! ! ! Did you see Weinstein Company's tweet? The Blood Sisters trailer is supposed to be out THIS MONTH ! ! ! Fangirling! I can't wait XD
All rights to Vampire Academy go to Richelle Mead.
The next morning woke slowly, the moon hanging lazily above the school parapets, as though it wasn't really interested in what was going on in the world below it.
Well, of course it wasn't. It was a lump of rock orbiting the Earth.
I so needed to get a grip.
I sat down at our usual table where most people were already seated, but the space next to me was vacant.
"Where's Aleks today, Anya?" Lily asked.
I just shrugged, seeing how my mouth was stuffed full of bagel.
Ash's gaze fixed on something over my head, and a sour look crossed his face. "Oh, there he is. It seems like he's taking on the role of Hayden's newest groupie."
"What?" I coughed, almost choking on the food I had just tried to swallow. After gulping down some water, I craned my neck around to try and see him. "No way."
I heard a girl giggle, and Ash looked disgusted. "My mistake. It seems that we have a new Sophomore king. Or Tsar, I guess."
"And the resident Queen Bee has already got her stinger in him." Jet added.
This time, I choked on my water. Holding back a coughing fit, eyes streaming, I couldn't turn around and look. Maybe that was a good thing.
Because though I couldn't see what was going on, I could feel the distinct selfish satisfaction coming from Brooke Badica, Royal bitch of the century. All-round slut with the moral fibre of pond scum. And quite possibly the person who hated me more than anyone else in this world, dead or undead.
"Excuse me." I rasped, and stalked out of the hall.
Once the coughing fit was over, I didn't feel like going back in there again. So instead I decided to take a walk around campus until lessons started.
When I reached the pond, I saw that I wasn't the only one skipping breakfast. My friend Carrie lay on a bench, clutching her head.
"Hey, are you alright?" I asked, though it was clear she wasn't.
"Ssh, quieter. I have the worst hangover headache ever." She whispered.
She pulled herself up into a sitting position with a grimace, patting the space next to her. I sat down carefully, trying not to jog the bench too much.
"You shouldn't have drunk so much. How are you going to do combat classes later if you already feel like you've been beaten up?" I scolded.
"Oh, don't even go there. Stan's going to have my head as it is. Though he can keep it- I'll get one that hurts less." She groaned. I pulled a couple of painkillers out of my jacket pocket, and she took them gratefully, dry-swallowing them with a look of pain on her face.
"You were at Hayden's party, right? Why did you go if you knew you'd end up like this?" I asked.
"I didn't mean to get so drunk, but I think someone spiked my drink." I rolled my eyes. Why were people so stupid? "But it was so worth it, though. Majorly crazy stuff went down."
In spite of myself, I asked her what.
"Oh, Tanya was accusing Brooke of sleeping with her boyfriend, which she denied, and they were seconds away from an all-out bitch fight. Then Tanya's boyfriend was like 'I wish I had been with Brooke', and tried to kiss her whilst Tanya went in for the kill. Then your friend Aleks pulled him away, pushed him back at Tanya- they're back together now, by the way- and then Brooke was saying how grateful she was to Aleks for 'saving her'." Carrie smiled wryly. "I guess he's settled in and is comfortable enough to be thinking about something other than studying."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, hoping against hope I was wrong.
"Well, she spent the rest of the night stuck to his side like a limpet, and when I was taking a shortcut through the woods back to my dorm, I saw them making out under a tree."
I felt sick. I knew that Aleks would probably get a girlfriend whilst he was here, and that this was probably just a drunken kiss, but I couldn't help feeling this intense jealousy. I also couldn't help wanting to rip Brooke's head from her shoulders and parade it around the school for getting what I wanted.
And because it was Brooke and not some random other girl, it was so much worse.
There was a reason that girl hated me so bad, and it led to the reason I couldn't stand her. And why I was worried for Aleks getting involved with her.
Brooke and I had been sort-of friends in grade school, though we'd never been exactly close. She was sweet, in a naive, trusting way. In her mind, the world was perfect and safe, and unicorns probably existed.
When we were 14, she'd trusted me enough to confide in me that she loved Hayden. And that she thought he might be interested in her, too.
A few short weeks later, she told me that they'd done it. She was incredibly happy, as though in her mind it was a promise to a big white wedding and happy ever after. I hadn't had it in me to tell her that I knew for a fact he'd already done it with one of the girls in the year above.
Later that semester, Hayden had organised his first on-campus secret party. It was crazy, and since it was the first time drinking socially like that for most of us, things were bound to go wrong.
And they did.
I'd been careful with my drink, my parents' lessons still strong in my mind. Don't do anything stupid, and all that. But evidently, not everyone had the same reservations. Hayden, the proud host, had drunk more than anyone else. After just an hour, he was off his head and stumbling around, much to his friends' delight.
It all went wrong when he approached my group, grabbing my hand. He'd asked me to dance, and I'd agreed with a little encouragement from my friends. After some pretty awkward grinding, I'd tried to leave. But he'd grabbed my arms, saying that if I was leaving, he'd be coming with me. He tried to kiss me then, but I pushed him away. He'd got close, though, and his loud, suggestive comments had reached Brooke's ears.
She'd stormed up, ripping him off me and calling me a boyfriend-stealing slut, telling me to keep my filthy blood-whore hands off of 'her guy'.
Hayden had reacted to that, saying that he wasn't 'hers', she was just to pass the time until I would go out with him. Brooke hit him, and ran away crying. The Guardians had busted the party after that, and we'd all made a break for it.
The next morning, Hayden hadn't remembered calling Brooke out, but realising I wasn't in bed next to him, he knew I'd rejected him, and blamed me for his black eye. He'd told all his friends the lie that I'd found him after the party broke up, and he'd got what he wanted.
Not one to give up so easily, he'd kept asking me ever since then, and when I rejected him, he'd spread rumours about me and him (and me and other guys) as a kind of blackmail. I didn't really care, though.
Brooke, on the other hand, hadn't forgotten. She'd believed his claims about what we'd allegedly done that night, and got it into her head that Hayden didn't love her because of his obsession with me. Since then, they'd got together many times, but didn't have an official relationship. They'd also see other people, but kept their 'friends with benefits' status between a small group of people.
There was no way that she'd given up on Hayden, so at best Aleks was a party fling. I highly doubted this scenario however- she wouldn't get with a lowly Dhampir (even a really hot one) when she had the pick of almost every guy in the school.
At worst, she was going to string him along and break his heart, which she would see as the perfect revenge to get back at me after all these years.
And fuck, if with her skills of manipulation, it would work.
Because if I told Aleks my suspicions, it would look like I was stalking him, and he'd know how I felt, but I'd seem too jealous- just like Brooke all those years ago. He wouldn't turn down a chance with the hottest, richest, most popular girl in school just because his paranoid creepy friend didn't like it. I'd lose Aleks for good.
I was caught between keeping Aleks' heart from being broken, and losing him forever.
Either way, my own heart would be broken in the process.
Poor Anya :( Sucks to be her right now.
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