Chapter Eleven

♦September's POV♦

I trudge home slowly, kicking pebbles out of the way. The activities of the day finally catching up to me.

I figure I'm still in shock because my brain feels like mush and is refusing to do any sort of cognitive thinking.

"Oh Well." I mutter, turning on the avenue - snotty rich avenue - might I add that my house is located.

It's quite peaceful - scratch that - deadly silent. No sound of barking dogs or laughing children, but what was I expecting when we lived far on the outskirts of the town.

So when mother and Selena decide to act on the ever present tension in between them, they wouldn't risk spectators l.

Not changing my snail pace, I reluctantly walk up to the huge imposing gate.

Brenton is more or less a quaint island, although connected to the main land, is far removed from it.

We live closest to the ocean but the house faces inwards, so we have our own private beach in our backyard, a pretty long way from the public beach.

I shove my face up to the lens and the gate swings open, I walk in and wait for it to seal shut.

I don't want to see my mother's criticizing sneer or my father's nauseating pity, they would already know by now that my first day of school was a total wreck. So I ignore her 'no running in the house' rule and zoom to my room.

I stumble on my huge canopied bed, grab a pillow and begin to weep.

I cry for the broken little girl in me who never fits in.

I cry for the sad teenager who was still that broken little girl.

I cry at the fact that I never really had friends and now I might have ruined a good one.

I cry at the way I treated Cameron, even though all he ever seems to do is look out for me.

I cry for my wretched, miserable self.

I cry myself to sleep.

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"Selena?" I call out, running to meet her, my wild hair flying, pale pink dress swishing.

I get to her and watch how she manipulates an orange bunny's emotions, the poor thing was sniffling.

"Se-Selena," I tremble, struggling not to cry, as the rabbit cried harder.

"You don't have to be sad." Selena starts to say, thinking her powers affected me as well.

"It's not you, it-it's so sad watching the bunny cry." I tell her as the tears begin to run down my face.

I can tell that she doesn't like me crying because she fixes the bunny and hugged me, smiling sadly.

"Don't cry anymore, little sis."

"I won't anymore." I say bravely, wiping my face.

"I like your hair." I add, running my chubby palms down her perfect wavy hair. "Mine's ugly." I pout.

"I love your hair." She tells me firmly, carefully touching it so that the huge scarf that bound my wild hair would not loosen.

"Let's play catch the princess." I shriek happily, twirling around with her. Her pretty blue dress sways merrily.

"Sure," She agrees and I'm suddenly sad.

Selena senses it immediately.

"Ember, why are you sad?"

"I can't run as fast as you, I can't make bunny's cry, I can't disappear or do any of the nice things you do. I can't even bite anybody or anything, my teeth is too small." I say, referring to my fangs.

"That's not true, you can bite an apple." She teases.

I can't help but smile, "That's different Selena."

"I know but soon you will and you'll be the best at it, even better than Sir Gerald."

"You really mean that?" I ask with wide eyes.

"Uh huh." She affirms.

"Even better than that grumpy Vampire? Cool." I chirp, bouncing up and down, already hating the the tangled locks of hair flying in eyes.

I know that even if I wear a metal helmet, my hair still gets in my eyes, while Selena's hair can be held down with a fragile pin.

"Let's play, I'll be the princess and you be the big, bad dragon." I order, giggling happily as I watch her move from one place to another at blinding speed.

"You're always the princess." She points out with anger, I think she likes the role of the bad guy a little too much.

We are at the ledge of a cliff and our huge castle wasn't very behind, we play this game so often that we already knew each other steps.

I try to dodge her as she zig-zags around me, I get closer and closer to the edge without realizing it.

Taking another step backwards, I feel something shift but I don't regard it. I move to take another step backwards when Selena stops abruptly a few feet before me.

"SEPTEMBER!" I hear her yell in the split second that I put my leg down on what I thought would be solid ground.

I tumble backwards and I hear Selena screaming my name.

  My face hurt and I wonder why, then I realize that I have been screaming with her the whole time. I look down to where I'll land and I see nothing but jagged rocks.

I look upward expecting to see Selena kneeling at the edge of the cliff and crying but instead I see my mom, she made no move to help me, she just stood there watching as I fell to my death...

♥•♥•♥•♥•♥

"Aaaaaaargh!" I scream, bolting up from my bed, my tangled covers on the floor.

"September?" My mother's calls angrily as she appears in my room.

"What happened?" Cyril asks, flashing to my room too.

"September?" Selena says worriedly, her hair windblown from running all the way to my room.

"Curls?" My dad says sweetly, his pet name for me.

I'm still recovering from the shock of the nightmare so it takes a while to assimilate all their questions.

My dad comes over to pet my wild hair, "It's just a nightmare." I answer their questions.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Dad asks nicely, pulling on the ropes of his polka dotted, dressing robe.

"It's just a memory from the cliff incident," I answer, avoiding my mother's searching eyes. "Nothing serious."

"It's probably because of your first day of school." Mom sneers, not sounding happy - Like she ever is.

"Probably," I repeat coldly.

"Cyril, I'd like to speak with you." Mother says sharply, vanishing into thin air.

Cyril ruffles my hair with a weird look on his face and follows suit.

Selena hugs me - weird - and runs back to her room, not bothering to dematerialize.

"Oh my baby," Dad coos, engulfing me in a bear hug. He likes to pretend that there was absolutely nothing wrong with our psychotic family.

You know, the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil kind of mentality. It seems to be working for him, which was wonderful. He's to nice to be married to my mom anyway, she didn't deserve him.

"Are you sure, you don't want me to camp right here in your room for the night."

"No, thanks Dad. Love you." I decline.

"Love you too Curls." He says softly, vanishing.

    I fall back on my bed, wondering why I had the nightmare, I hadn't had one about it since I was five when it happened, for a couple of months after I couldn't sleep then they just stopped.

What bothers me even more is the presence of mom.

I fell down alright and was bedridden for months, Selena grew more distant from me, that was the last time we played together.

I sometimes wonder if she blames herself but mom was never there.

Thinking back I try to go over the original incident, my memory is a bit hazy unlike my dream but mom was never there.

It's always Selena kneeling and reaching out, screaming my name. Mom was never there.

I get up to shower and slip into my doll like nightdress, I tack my hair high up on my head with a leather strap. It's either that or my hair suffocates me at night.

I go back to bed prepared to fall asleep, then my brain chooses this moment to remind me of what happened during lunch.

Sometimes I feel like brains were given opportunity to choose people but mine wasn't so it probably doesn't fancy me so much.

Sitting upright, I stare at my hands like I just grew them.

I'm scared of the possibility that perhaps I might be able to harness, to posses my own power but that's just wishful thinking for a Blank Vampire.

Ciaran and Cameron says I burnt them and definitely Arianna wouldn't heal fake burns but who's to say Ciaran didn't burn Cameron.

But Ciaran didn't even know he was holding my hand and Cameron wouldn't lie to me even if I treated him horribly, plus why wasn't I burnt.

My hands start to tremble as thoughts bang around in my head.

"What is wrong with me?" I whisper wretchedly, my voice racked with pain as I let out a silent scream.

Before falling asleep, I make up my mind to apologize to Cameron the next day.