Break The Chains {Love Story}

Chapter Six

I ended up waking up late because of my lack of sleep, forcing me to race around at lightening speed to get ready for school, feeling envious of Cedric who I decided probably could have preformed the same actions as me at ease with at least ten times the speed that I was going at. Mum always went to work far too early to wake me up, and usually my alarm was enough to wake me up but this morning I had been far too deep into dreamland that my alarm wasn’t enough to rouse me.

 By the time I ran from the house my hair was falling out of it’s sloppy bun, a piece of toast was hanging from my mouth and my bag was slowly slipping down my arm that it was hooked on.

I sprinted all the way to school while eating my toast; the school was about ten blocks away from my house so at least it wasn’t so bad. When I reached school the bell had just rung to start first class, meaning that I’d missed role call. I knew I had math’s first, so jogged to my class, with a smile on my face. Cedric was in that class.

When I arrived I slid in next to Emily. I was wondering once again why she bothered being my friend. I was always too busy to see her outside of school and even in school we only talked during some classes that we had together. But she was so good to me, providing me with just enough normal social contact to suffice.

“How’s things?” I asked her.

“Same old.” She muttered back. I couldn’t help but glancing over at Cedric’s empty spot in the classroom. He hadn’t arrived yet.

“What the heck did you do to your arm?” Emily gasped as soon as she saw the blood-soaked bandage around my arm, which regretfully I hadn’t had enough time to change in the morning.

“Um… caught it on a barbed-wire fence. Ripped my skin.” I was used to lying about strange injuries to people, it’d just become a part of my life. My mother was no exception. Most the time I hid my injuries from view from my mother, it wasn’t exactly hard considering we weren’t a very social family, I spent most of my time alone in my room while my mother went out, but it seemed students noticed injuries on me from a mile away.

“You’re always managing to hurt yourself, Zoe!”

“Yeah...” I agreed. Though, hurting myself wasn’t the right way to put it, considering it was always others inflicting the injuries on me. My eyes turned away from Emily and again lingered on Cedric’s empty spot. As I did Emory walked through the door, smiling charmingly at the girls he’d escorted here with him, but all I could think about was the way he’d treated me last night. He’d look charming and innocent, but looks were as far as it went for him. My heart fell as the door swung shut behind Emory without any sign of Cedric.

“He’s not coming, Zoe…” Emily sighed, my head snapped around to face her. “I see you watching for him, but he wasn’t at school for role call.”

“Oh…” no ounce of my body was lacking in disappointment that Cedric hadn’t shown up. I wanted to ask so many questions, figure out so many things. I’d have even told him my dream if it had guaranteed he’d be here.

Then the worry sunk in, why wasn’t he at school? He’d agreed we’d had school together today, but he hadn’t shown up. Emory was at school… had Emory and whoever else been angry with Cedric and punished him severely? Oh no. That wasn’t good. It wasn’t his fault I was stupid enough to get chased down by an incubus, and he just happened to be the one caring enough to save me.

I hadn’t even thanked him, I thought with sudden with horror.

“What’s wrong?” Emily asked, taking in my horrified expression. “Is your arm hurting? Maybe you should go see the nurse.”

“No, no, I’m fine.” I assured her, trying to tone down my expression as best I could.

Yes I was fine.

But Cedric might not be.

There was nothing I could do that would stop the queasiness from swirling around my stomach uncontrollably. I groaned and slammed my head against the desk.

“Are you sure you’re alright Zoe?”

“Just dandy.” I grumbled.

*

I spent the whole of the day in agony, trying to decide whether Cedric was home for some normal reason, or whether it was something to do with last night and him getting into trouble. Everyone could already tell I was in a bad mood so they all avoided me more than usual.

When I got home things only got worse.

I planned to retreat into my room and sulk for a little while. I’d even considered going looking for Cedric and demanding answers, but I really did need a rest after last night’s happenings.

“Hey mum, I’m home.” I called and made a run for my room.

“Zoe, not so fast. Remember what I said yesterday? I’ve got someone for you to meet. Come into the longue so I can introduce you.”

I cussed in the back of my head, remembering my mum wanted me to meet some new boyfriend again. I wondered how long I’d have to force small talk before either they left, or I was permitted to leave. I dumped my bag on the floor and walked into the longue to see mum.

“Zoe, darling, I’m not sure if you’ve met Mr. Milton before… Malcolm, this is my daughter Zoe.” She gestured between me and the man she had brought into our home. It took a minute for the name to fully sink into my head, and once it had it was so obvious. Not only was I staring up into the blackened eyes of my mothers boyfriend, it was the same dark eyes of Emory’s father. Mr. Milton was a lot like his son, tall, pale, charming, and most of all sickening. He was a vampire, I was sure of it, just like his son, he couldn’t be dating my mum, that was just wrong. So wrong.

And who knows what kind of complications would come about when a vampire was dating a mother to a vampire hunter.

It was just so wrong.

My stomach tightened.

“Hi Mr. Milton.” I mumbled.

“Hi Zoe, your mum has told me so much about you.” He smiled greasily. I didn’t trust him one bit.

“Mum, I’ve got homework to do.” I said bluntly, turning away from them and stalking out of the room.

“Zoe, don’t be so rude!” my mother called after me in disgust.

“Ah, it’s okay, let her do her work, it’s obviously important to her.” Malcolm tried soothing her. It made me want to be sick.

But at least he allowed for me to escape. I ended up sitting in my room doing my best to not think about the situation or how disgusted I was by it. Though admittedly, more than once I thought about the sword beneath my bed and the satisfaction I might have found if the sword were to find it’s way through Malcolm’s soulless heart.

After a while I’d heard far too much of my mothers flirtatious giggling, so turned to my faithful MP3 player, putting the earplugs in and switching up the volume until it almost blew out my eardrums. I’d decided that if anything tried to invade my house tonight, no doubt Malcolm could deal with it. I just couldn’t deal with another second of having to listen to them. It was too much. So I feel asleep to the blaring noise of an unusually loud punk band.