Royal Blood Read Free

off.
     
    “ You okay, honey?”
     
    “ Yeah, I’m fine , Mom, just had a long night. And I miss Alex,” I lied.
     
    “ You wanna talk about it?” Mom had always been, aside from Alex, the one person I could talk to about any of my problems, no matter what it was. She was my best friend. I couldn’t tell her about the dreams though, and definitely not about the money. She would flip out as badly as Alex would. Who was I kidding, who wouldn’t?
     
    “ No , Mom, it’s fine. I’ll just clean up the house a bit and finish reading my book.”
     
    “ Okay, Christina. I love you.”
     
    “ Love you too, Mom.”
     
    “ Same time tomorrow?”
     
    “ Yeah sure.”
     
    “ Okay, bye.”
     
    “ See ya.”
     
    I fumbled my way through the next few hours trying to keep myself busy—laundry, dishes, dusting, vacuuming twice, and I finally gave up. I decided to finish reading A Farewell to Arms . I had a goal set for myself to read all of the books on the top 100 list of best books of our time, and with Alex gone, I was actually making pretty good progress. I read only a few pages when suddenly the images in my mind shifted.
     
     
     
    * * *
     
    I was back in that city, the oval city of dirt roads and concrete buildings. Again, it seemed totally abandoned. Fear consumed my body as I forced myself to slowly turn to see what I knew would be in front of me. And there she was, there I was, in the same robe as the last time, but with the hood pulled back. We stood staring at each other, but this time she didn’t speak.
     
    “ Who are you?” I whispered.
     
    “ It is time,” is all the booming male voice said.
     
    “ Time for what?” I yelled frantically.
     
    Then, in a barely audible voice that sounded more like ringing bells than that of a child, she shrieked, “You must save us! You must come back!” and then bright red blood flowed from her eyes and she collapsed.
     
     
     
    * * *
     
    A loud ringing in my ears awoke me, and at first I didn’t realize it was me screaming. Again tears were flow ed from my face. I was terrified.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Two
     
     
     
     
     
    My head was pounding when my breath caught.
     
    “ Ugh, another headache,” I complained. I ’d ha d them as long as I could remember.
     
    I rolled over and closed my eyes, not daring to sleep again and stayed there the rest of the day. I didn’t know what else to do. My headaches we re an unstoppable force of nature—the kind where you get the blurred vision and see spots and everything. A n aura, I think they call it. I have been on every medication known to man and nothing helps. Just sleep and darkness.
     
    I was startled when I woke to a dim light shining through my window. It was morning again. I sighed, relieved to have survived a night free of my nightmare.
     
     
     
    * * *
     
    Meeting Mom was uneventful, aside from t he way her eyes studied my ever- bland appearance and my lack of a jacket, but the cold never really seemed to bother me as much as it did her.
     
    See, while I was perfectly content with my average and typical blue - jean and a tan k-t op kind of appearance, accented by my boring but b eautiful long hair, my mother wa s the exact opposite.
     
    She has wild, but beautiful curly dark brown hair and stunning chocolate eyes, while mine are a light, almost fluorescent, blue. She has very tan skin and curves in all the right places, while I am much skinnier. She is also always dressed for a runway, a trait I obviously got passed by on the DNA train. All in all, I look nothing like her. She always tells me I look like my father, whom of course I have never met. I had never even seen a picture of him.
     
    We talked about Alex and Michael, my stepfather, and she held me a little too long when we parted. I guess she sensed I wasn’t quite myself a little bit better than I wanted her to.
     
    I went home in fear of what the night would bring, but I awoke again Monday morning from a