Wanted By The Vampire King

Her chest laboured up and down as she ran around the busy marketplace, there were noises all over as she manoeuvred her way deeper into the market, she was being careful of objects that could harm her and large people that could knock her down. A wide smile appeared on her lips when she caught a glimpse of it, the shop she had always visited no matter how busy she might be or the punishment that awaited her at home, she didn’t care and never will.

“Danika!” An old woman called out from the shop when she stood there, with her hands on her chest as she tried to catch her breath. She looked up with a smile on her face and walked further into the shop, slightly closing her eyes as a bright smile glowed on her face for nowhere in this world had ever felt like home to her like this shop.

She crouched down on her usual spot and gladly collected the water Faline offered to her. She waited until she had calmed down before she greeted the old woman, “Good evening, Faline.”

Faline went back into the shop as she mumbled, “I told you to stop running around in this market, didn’t I? How could you get a husband if you kept doing things this way?” That forced a burst of rustling laughter out of her. No one had ever related her with marriage but Faline and she wondered why. Besides, she knew that even if she did want to get married no one will marry her in Dewhurst, for a lady only got married when her family wanted her to and took her to the Runaways that took place after every three months.

Her father had never taken her to one, no one even thought of her as a girl that came to the age of marriage or even related her to it. She was just Danika, the girl everyone maltreated and go scot-free, for she had no one to stand for her. And it was good to say in Faline, she found the home and family she had never had.

She stood and walked into the shop, helping Faline in handing the goods a customer had bought. She waited until she watched him leave before she turned to her with a smile, “I told you, Faline, that I’ll never get married. Even if Papa will take me to the runaway this month, which I know he never will, I’ll never get a husband.” She sounded so sure and confident in the fact that no one will ever want her.

Faline softly smacked her head before she pulled the lunch she had always kept for her, “Here, eat this before you go back home.” She sat beside her as Danika immediately ventured into the meal, “And I’ve always told you, Danika, you’ll find a husband that no girl in Dewhurst will ever get even if they were to kill a thousand people. Just wait and see.”

She mumbled incoherently with her mouth filled with food when Faline uttered the words she had found a liking in, which Danika knew will never happen. They spent over an hour in the shop as she helped Faline with everything that she wanted and it was only late evening before she decided to go back home when Faline was about to close her shop for the day.

With a thumping heart and hands that had already got sweaty due to what she knew she had to expect, Danika walked into the house, making sure she walked soundlessly to her room, which was the attic. Some days sleeping in the attic had been her worse nightmare, there were scorpions, cockroaches and whatnot, but she was now accustomed to everything and it felt as though they knew her too. None of them bothered her anymore.

“Mama! Danika is just back and she’s trying to get to her room!” Riah, her stepsister shouted toward her mother and Danika knew it was time to stop playing the hiding game. She had been caught, she had always been caught and by no one but Riah.

She fixed her composure and looked up at Riah that was flashing her a smug look and Danika quickly looked away. There were times when she wanted to give her a medicine of her own but she could not, even though she was a year older than her. To her, Riah wasn’t a younger sister but a nightmare and she dare not even speak back to her!

She wasn’t expecting the smack that got in contact with her nape and she crouched down almost immediately at the pressure her stepmother, Lamya used in hitting her. “Didn’t I tell you to stop going to the marketplace? Are you trying to find a husband or what?”

What was with everyone today and talking to her about a husband? Even though she knew that Faline meant her good when she spoke to her about a husband but for these people, she was certain they belittled her and thought she would have to stay with them until her last breath. Somehow, somewhere within her mind, she wanted what Faline said to be true. She wanted to show these people who she was.

Papa walked through the front of them and he found that in that situation as Lamya scolded her over and over again. “Papa, I…” she began, but the sound of his belt on her was what made her shrill in a cry as Lamya kept conveying to him how Riah had found her in the company of another man and she had to beg her before she came back home.

He kept beating her to the point that Danika could not even cry and all her lungs were extinguished by her lack of energy and if she could add, her skin felt like burnt skin and it hurt as hell should. He beat her to his satisfaction and mercilessly threw her out of his way as he stomped to his room. He looked up to see Riah and Lamya smiling wickedly at her, this is what Lamya did, she hardly beat herself but she would do all she could to see that it was the Papa she thought loved her will treat her this way.

She picked herself from the floor and walked up to the attic, she had to cry her eyes out. Not because of the pain of the beating she had got, but for the way, her heart ached. She heard the sound of laughter and from the corner of her eyes she could see how lovingly Lamya had held her daughter and Danika wanted nothing but the arms of her mother.