Chapter 7 Golden Girl

• 18 Years Later...
• The lights in the living room were dim, and if Octavia hadn’t been studying all night—leaving her so tired she felt she might actually pass out—seeing the two figures huddled on the sofa wouldn’t have been an issue. She was almost at the kitchen doorway when the sound of something shattering spooked her. There was a muffled groan and a curse. Octavia blinked into the darkness, willing her vision to pick out the cause of the noise. Nope, she was way too tired for this. If she forced it, she might end up with a migraine.
• She walked over to where she knew the light switch was and flicked it on. The room brightened, and a yelp echoed as a woman ducked her head to hide.
• “Mom! What are you even doing?” Octavia asked, mortified as she noticed her mother’s nakedness. Unsurprisingly, a head poked out from beneath the sofa cushions and flashed her an apologetic smile.
• “Sorry, baby girl. We were hoping you wouldn’t notice.”
• “You have a bedroom for a reason!” she whined, dreading the thought of ever sitting on her favorite sofa again without her mind conjuring up images of what her parents had been doing.
• Her dad seemed ready to make a snarky joke, but her mom smacked him before he could. Sometimes, Octavia forgot her parents weren’t actually teenagers—they didn’t seem to age because they weren’t human—but it was hard to ignore since they acted like it. She could practically get trauma from the number of times she’d walked in on them like this. “Whatever. Clean up the sofa, please.” She hurried to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, then darted upstairs to her room, determined not to deal with her parents for the rest of the early morning.
• She gulped down the water and climbed back into bed. She had school tomorrow, and with a bit of luck, she might actually get a few hours of good sleep. Yet, for the next thirty minutes, sleep refused to come. Frustrated, she reached for her phone and checked her messages. All were from the same person. Scrolling through the texts, she realized she couldn’t even decipher what they meant.
• “Jess must have drunk-texted me last night,” she muttered, rolling her eyes and tossing the phone aside. No doubt her friend would have plenty of gossip to share in class tomorrow.
• ---
• “Rise and shine, baby girl.” A hand ran through her dark hair. Octavia groaned and tried to bury herself deeper beneath the covers.
• “Come on. Mom made breakfast. You don’t wanna be late for school, do you?”
• “Dad, give me a moment, please.”
• “Hm.” She could feel him sniffing her for some bizarre reason. “Might want to get cleaned up?”
• “What?” Her eyes cracked open, and she stared at her dad’s handsome, youthful face in confusion. He made a swift motion with his hand and left the room just as Octavia shuffled to her feet. Much to her horror, she realized her pajama bottoms were clinging to her backside, with a bit of red staining the beautiful sheets she’d just cleaned yesterday.
• “Dammit.”
• She hurried to the bathroom to clean up before she could make an even bigger mess. Irritation flared as she remembered there was a PE session at school today. So many people—vampires and other supernaturals—would be mingling together, sweaty and worked up. Just perfect. She had hoped to have a good day at school for once.
• After completing her morning routine and getting dressed, Octavia went to the kitchen for breakfast.
• “Good morning, Kerry,” she greeted her mom.
• “Octavia, no,” Kerry replied with a roll of her eyes, though she still piled freshly made pancakes onto her daughter’s plate. People always said Octavia was a mirror image of her mother—with the same dark hair, dark eyes, and similar body type, not to mention a matching temperament at times. It didn’t help that Kerry didn’t look a day over nineteen. Octavia had even had friends crush on her dad before. Not a fun experience.
• Octavia ate while watching her mom take small bites of her own pancakes. Her mother wasn’t a vampire, though Octavia still didn’t know exactly what she was. She’d asked before, but her mom always brushed it off as unimportant.
• “Good morning, ladies,” her dad greeted as he entered the room.
• “Morning, babe,” Kerry responded, leaning in to kiss him.
• Octavia tried not to make a disgusted face. Her parents acted like they hadn’t been together for 18 years. “I’m off,” she said, grabbing her bag.
• “Do you need a ride? It’s on the way,” her dad offered.
• “Dad, I have a car.”
• “Yeah, I know you do.”
• “Be safe,” Kerry called after her, but her attention quickly shifted to her husband, whose hand was sneaking up her thigh. Octavia slammed the door shut behind her, fiercely rubbing her eyes to rid herself of the image. Dammit. She’d need to move out as soon as she graduated—thankfully, just three more months to go.
• ---
• “Hey, Via, looking good today,” a succubus called as Octavia walked into the classroom.
• “Hey, Lucy. Thanks—it’s probably the hair,” she replied.
• Octavia wouldn’t call herself a social butterfly, but she was nice enough, and she was also undeniably pretty. “The prettiest girl in school,” they said, which made her popular. Sometimes, though, the attention felt overwhelming. Supernaturals constantly complimented her scent, though humans never seemed to notice it. She suspected it was because her parents were of different races. Still, she had no idea what her mom even was. That half of her heritage remained a mystery.
• She settled into her usual seat at the back of the room, drowning herself in enough perfume to give her a headache, all in hopes of masking her scent from nosy individuals.
• “Smelling delicious, Jones,” someone behind her teased, winking flirtatiously.
• Octavia sank further into her seat, pretending to be dead. This was the kind of nonsense she had to deal with five days a month since she became, as her dad put it, “a big girl.” Thankfully, her best friend Jessica—dressed in leather and flaunting a skirt and top so small it should have gotten her detention—entered the classroom.
• “Hey, girl, I’ve got one hell of a story to tell you,” Jessica said as she dropped into the seat beside Octavia. Her nose wrinkled at the heavy perfume but chose not to comment. That’s why Octavia loved her.
• "I bet you do. Some wild pics of you going down on Devon in a bathroom stall have been circulating."
• "Shit. I asked that asshole not to take any pictures," Jessica said, rolling her eyes. Aside from that, she showed no concern about the photos. Compared to some of the other stuff she’d been involved in, this was pretty mild. "Anyway, we had some boys from FolksWood show up."
• "You mean the Catholic school?"
• "Yeah, how crazy is that? And trust me, those guys were wild. I hooked up with one of them—a cute ghoul with a tongue so long, I thought I could feel it in my stomach. Best night ever."
• "Good for you, Jess."
• "It’s such a letdown you couldn’t come."
• "My parents would never allow it. Plus, I had better things to do than hook up with strangers."
• "Oh, that reminds me. There was a guy at the party—the most gorgeous hunk I’ve ever seen, really. Bloody stunning. At first, I thought he was an incubus, but then I noticed the fangs. I tried to hook up with him, but he asked about you. And when I told him you didn’t come, he just disappeared."
• "He... asked about me?"
• "Yep. And he’s not from our school, either."
• "That’s weird."
• Octavia couldn’t help but wonder, though she didn’t dwell on it too much. Maybe he was someone she’d served at the café when she worked there for a short time, mostly to accompany Jessica, who’d been saving up for a Versace purse that cost way too much money.
• The rest of the school day dragged on for hours. When the bell finally rang, Octavia was more than ready to go home. She headed to the parking lot and froze at the sight of someone leaning casually against her brand-new Mercedes.
• Blond hair, blue eyes, and a face more striking than an incubus. As she approached, the stranger noticed her and grinned, revealing sharp fangs peeking out from his full lips.
• A vampire.