ROSES FOR RACHEL: EPISODES 11-20
EPISODE 19
Flames.
All around me, I’m surrounded by strange blue flames. My heart is racing, but I don’t feel any pain or heat, I only feel fear. Fear of the flames, fear of dying. The flames are coming closer and closer by the second. I look down and see that I’m nked, and when I glance back up, the flames are gone. Now I’m in the middle of the cavernous dungeons, just another naked body among the hundreds. I turn around to run for the big black doors, but they’re blocked. By Fern. She stands in front of the doors, naked like the rest of us, and waving me over to her. I look around and then step towards her, avoiding the bodies of the sleeping on my way. “Miss Rachel…” She whispers my name and it echoes off of the walls. “Never safe…” I hear her say and I stop walking to stare up to her. Her face looks afraid. “Danger is everywhere…secrets…” Her words continue bouncing around the room and ringing in my ears. Then she screams. High pitched enough to break glass, eyes round like marbles. Suddenly she’s broken. Her body is torn apart and stacked in a pyre. I scream her name and run to her, reaching my hand out to touch her icy skin. The blue flames come back, engulfing her body, but when the flames touch my hand it isn’t blue anymore. It’s just fire. Hot, burning, agonizing fire.
ROSES FOR RACHEL: EPISODES 11-20
I wake up thrashing around in the bed, screaming nonsense about Fern and secrets.
“Rachel!” His voice pulls me from my terror. “Rachel, wake up.”
I feel his cold hands on my shoulders shaking me. I sit up straight, bringing my hands to my face to make sure they aren’t burnt. I check both sides, sighing that they are just my regular slender hands, not the charred mess I was sure I’d find. I turn my body quickly, wrapping my arms around Calvin desperately and cry into his neck while he rubs my back and shushes me. After a long while, Calvin lets me go just enough for him to pull back the covers and crawl under the blankets with me. He laid back on his back, fluffing the pillows, then pulled me down to him so that my head was resting on his chest. “I’m sorry.” I said through my tears.
“For what?” He asked surprised.
I sighed. “For crying, and waking you up, and stealing half of your bed, and-.”
He tilted my chin up, looking down into my wet eyes. “Never apologize for feeling things, and you didn’t wake me, I haven’t been able to sleep at all, but it’s not your fault that I can’t focus on going to sleep with someone as beautiful as you lying in bed beside me.” He kissed my forehead sweetly. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I thought for a moment, tracing little circles on his chest with my finger. “Blue flames.” I whispered.
“Ah.” He said with a nod. “You saw her then?”
“Yep.” I replied. “I’ve never seen a dead person before.”
“I’m so sorry about all of this, Rachel.”
“Why was it blue? The fire, I mean.” I asked looking up at him.
He was looking straight ahead, staring blankly at the TV that was off. “When you burn a vampire, the flames look blue, and it has a sweet smell instead of the burning smell of a normal fire.”
“I didn’t know vampires could be klled.” I admitted. “I have a pretty limited knowledge on you still, but I thought you were invincible.”
He sighed and smiled a little. “Mostly, but not entirely.” He told me. “You already know we can be weakened by juniper, but we can be klled too, if you know what you’re doing. The heart has to be pulled from the chest, and then it and the body must be dismembered and burned.”
I sat up on my elbow, turning to face him. “So someone could kll you?”
He looked at me strangely, pulling together his eyebrows. “Yes.” He replied. “Why?”
I dropped my gaze from him. I was just surprised by the fact that as strong as he seems, that he actually is still vulnerable, even if it is just a tiny bit. I hated the thought though, it made me feel a little helpless, but I couldn’t pin point why I felt that way. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.” I admitted sheepishly. I decided if there would ever be a future with Calvin, I want to be honest with him, even if it’s a little embarrassing.
“You’re worried about me?” He asked surprised. When I nodded my head slowly he blinded me with one of his beautiful, heart pulling, smiles.
I couldn’t resist bringing my hand up to his face and trailing my fingers over his deep dimples. “These are adorable.” I whispered.
He sat up, so fast that I gasped, then he leaned his forehead against mine. “You’re the adorable one, worrying about your vampire boyfriend, even though you are the one with the threat to your life.”
“Boyfriend?” I said with my eyes wide.
He looked down. “Did I say that?” He asked and I nodded, chewing the inside of my cheek. “Well, then, I feel like I’d like for you to be my girlfriend…if you want to.”
“What about the competition? Are you asking all of the girls to be your girlfriends?”
He sighed and titled his head. “Have I not already made it pretty clear that I don’t give a shit about the stupid competition? None of that was my idea, but I can’t be too angry anymore since it did bring you here.”
“From a feeding school.” I reminded him.
“Rachel…” He muttered my name, leaning away from me and adjusting the covers in his lap.
I shook my head at myself. “I’m sorry, Cal. I just…I can’t forget so easily that the reason I’m here is because I was kidnapped and forced here.” I leaned into his face, trying to get him to look at me. “That doesn’t mean I’m not happy when I’m around you, because I am.”
“Only when you’re around me?”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed, pushing the blankets away and getting out of the bed. He walked to the foot of the bed, putting his hands up behind his head, and he paced back and forth. “You just said you are happy when you’re around me. That’s great, but what about all of the time you aren’t with me? Are you miserable here, Rachel? All the time?”
I brushed my hands through my hair, trying to find the right words, but there weren’t any. “If you’re asking if I like it here, then no, not really. I miss the outside, Calvin. I miss the sun, and hearing birds, or running in tall grass, feeling it tickling my legs. I don’t love it here,” I told him, climbing out of the bed and walking to him, then forcing him to stop pacing and look down at me. “I love being with you though.” I said staring up into his eyes.
He huffed, pulling me to him. “I love being with you too, but I want you to be happy, Rachel.”
I grabbed his face, and ignored his shocked expression, as I stood on my tiptoes to kss him hard. It took him a second, but he finally grabbed my face too, holding me to him to make the kiss longer. “Can we please not talk about this anymore?” I asked sweetly as I pulled away.
“Fine.” He whispered with a slight grin. I knew he wasn’t over it, but at least he was willing to move on for now. “You didn’t answer me, you know?”
“Huh?”
“I asked you if you would consider yourself as my girlfriend, and no, I haven’t asked any of the other girls that. I only feel this way about you. In the morning I’m going to ask my father that we just do away with the whole stupid charade. I want to pick you.”
I stared dumbly up at him. I thought I had months to get used to the idea of possibly spending my whole life here, and then there was the part about me having to give an heir to the throne. Would I have to get to getting pregnant right away, or do I have some time? I know I can’t be turned until I turn 20, but even then, I don’t think I want to be a vampire. I’m pretty sure I want to be with Calvin, but I thought we had more time. I was hyperventilating on the inside, and just blank staring like an idiot on the outside. “I, um…”
“Rachel.” He mumbled. “Don’t think of anything else right now except whether or not you want to be with me.” He said seriously, holding both of my hands in front of him. “If the answer is no, then I need to know.” He looked down at the ground. “But if the answer is yes, then we will figure the rest out later.”
“Yes.” I said without thinking. “I want to be with you.” I had done what he said. I pushed everything out of my head except how I feel about him.
“Yes?” He asked excitedly and I nodded. He scooped me up from the floor and spun me around twice.
“Woah, woah!” I laughed. “You’re going to make me sick.”
“Human.” He chuckled, placing me back on my feet before planting a fat kiss on me. “You don’t know how happy you just made me.” He smiled from ear to ear.
“Have you had a girlfriend before?” I asked without thinking.
“You’re trying to ruin my good mood, aren’t you?” He joked. “No, I haven’t.” He said seriously. “I never intended on having any type of relationship with anyone. I was going to be the eternal bachelor.”
I cut my eyes away from him, and back to the bed, unable to keep another question from popping into my head and right out of my mouth. “Have you ever…?” I asked pointing over to the bed.
He followed my gaze over and then looked back at me with a hard expression. “You can’t let anything slide, can you?” He asked.
“I just want to know.” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
Calvin sighed, grabbing my hand and pulling my over to his side of the bed. He sat down in front of me, looking up into my eyes while he held both of my hands in his. “Yes.” He said solemnly.
“I’ve been with other girls, but had I ever known that you’d come along one day, I wouldn’t have.”
I tried not to let the sick feeling in my gut show through my words. “How many?”
“Rachel.” He said. “Come on.”
I sighed, shifting my weight. “I just want to know, Calvin. If you want me to be with you, I have to know things.”
He leaned his head back, looking up at the ceilings. “I don’t know, Rachel. I don’t remember.”
I pulled my hands from his grasps and took a step back. “You’ve slept with so many girls that you don’t even remember how many?” I asked in a jealous tone. “Did you bother to remember any of their names? Or were they just like servants that weren’t worth remembering?”
“Where did that come from?” He asked sounding annoyed.
I rolled my eyes. “Fern!” I yelled at him. “She had been here so long, and she’d been around you before and you didn’t even remember her! She’s dead and I don’t know if anyone other than me and Master Pedro even noticed.” Tears were threatening to fall from my eyes again.
Calvin stood up and shockingly fast, he grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to sit down on the bed, then he knelt on his knees in front of me. “You’re right, Rachel!” He yelled. “I was an ass. I haven’t cared about anyone in a very long time. Not girls I slept with, people I interacted with, servants,
no one . I know it sounds terrible, but that’s how it was.” He grabbed my face with both hands. “It’s different now. I’m different now. I don’t want you to think of me the way I was, I want to be better. That day on stage, when you all had to make introductions, and Lexton got so nervous and upset, do you remember that?” He asked. “You went out of your way to protect her from the crowd and the camera, just out of the goodness of your heart, Rachel. I saw you do that and I knew I wanted to be better. I can’t change the way I was before, but I can change the way I am from now on.” He said as he leaned his head against mine. “I’m really sorry about your friend, Rachel, and I wish I would have known her, because anyone who is important to you is important to me.”
I started crying all over again. This time it was just a trainwreck of emotions. I was still upset about Fern, scared and worried from my dream, anxious from the idea that the whole competition might be over tomorrow, and then on top of all of that, I was just stupidly happy. “I’m sorry I keep crying.” I said trying to hide my face.
Calvin wouldn’t let me get my hands to my face. “Don’t be sorry.” He whispered to me. “You are the most beautiful crier I’ve ever seen.” He chuckled, wiping tears from my face. “Now come back to bed with me.” He said lowly. “I’ll hold you this time so no more bad dreams come for you.”
I snorted a laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s why you want to hold me.”
“Fine, you’re right.” He admitted with a grin. “I just selfishly want you as close as I can get you.”
ROSES FOR RACHEL: EPISODES 11-20
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