Read Online Aurora Sky: Vampire Hunter by Nikki Jefford - Free Book Online

this is where the hottest party of the year
is being held. Who knew?”
    I drank and danced. I used the bottle as a microphone and
discarded it when it was empty. There was more downstairs, but the cellar was a
long way down, and I was feeling lightheaded. Bed was looking good, but it
wasn’t even midnight yet.
    Finally I collapsed on top of the blankets. I hadn’t fallen
asleep so heavily since the accident. The moment my head hit the pillow, I was
gone. Sweet oblivion until I woke sometime in the middle of the night. My room
was shrouded in darkness. I knew I’d left the light on before falling asleep.
    What concerned me more was I could hear breathing that
wasn’t my own.
    Two sick yellow eyes glowed from a twisted face. He wore the
same dirty flannel shirt. I sat up in bed. “What are you doing here? I killed
you.”
    He grinned and approached slowly.
    My hands trembled above the covers. “I’m warning you. Get
out of here. You’re not real.” I covered my head in my hands and rocked myself.
“You’re not real.” I squeezed my eyes shut. When I reopened them his teeth were
affixed to my neck. I screamed. I began flailing against the covers all the
while screaming to a shattering pitch. “You’re not real!”
    “Aurora! Aurora, wake up.” My mother shook me.
    Didn’t she get it? I was awake. I’d always been awake. I
slapped at her and resumed the fetal position, face in my knees and arms
covering my head.
    “My God, what’s wrong with her?”
    There was an edge to my father’s voice. I didn’t have to
look at him to know his jaw bones were clenched around his chin. I listened
from the safety of my tight enclosure.
    “It’s just a nightmare.”
    “It’s more than that. She hasn’t been right since the
accident.”
    “We have to give her time, Bill. Bill?”
    My parents’ voices moved out of my room. They crossed the
hall into the master suite, fainter now.
    “Bill, what are you doing?”
    “I’m packing a bag.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “Somewhere I can get a decent night’s sleep.”
    I smiled inside my cocoon, not because I thought it was
funny, not because I was glad, but because I couldn’t help it. People reacted
so predictably under pressure. Running was the easiest course of action. If
only I could run away too.
    My father’s footsteps moved in a flurry around the room down
the hall. It wasn’t until he’d zipped his bag that my mother attempted to
appeal to him one last time. “Bill, please don’t go.”
    He didn’t answer. His feet pounded down the stairs. I heard
him grab his set of keys from the hall table. He started his car in the garage
just below my bedroom. The garage door went up, and the car pulled out with a
roar then took off down the street.
    I heard my mother walk inside my room. “Your father needed
some time alone,” she said weakly.
    I kept my head planted in my knees.
    Mom rubbed my back. “My poor girl. You need to get better.
This needs to stop.”
    I lifted my head. “Don’t you get it? This is who I am now.
You signed the contract. It can never be undone.”
    “You don’t have to act this way. We can go back to the way
things were. You’re just not trying hard enough.” She looked at me with
pleading eyes.
    I sighed. “Get some rest, Mom. I’ll try not to bother you
with any more of my demonic dreams.”
    As predicted, my mother didn’t ask for details about the
aforementioned dreams. She kissed my forehead and shuffled into the empty bed
that awaited her. I lay back and stared at the ceiling. I shut my eyes, but he was
there looking at me again. He would always be looking at me. No matter what
he’d been, I’d killed him. I was a murderer.
     

 
     8

The Mouseketeers
     
    The throbbing inside my skull woke me the following
morning. I dragged myself downstairs and found my mom not looking so hot
herself. She wore a light blue robe and fuzzy slippers. Her face was puffy when
she looked up from her paper. She eyed the red scarf