Taken (Book #2 of the Vampire Legends) (4 page)

“I’ll tell you,” Rachel said, “but not
at school. It’s too dangerous.”

“Ah!” shrieked Liv, “I can’t wait!”

“Tell us now,” Emily begged. “We’ll
leave you alone after, we promise, not a peep about it.”

Rachel felt as if she were under fire.
She wanted to tell them what was going on, but at the same time, she wanted to
keep her secret. After all, she had sworn to Benji that she would never tell.
But, at the same time, she had to give them something.

“Well,” Rachel began, thinking what to
say, “the principal called me into his office, too. The police were there. They
asked me a lot of questions.”

“OMG,” Emily said. “What did you say?
What did you tell them?”

“Are you in trouble?” Liv asked.  “Are
you suspended?”

“And what happened to him? Who is he, anyway?”
Kate asked.

“Are you guys dating?” Emily asked.

Rachel felt overwhelmed by all the
questions. She didn’t know who to respond to first, what to say. She tried to
think of a response that would satisfy all of them. She could have even sworn
that she saw people from the table over quieting down and listening in on their
conversation.

“I barely know him,” Rachel said. “His
name is Benji. We had just met. He had asked me out, but I said no. Then we met
at the dance. Rob saw us, and I guess he got jealous. Then they to started to
fight. But I really had nothing to do with the whole thing. I tried to stop it,
but it didn’t do any good. So, like, I don’t know what to say.”

“This guy sounds like a real creep,”
Kate said.

Rachel, despite herself, felt herself flushing
red, getting angry, wanting to defend Benji.

“Don’t say that,” she snapped back. “He
didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yeah, right,” Liv said. “He just beat
up our team for no reason.

“That’s not how it happened,” Rachel
snapped, and was embarrassed to realize that she actually yelled.

Half the cafeteria turned around, dead
silent, listening to her, as she stood at the table.

“They attacked him. He was just
defending himself. You guys should get your facts straight before you go around
accusing other people!” She yelled.

Now Rachel was mortified. She was the
only one standing in the cafeteria, and she was screaming at her friends, her
face entirely red, and the entire place was dead quiet. She looked around and
realized how bad the situation had become. She was rotating, oscillating
between anger and dread.

And to make things worse, her new
friends now looked up at her as if she were some kind of anger-fueled freak,
some kind of maniac. She could actually see fear in their eyes. Rachel didn’t
blame them. She was afraid of herself at this moment. She had never felt
herself explode with this kind of anger before.

“OMG,” Kate said quietly, in a timid
voice, “I was just saying. I didn’t mean to like mortally offend you.”

Rachel tried to think of something witty
to say back to her, but she was too overwhelmed. She wasn’t thinking clearly,
and her mind wasn’t functioning properly.

So instead, she just turned, pushed back
her chair, and stormed out of the cafeteria, between the rows of tables,
everyone watching her. She could hear a pin drop. It was dead silent, except
for the sound of her beat-up Converse scraping along the floor as she walked
down the hall, and out the cafeteria doors. As they closed behind her, the one
thing she realized was that she had finally messed it all up for good: now she
didn’t have a single friend left at AHS.

Chapter Five

Rachel stormed into her house and up to
her bedroom. She couldn’t believe what had happened at school today; not in her
wildest dreams did she think her day would turn out that badly.

Rachel took out her diary and began to
write. She knew it was the only thing that would ease her mind and calm her
nerves. She didn’t know what else to do.

A tear came streaming down her face and
landed on the cover of her diary. She brushed it off, but it left a small wet
stain on the front. As she opened the lock with the key she wore around her
neck, she heard footsteps coming towards her room. They grew louder and louder,
and Rachel got tense. She couldn’t imagine who could be storming down the
hallway at 3:30pm. She thought nobody was home. She knew it couldn’t be her
father; he never came home before 6pm. Ever.

“Rachel, you get out here this minute,”
her dad’s voice came shouting through the door.

Rachel quivered and leapt to her feet.
She couldn’t imagine what this was about and she had never heard her dad use
such a forceful tone.

“What?” Rachel yelled through the door.

“You better get yourself down to the
kitchen, young lady, and fast,” her father repeated. “Your mother and I are
waiting.”

Rachel got scared. She locked her diary
up, threw it in her desk drawer and swung open her bedroom door. She quickly
walked downstairs, not knowing what would happen to her once she saw her mom
and dad. Rachel peeked her head into the kitchen where she heard her parents
whispering and hoped to catch a glimpse of them before she entered the room,
but they had spotted her. Rachel stood there like a deer in the headlights.

As Rachel crept into the kitchen, her
parents just stood there, looking at her and waiting. Rachel looked back at
them, and then saw her father look down towards the kitchen table.  Rachel
followed his gaze as her eyes spotted it. She couldn’t believe what was
happening – or rather, what was about to happen.

There it was, the
Westchester Daily
News
, right in front of her eyes. Rachel began to sweat; she could feel her
body fill with regret as she stood there waiting to hear what her parents had
to say about this one. Rachel couldn’t help but wonder why she was getting
herself into so much trouble these days, and why she was always at the wrong
place at the wrong time.

She waited for her parents to say
something, but they just stood there silently, looking at her and then back at
the paper. She didn’t know what to do – she couldn’t figure out if they wanted
her to explain herself, or if she should wait there in agony for them to speak.

Rachel opened her mouth to say
something, and her dad immediately interrupted her.

“What’s this all about?” he said in a
loud firm voice.

Rachel put her head down and said, “Um,”
she paused, “I don’t know, it was a mistake, I’m sorry.”

Rachel heard her mom sniffle, and begin
to cry. She looked at her mom, who was standing there, rubbing her eyes with a
tissue.

“Your mother and I are extremely disappointed
in you, Rachel.” Her dad looked up and glared at her. “Do you know how this has
hurt us, and what this means for our family?” her dad added.

“And a motorcycle? Really, Rachel?” Her
mom sobbed. “I thought I could trust you.”

“Everyone is talking about this, Rachel,”
her dad said. “Not only are we dealing with the police from your involvement
with the fight last night, but now you have to be on the front page of the
newspaper?” her dad paused. “Do you realize that everyone is talking about
you?  And about our family?”

Rachel stood there and waited. She could
tell he had more to say, but stopped to grab her mom another tissue, and to put
his arm around her.

“I left work early, Rachel. As soon as I
heard about this I ran home. It is clear that you will need more structure for
your afternoons. No more being left home alone, no more hanging out with
friends, no more ANYTHING,” he yelled.

Rachel began to cry, too.

“But, I,” Rachel wiped her tears. “It
wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do anything,” she said. “Why do you guys have to be
so hard on me all the time? You should be lucky I’m alive,” Rachel yelled, as
she turned and stomped out of the kitchen.

“Get back here,” her dad shrieked.

“Do not walk away from us when we’re
speaking to you!” Rachel’s mom added.

Rachel turned back around and went back
into the kitchen. “What’s left to say?” she said.

“Rachel, I thought you had told us
everything,” her mom said, still crying and wiping away her tears. “I had no
idea what was going on, and can’t believe we had to find out like this.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “What do you
want me to say? I can’t go back and change things. I wish I could, but what’s
done is done.”

“Maybe this move was a bad idea,” her
mom said, looking at her dad. “Nothing seems to be going right for us anymore,
and we hardly even recognize you, Rachel. What has happened to you?”

Rachel stood there in shock. She didn’t
feel like she had changed, especially not to the point of being unrecognizable
to her own parents. She was devastated. She never meant to hurt them,
especially not her mother.

“Listen, I’m sorry. It won’t happen
again.”

“We’ve heard that before,” her dad
yelled. “It won’t happen again, because you won’t be going out again. From now
on, all you’ll be doing is going to school and coming home, and don’t even
think about seeing that guy Benji again.”

“Go to your room and don’t come out for
the rest of the night,” her mom said. “I can’t stand to look at you right now.”

*

Rachel began to sob as she turned
around. Now she really had nobody, not even her parents to stick by her. She
was devastated and alone.

 She stomped up to her room and slammed
the door. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. She felt completely
jolted by her parent’s reaction. Rachel took her diary back out of the desk to
write. She opened it again, noticing her tear had completely dried on the front
of her journal, leaving a dry circular mark. As she opened to a blank page, she
could feel the tears swelling up in her eyes and her vision became blurry. She
blinked a few times and tears began streaming down her cheeks again. She couldn’t
stop crying. She walked over to her bed and buried her head in between her
pillows.

She lay there crying into her pillows
for a while until she felt something on her back. It was cold. A cold hand and
it began rubbing her back ever so softly. Rachel had no idea who this could be.
For a moment, she thought Benji had come to comfort her. Then, she popped her
head up and wiped away her final tears. There she saw Sarah, sitting there with
her coat and cheerleading uniform still on from practice.

“I just got home and heard you crying,”
Sarah said.

“I’m ok, really,” Rachel said, trying to
sound strong.

“C’mon, I can tell you’re not ok,” Sarah
paused. “What is it?”

Rachel felt so touched that Sarah had
come in to see her after the horrible events of the day. She couldn’t believe
someone was actually being nice to her. For a moment, she thought everything
would be all right.

“I’m grounded. They saw the article,”
Rachel said. “They’re also pissed about last night, which is so unfair because
it was totally not my fault.”

“I know,” said Sarah. “I heard all about
it today from the girls at practice. They’re pretty upset, too, but I stuck up
for you.”

“Thanks, you didn’t have to do that. It
really doesn’t matter anymore. I have no friends now,” Rachel said as another
tear rolled slowly down her cheek.

“Listen, Rachel, things are bad right
now, but don’t worry. The truth will win. You have to remember that,” Sarah
added.

Rachel felt scared. Her sister was right,
but she didn’t know the truth either. Nobody did, except for her, and she was
not going to tell a soul.

“Listen, Rach, I’ll talk to Mom and Dad,”
Sarah said. “I’ll try and get you out of it.”

Rachel couldn’t believe her ears. She
couldn’t believe that Sarah was going to stick up for her, and that they were
really becoming friends and confidants. Rachel was ecstatic. This is what she
had always dreamed her relationship with her sister would be like.

At that moment, Rachel heard a buzzing
sound coming from her inside her backpack.

1 New
Message:

Rachel looked down at her phone,
clutching it in her hand, nervous to open it to see what her friend had to say.
Rachel flipped her Motorola flip phone open and saw a message from Kate.

Kate: Sorry
about today.  I’m with Liv and Taryn. We really didn’t mean to upset you.

Rachel thought for a moment and began to
write back. She didn’t mean to yell at her friends after all. She didn’t know
what had come over her in the cafeteria to make her scream like that.

Rachel: I’m
sorry, too. I didn’t mean to yell at you guys.

Kate: Truce?

Rachel: haha,
yeah!

Rachel’s phone buzzed again. She flipped
her phone and it was Emily. She couldn’t understand why everyone was contacting
her all at once.