other two will be up tomorrow and the day after that :)

Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter 10: Where am I?

Norah moaned softly as she woke up, aching all over; it felt like her throat was on fire, it hurt so bad.

Jesus Christ, talk about sore muscles…

After a couple of minutes of debating with herself on whether she should get out of bed and do something productive that day or simply spend the day snoozing , she decided that she'd better not waste the day. Slowly, she managed to open her eyes.

Even in the thick darkness of a night with the blinds closed, staring only at the ceiling, the room felt completely alien to her. The ceiling was too high up, too white, and what was even more bizarre: there was one of those fans that look like the propeller of a helicopter attached to the ceiling. She was pretty damn sure she didn't have one of those in her room, as she'd always found them way too scary. Imagine what would happen if it came spinning down while you were asleep in the bed below it…

Completely disoriented, she propped herself up and stared around the room, desperately looking for clues.

It was an extremely big room, at least twice as big as her own bedroom, and it looked like whoever had been in charge of decoration had simply walked into an Ikea store, picked one of the sample-bedrooms and bought every thing in the display.

Three of the walls were painted in some dark color she couldn't quite make out. The fourth wall, the wall behind her, and the ceiling were off-white. As were the sheets and the pillows on the king-size bed she was lying on. On the wall opposite of her, she recognized the smooth, shiny surface of a plasma television. A very big plasma television.

Every little thing in the room, the cabinets, the paintings, even the books stored on the shelves behind her, seemed to be picked to match the rest of the room. Not a single thing looked out of place, everything perfectly fit the picture the decorator had had in mind.

Instead of making the space look good, it gave the room an eerie lack of personality. It made Norah feel like she'd accidentally stumbled into one of those "extreme make-over" TV-shows, and the happy couple whose house had been re-done would come storming through the door any moment, eager to admire their new furniture.

She sat up on the bed properly and crossed her legs under her as she tried to figure out why on earth she wasn't in her own room. What had happened the night before? She smiled to herself as she remembered the dance recital. It had been a good one, and she was sure that they'd made a good impression on their audience. A glance told her that she was still dressed in the comfortable clothes she'd pulled on after their performance. Why hadn't she put on her pajamas after taking a shower? Had she even taken a shower? She frowned deeply as she tried to remember what she'd done when she was finished dancing. She'd gotten into the car with her mom.

Mom… Anna had been acting strange. She'd been ignoring her. She'd locked all of the windows when she came home. She'd….

Oh.

Norah's hands flew up to her throat as she remembered what had happened last night, the fighting, the struggle, the knife.

She jumped off of the bed too quickly, but she ignored the woozy feeling in her head and felt her way towards the wall, where, after a bit of fumbling around, she found the light switch. She blinked a couple of times as her eyes adjusted . As soon as she could see properly again, she turned to the full-length mirror which hung next to the door, and carefully examined herself.

She looked absolutely terrible.

Her wrists were badly bruised, and her neck had turned an ugly shade of purple overnight. The contrast with the tiny bits of unbruised skin was so sharp she could've outlined the shape of her mother's hand with a pen if she'd wanted to. She flinched slightly as she tentatively prodded at the bruises on her neck. They hurt like a bitch, and it made her wonder if there would be any permanent damage.

"Hello," she mumbled softly to her own image in the mirror, testing out her voice. She was convinced that her voice couldn't have sounded worse if she'd swallowed an entire live porcupine, but at least she could still talk.

She didn't have the nerve to check underneath her clothes, out of fear of what she might find there, but she felt like she was still in one piece, and she knew that that was a good thing.

Always look on the bright side of life…

Sighing, she turned away from her rather gruesome reflection, and let her eyes wander through the room once more. So, she was probably at Godric's house. She really didn't know how to feel about that. On one hand, he had of course come to her rescue when she'd needed it the most. On the other, wasn't he sort of the cause of all of her troubles? Both he, and her mother, meddling in the affairs of creatures she shouldn't even know existed. And now that she was thinking about it, how had he not managed to realize Alexander was at the dance recital, the same dance recital he and Eric had attended? The longer she thought about everything that had happened to her since she'd learned about the existence of vampires, the angrier she got at him. Who did he think he was, barging into her life like that? Taking her to his house without her even asking?

As she was slowly working her way from a simmer to her boiling point, she heard a light knock on the door of the bedroom. Instead of answering, she just stared at the door angrily, as if doing so would magically make whoever it was just go away.

Of course, it didn't.

After a couple of moments, the door opened, and someone walked into the room.

"Norah?" Godric asked, and he smiled as soon as he spotted her.

He couldn't have planned it any worse, even if he'd wanted to.

At the sight of the vampire she'd been fuming about, Norah just snapped. She completely lost it.

"YOU!" she screamed at him, angrily stabbing her finger at him, "ALL of this is YOUR fault! Couldn't you have simply left me alone? No! Instead, you chose to barge into my life and ruin EVERYTHING, you- "

"Norah, will you please just- " Godric started, but he was immediately cut off by Norah.

"- made me go through all of this shit!" She raged on, completely ignoring him, "If you had just manned up and faced that stupid judge without my mother, everything would still be fine! But nooooo, you decided that it would be a good idea to drag a human woman into all of you vampire," she spat out the word, "bullshit!"

"Norah!" Godric cut her off before she could keep on ranting, only slightly lifting his voice, "Listen to me. I really am sorry-"

"Sorry!" She mocked loudly, cutting him off again, "If you were really sorry you would've done something about all of this a long time ago. You would've just killed Alexander already, and you would've dealt with the consequences, instead of burdening a teenager with the task of trying to protect herself against a vindictive vampire!" She pulled the first book she could get her hands on out of the shelf on the wall, "You worthless piece of vampire-shit!" She screamed as she pitched the book at his head with all the strength she had left in her.

Godric ducked long before the book reached him, and it sailed full-speed into a vase that was sitting on a cabinet behind Godric. The vase slammed into the wall behind it and shattered into a thousand different pieces.

"Aargh!" Norah growled in frustration. Seeing the book hit Godric would've been extremely satisfying.

She threw herself onto the bed and buried her head in her hands.

Sitting down like that, calm and without throwing any insults or books at Godric's head, she felt all of her anger disappear like snow before the sun. What was she doing? He was the only person who had bothered to help her, and now she was screaming at him, telling him to "get lost"

"I- I'm sorry Godric,' she whispered, as much as she could whisper with her messed up throat. The burn had become even worse because of all the screaming, "I know you're only trying to help, and I really don't blame you for everything that is happening. It's just that my life has turned so nightmare-ish lately…" She sighed deeply, "I shouldn't be taking all of this out on you."

Godric came to sit next to her on the bed. For a few moments, he just sat there, quietly staring at his hands. Eventually, he started speaking again, softly, and without looking at her.

"You are right to be angry with me, Norah. It is my fault that you have to go through all of this… shit" he seemed to be testing the word while he was saying it. It sounded so awkward it almost made Norah chuckle, "And you are right, I shouldn't have dragged your mother into this, and now that I did, I should just get it over with and incapacitate Alexander." That certainly was a nice way to put it. "It's just that I…" Norah looked at him expectantly, "I just…" he managed, before he trailed of again. It was the first time Norah had ever seen the vampire struggle to find words. It was the first time she'd seen him look at all uncomfortable, for that matter.

They sat like that in silence for a couple of minutes, both of them trying to think of a way to finish Godric's sentence. Godric couldn't find the right words to say what was on his mind, and for the first time in what felt like centuries, he didn't know what to say.

Norah simply couldn't imagine any possible way Godric would want to explain his behavior to her.

Godric was the first to break the silence: "There's food for you in the kitchen," he said brusquely as he stood up and started walking towards the door, "you just go downstairs and then it's the first door to the left, impossible to miss. If you want to shower, there's a bathroom over there," he pointed towards the only other door in the room, "I've arranged for some clothes for you, they should be in there."

And just like that, he was back to his normal, calm and composed self, as if nothing had happened.

He exited the room without even bothering to look back.

So, tell me what you think :)

As usual, a big thank you to treewitch703, my fantastic beta, next chapter will be up tomorrow, unless every computer in my home-town suddenly decides to stop working ;)

Oh, and one more thing: I don't know if any of my new Russian friends will read this, but if you do, I just wanted to say thank you, you've completely changed my view on that country, and I've had a fantastic time there for the past two weeks, all thanks to you guys.

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