Bloodlust, Stephanie Scarff [freda ebook reader .TXT] 📗

Preface
His eyes, a light grey colour, were getting darker at the minute : and they were directed straight at me. I staired back, wondering what he wanted : I was just a normal girl. Except everyone I knew said I had a special charm : did this stranger know that? He came closer and closer : till he was hovering over me in the night. My breathing got louder and louder but he took no notice : his eyes were fixed on my neck. I could feel my heart pounding in my ears, the bells ringing for the New Years and the people, just feet away from the alley I was cornered in, were chanting the countdown, something I would be doing right now if I wasn`t gettin more juice. I looked into the dark, but bright, eyes of the man, and his face, inches away from mine, sprung up and he struck.

Chapter 1
It was 1:00 in the afternoon : the day was dragging on in the boring shop I worked in. Quick-Stop, was empty, due to the tragic event I hated more than ever : Christmas Eve. That was a lie : I hated Christmas day worse. After years of begging for at least one present, I decided to hate the holiday. A customer finally walked in after 4 hours of nothing, just sitting about. He was obviously getting his Christmas dinner for tomorrow, cause, he had two baskets filled with food and crackers. He approached the counter and sat his stuff down. "Is that all, sir?" I asked in my fake, enthusiastic voice. "Yeah, that`s me," he replied. He pulled out his wallet. I checked the price and said, "That`ll be $27:53." He nodded and asked, "Business is slow, I`m guessing?" He must have saw my expression when he walked in. I sighed. "Yeah, I just don`t understand why everyone makes a big deal out of it." I smiled and gave him back his change. He grinned back and walked out the shop. I was about to sit back down but my best friend, Emily, walked in. "About time!" I whispered to myself. I smiled and she suddenly said "Okay, you`re smiling weirdly and you`re talking to yourself, something`s, obviously, up." She reads me so well. "Well, I`m annoyed at this stupid holiday! Why won`t everyone stop talking about it? Ooh, I`m getting presents. Ooh, my family`s gonna be there!" I mimicked the children that came into the shop with their happy parents. My parents, divorced and not talking to each other, never got around for the holiday`s : I didn`t want them to, anyway. She laughed and I looked up, forgetting her presence in the room. "I know you hate the holiday`s but because your my friend, I got you something." She pulled a purple, velvet case out from her bag and held it out to me. I took it and nearly dropped it : it was quite heavy. I almost forgot that I had gotten her something too. I sat it down and smiled. "What...?" she asked. I shook my head and put up my finger. I reached down into the 4th shelf below me and retrieved a wooden, heart-shaped box. Her face suddenly turned to surprise. "What have you done with my friend?" she whispered. I grinned and said, "Do you want to open them at the same time?" "No, it`s too tense!" she replied. I nodded my head and answered, "You first." She shook her head and opened the wooden box. She gasped. She held up the necklace and it sparkled in the sunlight. The rainbow coloured star shone as the rainbow-effect hit off it. "It`s beautiful," she whispered. She looked up and said, "Thank you, so much. I can`t even explain how beautiful it is. Thank you." I smiled at her and took the heavy velvet case from the counter and opened it. In it, lay a beautiful ring, necklace and earrings set. The earrings, gold and sapphire studded diamonds, had a pink trim around the diamond. The necklace, a heart, in the colour of sapphire, my birthstone, was inside a locket that said 'Best Friends Are Always In Your Heart.' The ring, a gold circle and a star placed in the middle, was purple, my favourite colour. I looked up, shyly. sat it down and stepped put from the counter. I hugged her fiercely and she must have been confused because this wasn`t my normal behaviour. She hugged me back lightly. I pulled away and put the three pieces of jewellery on. The necklace sat there perfectly, like it was meant to be there, all along. Another customer walked in, ruining the moment. She had a bright red jumper on with green trees all around it, and welly-boots, cause of the snow. She picked up a magazine, a really popular one, in fact, and brung out the latest purse. I sighed, scanned her stuff and said, "That`ll be, $1:20, please." And I didn`t have to use my fake enthusiastic voice. I was already happy. "Thank you, please come again!" I shouted as she hurried out into the cold. Emily looked at me and looked a little creeped out but I didn`t care. I just grinned at her until she looked away. The shop got busier by the minute and Emily offered out to help. I needed an extra pair of hands anyway. After we closed the shop, I walked Emily home : her victorian house was a couple of blocks down the road from the shop, so I walked her. When I got in, hope filled me and before I went to bed, I whispered to myself, "Please be a normal Christmas" and I hoped until I fell asleep. When I woke up, everything had changed.

Chapter 2 "Tanya Allishya Renaree! Get down here this instant!" my mother roared at me. I blinked, confused. What was happening? "Your siblings want to open their presents!" my father shouted up at me. What presents? I fumbled around my bedside table until I found my small, purple desk lamp. I blinked at the brightness of the lamp : was it ever that bright? "Coming!" I shouted, running down the white grand staircase. My mother and father together : in the same room? I went into my bathroom to get changed. I got out of my 'Bye bye going to bed!' jammies and put on jeans and a t-shirt. I brushed my teeth and brushed my tangled hair. "Rough night," I whispered to myself. "Tanya!" my sister, Melanie shouted. I`m seriosuly gonna kill her. "I`m just coming!" I screeched at her. I could hear her sigh : she was kinda out to get me. I ran down the other set of stairs to the living room where the big Christmas tree sat. I had decorated it nicely last night before going to bed. They were all staring at me : I looked at my clothes and there was nothing there. "What? Your kinda creeping me out," I said with a smile. They nodded to the tree and I looked down : sitting there, piled up, were presents. I went over to them hesitantly, looking for any sign of a joke. There seemed to be no joke so I picked one up. It felt heavy, I weighed it on my left hand. I opened it and my jaw dropped. There, in the box, was something I had wanted for months. I opened it, and there, sat in a glass case, was The Twilight saga books and DVD`s. I smiled, sat it down and hugged my parents. "Thank you," I whispered to them. They replied with an 'It`s allright' and I started opening the presents and got the things I had wanted for months. That night, I phoned Em`s and told her all about the presents and the movie we watched and how perfect it was. She listened and told me about her day and howshe had something to tell me. When she told me I froze, totally unaware of my surroundings. It was when I woke up, I realised I had fainted. And then I remembered what Em`s had told me.

Chapter 3
I woke up with people crowded round me and I found out where i was : in a hospital room. I don`t know why but the beeping noices from the machines made me feel nausuated. I reached for the bucket and everyone looked away. Everyone asked me if I was alright. After a while, I decided it was my turn to ask the questions. "Well? How is she?Has she recovered?" I asked slowly, needing more air than usual : all I knew was that I fainted, but they were obviously hiding something.... "Well, she`s not doing good, hun. When the guy broke in she put up a fight : and she broke her rib. He punched her in the ribcage. She`s in ICU, I`m so, so sorry hun. They think she`s going to make it, though." my mother told me in a soft whisper. "Can I see her?" I asked : there had to be something I could do. My mother shook her head, sadly. "She`s not really well enough for visitors : not even her parents are allowed in, " my father replied. I started to cry : if only she hadn`t left her purse at the shop on Christmas Eve......My breathing went mad and I was suddenly losing breath. A string of nurses came in and while all of them did different things to find out what was wrong, my mother stared at me with worry in her eyes. 'You don`t have to worry'I mouthed to her. 'Yes, yes I do.'
When the doctors went away, my brother Gary came in and asked me how I was and made sure everything was okay : he was the overly-helpful type of brother. "Seriously, I`m fine!" I whispered. He put on a weak smile, nodded his head and sat and talked to our mum about what was going to happen. They spoke quietly deliberately, so I wouldn`t hear what they were saying. Occasionally, they would look round to me but would quickly whip there head back round when they saw I was looking at them. It was going to be a long night. When they didn`t even make an attempt to tell me what was happening, I just lay my head on the pillow, and slept.

Chapter 4
I woke-up and looked around. There was a nurse there and she was probably waiting for me to get up. I blinked and then I sat up, looking for my parents : there they were, asleep on the bench beside me. I blinked again before saying, "What`s wrong?" The nurse looked behind her at my parents and she looked back to me and she whispered, "I want to speak with you about why you fainted : your parents said this month you have fainted more than one, yes?" I nodded : what did that have to do with anything? "Oh, dear," the nurse whispered as she walked away : was anyone going to tell me what was going on? When my parents got up, they walked over to me with a smile on their faces. "What?" I asked. They looked around and said, "The nurses said you might be able to come home today!" "What? The nurse said...was that an act?" I whispered. My parents nodded and I stared at them, shocked. "What, is the whole thing with Ems some trick? Where you just doing that to freak me out. Because it worked!" I shouted. "No, that wasn`t an act. The nurse thing when she was saying you had fainted more than once and all that was