Woot! RRST 1. Yay. Hello all! Welcome to the 2nd upload of chapter 1 of RRST. Nothing has changed except the layout and this paragraph here. And some spelling corrections. CC thanks is still the same, acknowledgements are still the same, quotes are still the same, blah blah blah. So have fun. XD
Rated PG-13 for some "strong" language and suggestive themes. Enjoy!
~Yarniekinz~
If you looked at me, would you say I was normal? Probably not. I'm not vain, but I can't help but notice that I am much prettier than the other girls at school, even the ones who've gotten breast implants and nose jobs by age fifteen. But it's not just beauty, it's something...more.
Like the fact that my eyes, usually green, will drift slowly but surely to scarlet, provoking irritation and something more than just your everyday food cravings. I crave for blood, something I can't just ignore. I need to satisfy that craving, or I'll go crazy, attack everyone around me and suck them dry as the Sahara Desert.
Like the fact that my skin is a tone or so above the ivory of and elephant's tusks. And if you touched me, I would be pretty cold, no matter what. It could all lead you to a pretty reasonable assumtion. You might think vampire.
But I doubt it. I'm pretty far from the legend version of the nocturnal, blood drinking vamps.
Red eyes? Only if I'm thirsty.
Shrivels in sunlight? Hell no.
Fangs? Well, yeah. But only if I'm hunting or doing some other extreme adrenaline charging activity.
Turns into a bat? Ha ha. No.
Drinks blood? Yes.
Sleeps in coffin? Nope.
So there you go. Truth of it is, I'm only part vampire. My dad's a vampire, and my mom's a human. Weird, huh? I guess I'm what you could call a rare-ish species.
Obviously, if your dad told you (after you drained a rabbit and sucked it dry) that you were a vampire, you weren't likely to forget it, right? But me, being the complete tardo that I am, tend to become unconscious to my vampire-ness sometimes.
And that was why I was in trouble.
I tapped my foot impatiently, squirming around in the rather hard chair placed in front of the principal's desk. A sigh escaped my lips as I twisted my long brown hair around my finger. I glanced over at the mirror hanging on the wall and grimaced. I should have known why I was acting so pissy; my eyes were bright red.
The faint smell of blood reached my nose, and I parted my lips so I could breathe through my mouth. I'd long since gotten used to the smell of pure human blood, but attacking the principal wouldn't exactly look great on my juvie record. I supposed it wasn't as hard for me to control myself as it was for my dad, since I had human blood in my own veins, but it was still a pain in the ass.
The door opened and the principal stepped in, surveying me critically. I slipped down in my seat a little. Mrs. Averly wasn't a tall woman, but she was most definitely imposing.
"Miss Ironstone, do you know what you did?" Mrs. Averly asked, sitting down at her desk and frowning at me.
"Um," I squeaked, fidgeting nervously. "I punched a guy in the face?"
"You broke his nose and knocked out two of his teeth." Mrs. Averly announced.
I shrank in my seat. That was the other thing about vampires; they had pretty incredible speed and strength. Even I had inherited some of that.
My parents were going to be so pleased with me.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am." I said, not quite meeting her eyes. "It won't happen again."
"Aradia, you've said that the last two times this has happened." Mrs. Averly reprimanded. She hesitated, pressing her lips together, then pulled a pink slip free of a stack sitting on her desk. My heart dropped like a stone.
She signed the slip with a flourish and handed it to me.
"Yes, Ma'am." I got heavily to my feet and slunk out of the office.
Yup. My parents were going to be estatic.
The back door banged loudly behind me as I entered the kitchen.
"Ian? Is that you?" my mom called from the study.
"No, it's me." I replied, dumping my backpack on the table and slouching down the hallway.
"Aradia? What are you doing home so early?" Erika asked, turning from the computer to look at me. Her clear blue eyes were confused. I sighed.
My mother hadn't exactly had a record like mine when she was around my age, even though she'd been in a pretty intense relationship with my dad at the time. I envied her. Both for her spotless record and her vampire-less being. Because while I was mentally cringing away from my impending doom, I was also pushing the scent of Erika's blood to the back of my already-overloaded brain. I was so used to her scent that it was about as hard as swatting away a pesky fly, but I still hated knowing that I could snap at any time.
Maybe I'd better not think about that right now, I scolded myself silently. Doom first, then hunting, okay?
"Oh, Aradia." Erika sighed as she looked down at the slip. "Not again."
"I'm sorry." I whispered. Erika folded the slip in half and looked at me.
"What happened?" she asked in a weary tone.
"Some jerk called me a freak of nature, because of my eyes."
"What next?" Erika probed.
"I, uh, punched him." I wished I could sink into the floor as my mom groaned and buried her face in her hands.
"Nose broken?" she asked through her fingers.
"Uh, yeah."
"How many teeth?"
"Two." Erika looked up, exasperated.
"Aradia, what am I going to do with--" She was cut off by the whirl of sass and carefree attitude that was my aunt.
"You know perfectly well that the back door is always open," Erika retorted, but a smile tugged at her lips.
"Hey, Aunt Loretta." I said half-heartedly, raising my hand in a pathetic wave.
"Don't call me Aunt," she protested, looking me up and down. "It makes me feel old."
I cocked an eyebrow at her, and she collapsed into the smushy chair in the corner in a fit of giggles.
"You know," she snickered, pushing a loose strand of blond hair behind her ear. "Older than I am."
"Cool, so I'm free!" I hooted, whirling around and leaping out the door. Now that I thought about it, suspension didn't seem all that bad. No getting up early, having the house to myself when my parents went to work...
"Not so fast, missy."
Crap.
I turned slowly and dragged my feet going back into the study. Loretta lounged in her chair, her expression amused. I resisted the urge to give her the finger.
"I'm not going to punish you," Erika said slowly. "But you're going to have to do something to make up for it. I can't have you lounging around like a sack of potatoes all day."
Damn. There went my early retirement plans.
Loretta bounded up from her chair, grabbed my wrist, and hauled me out the door and into my room.
"AAGH!" she complained, collapsing onto my bed and throwing her legs in the air. "Erika can be such a poo sometimes. I mean, you're suspended already! Why does she have to 'make you do something' too?"
Something in her voice suggested more goading than actaul sympathy.
I shrugged. I thought my mom was being pretty fair. At least she didn't ground me, ike my friend Gracie's mom would have.
"I just have to make up for it somehow. That's not so bad."
"Well, at least it's better than mowing the lawn every day." Loretta said, a small smirk playing around her lips. I looked at her shrewdly.
"You know exactly what she's planning, don't you?" I demanded. Now it was my turn to jam my hands on my hips.
I growled at her. Of course she knew. She must have caught the tenor of Erika's intentions with her unique gift.
"You're pissing me off." I complained. "Just tell me!"
"Ooh, temper temper!" Loretta giggled. "No, you're just going to have to find out for yourself. It won't be as much fun to see your reaction if I tell you."
This time I did give her the finger. Loretta merely laughed and flopped backwards on my bed once more.
"Ah, I'm so glad you inherited some of my attitude," she said happily. "It makes you so much more fun to irritate."
After Loretta and I hunted an hour later, I was more pissed with her than I probably had been in a very long time. Or quite possibly my life.
I banged the plates down on the table with more force than strictly necessary as I set the table for dinner.
"Good God, Aradia." Loretta said sniffily, strutting by as she tossed napikins haphazardly onto the table. "You'll find out what's going on in about five minutes, so cool your little pissy fit."
I blatantly ignored her and stormed outside. The cool air cleared my head a little, and I took a deep breath, regaining my sanity. Loretta was right; I was having a pissy fit. Ugh.
My dad flipped ribs from the grill to a plate with ease before turning and walking my way. I wished I had his super-sonic coordination. He stopped when he reached me and smirked slightly.
"I heard about earlier." he said. My teeth snapped together audibly and Ian's smirk got bigger. He was so giving me a hard time.
My mom was pouring dressing on the salad when I slammed the plate down on the counter next to her, and she glanced at me in annoyance.
"Sorry." I mumbled, reaching into the cabinet for a plate to replace the now cracked one. Erika sighed but didn't say anything.
"Loretta, we're going to start eating, okay?" she called. Loretta leaped into the room half a second later, yanked out a chair, and sat down.
"I wouldn't miss this for my life," she said irritatingly, throwing a goading glance in my direction.
"Loretta, honestly. Leave Aradia alone." Erika reprimanded gently, sitting down next to my dad.
Loretta and Ian didn't eat human food, but they made small talk while me and my mom ate--Loretta throwing an implying glance at Erika every three seconds or so.
I shoveled the food into my mouth, barely tasting it in my hurry to get done. Maybe I could escape before the anvil fell.
"Oh, come on, will you tell her already?!" she cried, cutting my dad off in the middle of a sentence. Ian rolled his eyes but Erika nodded.
"Why not?" she said, shrugging. "Better now than never." She threw a small smile in my direction.
Damn. She so knew me.
"So," Erika set down her fork. "Aradia, I know I said I wasn't going to punish you, and I'm not. But both me and your father think that you should make up for your suspension somehow. So, we've decided that you're going to get a job for a little while."
I choked on my mouthful of salad and spit it out into my plate. Loretta wrinkled her nose.
"What?!" I shrieked, causing my mom to wince and cover her ears with her hands. Oh well.
"Priceless!" she choked, clutching her stomach. "Absolutely priceless! I'll be damned if I forget that! Oh, ha, no pun intended!"
Ian and Erika snorted at Loretta's antics, but I countinued to stare, open-mouthed, at my mom.
"A-a job?" I managed to squeak. "As in, like, what you do?"
"Um, yes, Aradia. That would sort of cover the word job." Ian said sarcastically, holding back a smile. "We think that's pretty reasonable."
"Reasonable? Reasonable? You might as well damn me to hell and have done with it!" I yelled, leaping to my feet.
A job. I wanted to scream. Kids didn't get jobs when they got suspended, did they? God, I didn't give a crap whether or not I was a "rare species" or whatever, I didn't want a frickin job!
Erika frowned.
I attempted to sober up. Yes, I remembered with perfect clarity how I had shut off that movie after about five minutes of watching Sarah scream to the world that "It's not fair!" Talk about annoying.
I crossed my arms over my chest and clenched my teeth.
"I think this is a bad idea." I said through my teeth.
"NO, really?" Loretta gasped sarcastically. I let loose a wordless shriek of frustration and pissed-off-ness and threw my fork at her head. She merely caught the fork before it could hit her and smiled smugly at me.
"Aradia!" Ian said angrily, jumping to his feet too. "That's enough!"
I growled and wheeled around, sprinting to the front door. I wrenched it open and took off, leaving it wide open behind me.
Quite frankly, I didn't give a shit.
Screw them. I thought irritably. I don't care what they think.
I guess there was one good thing about my predicament. At least Ian hadn't come after me yet. He could easily overtake me, throw me over his shoulder and carry me kicking and screaming back home if he wanted to, but since he hadn't made an appearance yet, maybe he would leave me alone.
The minutes ticked by, leaving me time to cool down enough to think. I sighed as the bus trundled into view. No, I wasn't getting on it. I would occupy myself with something else until I stopped seething.
When I reached the counter (ignoring amazed stares from most of the male humans in the room, the pervs) I ordered a Kid's Meal and waited impatiently as the cashier fumbled around with the cash register.
"T-that'll be $5.18, Miss." the cashier said breathlessly, handing me my meal. I dug around in my pockets and produced a rather crumpled ten-dollar bill. The guy punched a couple buttons on the cash register, causing the drawer to fly open and slam him in the stomach. Any other time, I would have rolled around laughing. Now, it was only mildly funny.
"Sorry," he muttered, quickly counting out my change and blushing furiously. I shoved the change into my pocket and headed towards an unoccupied table.
My irritation, however much I tried to stifle it, continued to eat at me as I threw my trash away, mostly due to the fact that I knew Loretta would never let me hear the end of it once I got home. I muttered curses under my breath as I stomped outside. I was so looking forward to that.
"OW!" the victim yelled, dropping his bag of food and toppling to the ground.
"Oh, crap! Crap, I am so sorry!" I cried, dropping to my knees beside him to see if he was okay.
"Ow, God, I think it's all right," the boy said, rubbing his shin gingerly and grimacing. "Jesus, do you take karate or something?"
"God, I hope not!" the boy said, reaching down to roll up the leg of his jeans. That was when I noticed that his skin was pale. Really, really pale. I looked up at his face for the first time.
I stared up at the vampire boy, my mouth hanging open and the cogs in my brain working really hard.
"I'm Eric, by the way." he said, getting to his feet and sticking out a hand for me to shake.
Whoa. This was getting way too weird.
"Aradia," I replied, standing up and shaking his hands. "Um, is your last name Vayner?"
Eric nodded. "Yeah. How'd you know?"
"We, um, go to school together. I think we've been in the same math class for a couple years." The same math class that I had once passed a note to my best friend Audrey asking if she'd seen Eric enough up close to determine whether he was hot or not. Oh, how lovely it would be if that somehow cropped up in this conversation.
Me? I basically stuck to punk-rock/goth-girl Audrey and over-protective parented/cute redhead Gracie.
"You got it."
"Oh. Huh. Weird."
"Yeah." I agreed. Weird was kinda the key word right now. "So...uh...how are things at school for you?"
Great. Small talk. I can be such an ass sometimes.
Eric looked sheepish. "I, uh, I don't really know. I got suspended last week."
My eyes about popped out of my head. "You? Uh, don't be offended or anything, but you don't seem the type to get suspended."
"No offense taken," Eric laughed. "You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you that I cut class one time too many."
"No, I wouldn't." I said, raising my eyebrows at him. "Why did you do that?"
Eric shrugged uncomfortably.
"I don't know. Some of the kids there were getting really annyoing."
I had a sudden mental flash.
Eric laughed. "Yeah, them."
"I would cut class if they followed me, too." I admitted, smiling. Except I don't think they'd be following me around, I added in my head. Because I'm a girl and a bit of a weirdo and you're really really really hot--Damn it! Where had THAT come from?! Freaking traitorous little brain.
Eric chuckled. I liked his laugh; it was infectious.
I glanced at my phone again, making a face as I realized the time.
"Damn." I muttered under my breath. Eric noticed my annoyance.
"Have to be somewhere?" he asked, looking honestly curious.
"Well, sort of." I sighed. "I kind of...um...had a temper tantrum and ran away from home..."
Eric's head cocked to the side and he looked confused.
"You...ran away?"
Eric grimaced, looking sympathetic. "Ouch. How did they take it?"
I sighed and scuffed the toe of my converse against the concrete. "I have to get a job." I muttered, my face twisting automatically as I said the word. "To make up for not being in school, I guess. It really bites."
Eric snickered softly. I crossed my arms and glared up at him.
"I personally find nothing amusing about that."
"You act like it's the end of the world," he said, grinning at me. I momentarily lost my train of thought. His grin was quite possible the sexiest thing I had ever seen.
"Hey, don't go!" Eric pleaded, grabbing my arm. "I didn't mean to make fun of you or anything."
I turned back around, sort of liking the feel of Eric's (predictably cold) skin on mine, and holding back a smile. He had bought my little act, which was pretty amusing. Maybe I was a better actor than I'd originally thought.
"Just kidding. I'm not going anywhere. Well..."
"You have to go home." Eric stated, smiling in sympathy. It wasn't a question.
"I probably should," I muttered reluctantly.
Eric's eyes flickered to over my shoulder and then back to me.
"Is that yours?" he asked, jerking his chin. I glanced around. The car behind me was a really nice, a little the worse-for-wear, 1967 Camaro.
"Then how'd you get here?" Eric inquired, looking confused again. I floundered for a second, unsure of what to say. It wasn't that I didn't want him to know that I was a vampire, too, but I wasn't really supposed to tell anybody. I didn't want to deal with more wrath from my parents.
"I...walked." I lied pathetically. He seemed to buy it, however.
"Oh. Do you, um, want a ride or something?" Eric looked a little awkward, which was flattering. I smiled.
"A ride would be great."
"So..." Eric began hesitantly after a few minutes of silence. "What did you get suspended for?"
I hesitated only a second.
"I punched a guy in the face."
Eric snorted once before pressing his lips together and trying to hold back his amusement.
"Um. Why did you do that?" he asked in a contricted voice, his lips twitching.
"He was annoying the hell out of me," I confessed, fiddling shyly with a loose strand of hair. "He kept calling me names and stuff, so I decided to shut him up. I sort of ended up breaking his nose and knocking out his front teeth."
"Oh my God," Eric gasped finally, running a hand through his scruffy hair and chuckling once more. "That's hilarious. You have to be the only girl I know who can throw a punch, that's for sure."
I had a brief mental flash of myself compared to the Barbie Club at school.
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me." I snorted. Eric chuckled again before a short silence fell.
"Turn here," I instructed Eric automatically as the road came into view.
He complied, raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah."
"You walked, huh?" Uh-oh.
"Uhhhh...Good excercise?" I made it sound like a question. I really was an ass.
Eric glanced over at me, disbelief written all over his pale face, but said nothing more. The silence that followed was more pronounced than the last. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and glanced out the window. Unconsciously, my fingers moved to pick at my cuticles, a bad habit I resorted to when I was nervous.
"Hey, um, what kind of music do you like?" I asked awkwardly, trying to diffuse the invisible wall that had built up between us. Eric flashed me an unexpected smile and popped open the glove compartment in front of me.
"Ah, crap, sorry!" Eric groaned, reaching over to help me.
"No problem." I said cheerfully, nudging his hand away and picking up a CD at random.
"Paramore?" I asked, surprised, looking up from the familiar Riot cover art. Eric grinned.
"Yeah, kinda girly I guess, but they're pretty awesome."
"Cool. They're one of my favorite bands." I said, bending down to pick up another CD.
"Oh, that one I was all but dragged kicking and screaming into," Eric laughed, tapping the cover one of Three Days Grace's CDs. "My friend Blaine's nutso for them."
"Blaine's not the only one," I admitted.
"Awesome," Eric said, pulling the CD gently out of my hands and sliding the disc into the player. "I'll have to let him know."
"Oh, over there," I supplied reluctantly, pointing. Within a couple more minutes of frame shaking beats of Animal I Have Become, my house came into view.
"That's mine." I sighed, leaning my head back against the headrest in defeat.
"Oh, okay." Eric said, pulling the truck to a stop in fron of our driveway and reaching out to pause the music. "Well, um..."
"Do you have an email or something?" I blurted, surprising myself with my daring. I flushed a little.
Damn. Not a second after my chagrin at my brain's second betrayal, I realized that I was arguing with myself. Classy.
"Oh, yeah, here, let me see your phone and I'll put it in." Eric said. I had to be just imagining the eagerness in his voice. I dug my phone out of my pocket and handed it to him.
"Here's mine," he added, tossing it gently to me. I punched in my number and email, glancing furtively over at Eric as I did so. The phone was still warm from being in his pocket.
"There we go," I said a little cheekily, flipping his RAZR shut and offering it back to him. He traded it for my Juke.
"That would be cool. I'll email you sometime, if that's okay. Oh, and thanks for the ride."
"That's why I gave it to you, right?" he teased. "And no problem. It was fun."
A tentative little flutter started up in my chest as I snorted and hopped out of the truck.
"See ya, Eric." I said, shutting the foor and waving. He waved back and, in just a few seconds, was out of sight around the corner.
A nervous giggle escaped my lips as I bounded up to the front door. I almost slammed right into Loretta, who looked like she was on her way out.
"Whoa there, Bessie." she exclaimed, stepping back in surprise. "Finally back, eh?"
My mom and dad poked their heads around the corner, their fces going momentarily blank with shock as they assessed my new (and comparatively alarming) mood.
Later, out of earshot of my dad, I would tell my mom about Eric and his un-godly hotness. Later, I would endure Ian's half-amused lecture on how I was still his "little girl" and to be careful with any boy I had a--however uncertain--crush on. Later, I would brave the agony of a new job. But, for now, I flipped open my phone, opened up my contacts list, and looked at the tiny digital letters on the screen.
Eric Vayner--aka boy u kicked in shin. :)
Maybe this suspension wasn't going to be so terrible after all.
End of Chapter One
Song quotes from: Nobody's Fool by Avril Lavigne and The End by My Chemical Romance.
Chapter Two should be coming in a couple months (for info on why it's taking so freaking long, check my flickr and my SimPage).
Later, peeps.
~Yarnie~