Bride of the Vampire Prince

CHAPTER: 4

But this attack was the worst. It came on swiftly and without stimulus. And as soon as Vienna had known what was happening, her embarrassment added to the problem. Her arms tingled, her heart pounded, and she had felt her anxiety spike. Will it happen to her in class? Will people see her body shake and hear her wheezing? And lastly, she thought, was she going crazy?

She did not want to talk about it. She did not want to talk to Kate, she did not want to talk to the school nurse, and she was sure as hell that she did not want to talk to her case manager. Vienna was sure her case manager would put a sticker on her file, some sort of code, suggesting that Vienna was a damaged good. They would try to medicate her or help her or worst of all, make her talk about her feelings.

There was nothing to talk about. The thing on her back was a rash. She had panic attacks. The only people she had loved were dead, and she was on her own for the rest of her life. Who would want to talk about any of that? Vienna lay in bed thinking.

She jerked awake early the next morning when it was still dark out. She lay there, wondering why her eyes had suddenly snapped open. Just as she started to drift back off to sleep, she heard it again, a scratching noise.

Peering out of the window, she saw the streetlights cast a dim glow, but nothing moved that she could see. Then she heard it again; the whisper of nails across the glass. She held her breath, telling herself that she must be dreaming, but the noise continued. She sat up, heart pounding. Someone was outside her window.

What she saw did not make any sense. There was a boy out there, his face floating just outside. He had cropped black hair, pale skin, and deep blue eyes, and he put his long, graceful fingers against the window and tapped. Though Vienna wanted to scream, it felt as if she were in a dream; a trance; and her voice was nowhere to be found. She got out of bed and went closer. The boy looked familiar, maybe a few years older than her, but she did not know him from school. Still, when he put his palm against the glass, Vienna put hers on the other side. As if she were trying to touch him.

A noise came from the street, and he turned, his dark hair reflecting what remained of the moonlight. He turned back quickly and tapped the window one last time. Then he disappeared. Actually, he did not disappear rather he vanished in thin air.

Vienna stumbled back to her bed, mind racing. That was a dream, wasn't it? she asked herself. A handsome, strange boy was not really floating outside her window... was he?

She tried to fall back to sleep, but the question that had bubbled earlier boiled up to the surface again. Was she... Was she going crazy?

                                                                                  **********

Mrs. Zeenia Davies banged on her door. "Vienna, wake up!" The alarm on her phone buzzed. 

The cacophony of noise finally roused her. She sat bolt upright in bed, sun streaming through her empty window. "I am awake. I am awake." She slapped her phone and tried to tidy her hair, which was knotted and tangled in an unruly heap. 

Mrs. Davies knocked but did not wait before sticking her face in the room. "Your alarm has been going off for fifteen minutes. It was bothering the twins." Her voice trembled as if she were simultaneously afraid to scold Vienna and delighted that someone had bothered the twins. 

"Sorry. I guess I overslept," Vienna said.

She nodded, distracted by a crash and the girls yelling from down the hall. "You will be late for school. Start moving on," Mrs. Davies said.

"Yes, ma'am." As soon as Mrs. Davies closed the door, Vienna shot to the window but found no evidence of the boy from the previous night. She gazed at the ground, oddly dejected. Of course, it had been a dream. She was on the second floor of an old Edwardian house. If he had been real, he would have needed a ladder to look in her window. And that would have been really creepy.

She scrambled to the shower and used half a bottle of conditioner to help her comb out the knots in her hair. After putting her clothes on, she flew down the stairs. She did not want to be late for school. She needed to stay with the herd, the pack. The less attention she drew to herself, the better.

"You don't have time for breakfast, I guess?" Mrs. Davies shoved a granola bar at her. "The school nurse called up. She said to make sure that you eat something."

Vienna's cheeks flushed. She did not want to get Mrs. Davies in trouble. "Sorry about that."

"It is okay. Just eat." Mrs. Davies smiled at her. "Girls, say bye to Vienna, okay?"

One of the twins stuck her tongue at Vienna, and the other one picked her nose.

"Bye, girls!" Vienna shoved the granola bar into her pocket, vowing to eat it before class.

As she rushed down the street, Vienna thought about her dream. The school was only half a mile away, so she slowed down a bit and took out the granola bar, half lost in her thoughts and half hoping her hair would dry a little before the first period. 

She kept thinking, what was that dream about? The boy had been so handsome, startling so. His black hair was close-cropped, showing off his chiseled features and prominent cheekbones, and he had dark deep blue eyes fringed by thick lashes. Vienna did not understand why he had felt so familiar or why she had been drawn to him. She did not think she had ever seen him before. Yes, he was handsome, but he had been floating outside her bedroom window at four o'clock in the morning. What was attractive about that?

But she remembered how she had felt when he vanished. She had been heartbroken.

Vienna shook her head as she finished the granola bar. It was a crazy dream, but at least it was something to think about. As she stepped inside the school, she had a lighter step than she'd had in months.