The Garden of What Once Was

CHAPTER TEN

Forcefully, Jared was dragged into the living room by Landon. Waiting on the couch was Casper and a very tired Reed who could barely even keep his eyes open. His head flopped down onto Casper's shoulder as he began dozing off. Immediately, Casper shoved him away, jolting him awake to see Jared trying to leave the room while Landon held him back. After struggling for a while and giving Casper and Reed an entertaining show to watch, Landon was able to get Jared over to where the two of them sat. Neither Casper nor Reed knew why Landon had hauled them in here, but they had a feeling that it might involve the true blood brunette staying in the house.

            "Jared has something he needs to tell you guys," Landon announced, shooting Jared a look for him to start talking.

            He coughed, "Uh, good morning."

Reed's eyes closed shut. His head landed on Casper's shoulder once more, annoying the blue-haired vampire. There was no point in staying awake when all Jared had to say to them was 'good morning'.

            That was his mentality until Jared finally said what Landon wanted him to. "I may or may not have tried to bite Ember last night."

This time around, Reed wasn't woken up by Casper roughly shoving him. Instead, it was because of the words that just left Jared's mouth. Reed mulled them over in his mind, too stunned to yell at Jared for being such a dipshit. But Casper was quick to react, bolting upwards to grab a fist full of Jared's tank top.

            "What the actual fuck is wrong with you, huh?" He fumed. "It's dangerous! I told you that, yet you went along and did it anyway!"

            "Actually, I didn't do it, just tried to," Jared defended himself, effortlessly whacking Casper's hand off of him.

A wrinkled spot was now on the pale green tank top. While Casper stared daggers at him, he smoothed the fabric. Now it was Reed's turn to flip out on him. Unlike the other, Reed didn't stand up. Rather than troubling himself with such an exhausting action, he took a pen off the coffee table and hurled it at the unsuspecting victim. The pen hit Jared right in the middle of his forehead.

            "It won't be a pen next time," Reed's voice was filled with anger and tiredness.

            Jared only laughed at this threat. "I won't do it again, but don't think it's 'cause I'm scared of your flimsy punches."

Reed took this as a challenge. All the exhaustion from before drained out of his body. He grinned, pushing himself off the couch. As the two of them engaged in a brawl in the living room, Ember appeared at the entrance. She went deep into thought, trying to guess what those idiotic vampires were fighting about now. It wouldn't be very surprising if it was over who was the smartest out of the four of them. In her opinion, Casper was the smartest. He was always answering questions in math class, and he always got them right. She envied him for his intelligence but was thankful that at least someone in the class raised their hand or else the teacher might just call on her. That would be a trainwreck, an embarrassing one at that. 

The sound of an extra heartbeat made Reed and Jared halt their fight. They turned their heads in her direction. Not a single one of them knew how to act around Ember now that they are aware she was a true blood. They all stayed unmoving, even their breathing seemed to stop. What are we supposed to do?  Their strange behavior was easily noticed by Ember. Normally, she would have heard some sort of annoying remark come from Reed's mouth or a flirtatious one from Jared. Then there was Casper. She at least expected a bit of an awkward smile from him after what happened last night, but he didn't even look her way. It was like he was afraid to make eye contact with her.