Arranged Marriage of the darkest kind - satinangel (best large ereader TXT) 📗

I woke with a painful start. Not only was it a Monday morning and I had to get up early to go to school but I hit my head against the wall like I sometimes do when I have violently vivid dreams. I remember it as clearly as if it had actually happened as I have done pretty much my whole life.

The smell of salt water that hit my lungs was so overwhelming I had to take a few deep breaths to control my breathing. The sun setting beautifully in front of me, the ocean calm with a beauty could only be created by sometimes surreal and dream like. I felt the happiness and complete love wash over me as the same man I've been dreaming about for years wraps his arms around my waist and whispers
"Beautiful of this sight can only be improved by your very face" If I had been awake I would have punched him and called him a pervert but here, in his beautiful magically world of a man who was so in love with me it hurt at the sight of him. I run my hand down his cold cheek, he was always cold, never warm but somehow I set a warm shiver run through me as if the warmth I felt for him in my heart exploded and ran through the rest of me.

That's when the dream changed, the sand and sea were the same but the sun had been hidden beyond the world itself. My mystery man was still holding me close with his soft cold skin, but he was kissed my neck. No he was 'Biting' my neck. Just as the realisation and down-right fear came iver me as to 'what' he was I was kicking and screaming with all the energy I could muster but it seems my cries fell on deaf ears and just as I felt the familiar sensation of his teeth sinking in I awoke with a loud thumb and figiting due to fear.

These dreams were more common than not so another bruise on my head really wasn't anything too painful or stress related. What stressed me out was the sound I heard come from downstairs, not only did I her humming her happy tune, which was a sign that she was in her brighest of mood but from the smell of things she was cooking breakfast. Something she hadn't done since I got discharged from hospital after I broke my arm when I was nine.

I climb out of bed, got changed into my school clothes and set off downstairs hearing the sizzling of bacon and the apatising smell of freshly cooked eggs and a new pot of coffee. As I slide into the chair starring at her as she continues to dance around humming and enjoying the simple task of making breakfast. It wasn't that I wasn't greatful, of course I was she was my mother and I loved her, thankful to her for raising me but that didn't mean I wasn't suspicious. If there was one lesson you learned well in this house was to question everything and assume nothing and well... this was just down right strange, even for Mum and I was starring to assume there was some kind of bad news she wished to dawn on me. As to what news I would take so badly and her so well is another mystery in my life.

Mum never remarried after Dad disappeared that faithful night 4 years ago. I was barely old enough to understand he wasn't coming back let alone understand the difference betwewn 'dead' and 'disappeared' though thinking about it now it might as well have been the same thing. That guilt it was your fault, those hundreds upon hundreds of tears you cried at the memories you shared with them adn the realisation that life could still could go on without them. Some where deep down I knew that if the evidence does come to my attention that Dad is indeed dead I think I'll go through all that again because that tiny little fragment of me was hoping, pray beyong all things that he was alive just for some reason could not and would not come home to us.

Dad was a loving man. The best kind of man, he was the strong protective kind not that Mum or even me with my karate and judo lessons actually needed it, he was the soft understanding type, could tell what was wrong a mile off and then know where you needed an intervention or to be left alone to your thoughts. With how much he seemed to know about me I wondered if he could read minds. But most of all, the one thing even I couldn't do, he'd accept Mum's pasted, whatever little knowledge he had on the matter he trusted that Mum loved him and me and that we could a 'normal' family.

It wasn't that I had any reason to not be 'normal' it was just the evidence that we needed to be protected from danger that made me wonder. It started with the extra couple of bolts and locks on all doors and windows, then there was the £400 sercurity system and passcode that only me and Mum knew, but also the Judo and Karate lessons, the way some nights I would catch Mum starring out with window at sometimes a look of preparedness to face whatever danger was lurking on the opposite side of the street. I had asked her about it, heck I'd even gone as far to read her diary (which was completely useless) and even rading her wadrobe but all I found was a photo album of her with 4 other men including Dad smiling up to the camera, all the men look oddly pale and redeyed. On the left hand side was a young man, about 21 brown brownish hair with a cross around his neck and a smile that could only be discribed as cocky. Then there was Dad which his usual gentle smile and his blonde hair, the way I always remembered him. Then there was Mum looking the same as she does now.

Mum never changed, apart from the weight she put on and off at different times a year she looked the same back then as she did now. Then there was younger man, about 18 maybe and his smile seem there but not. It seemed only a tiny one he could muster for the photo but what got me was the sadness in his blueish red eyes. Then there was the other man who looked old than Dad with that 'wise' kind of smile playing on his lips as his eyes were cast over the group in apperication. Something about the group didn't sit right with me and all the other pictures were a mixture of those 5 people and a couple of other girls and boys adding to the frames the more into the album I got.

It wasn't just the album that didn't sit right with me. It was the fact that my own mother was almost a stranger to me which was hard to believe as she hummed her happy tune and flipped the pancakes.

"God Jen, don't scare your poor mother like that again" Rosie Wilkins, my mother said to me for the 5th time since she'd turned around to find me sitting at the table. She always jumped out of her skin and knocked over the juices she'd just poured for us. She clucthed her heart in that dramaticly 'Rosie' kind of way.

If there was one thing that could neve escape the notice of the people around my Mum was how much of a drama queen she was. Every little thing she would turn into some dramatic event that needs to be spoken and repeated still the other person would tell it word for word like her. I bite into another sausage and Mum gives that that gentle smile. That one you give someone when they are happily oblivious to the news you are about to them, that twinkle of hope that the truth wouldn't be too hurtful on the relationship. It was the few rare times I'd ever seen Mum so scared to be honest because she was usual so good at lying she could just make it seem the truth.

She just continued to stare at me as I eat, only vagely paying attention to her own breakfast. I couldn't take it any more. I needed to know what she was going to tell me and I needed to know before she decided it would be good to 'bond' before she would tell me. I slam my fork now on my plate, glarring up at her suddenly startled face.
"Seriously Mum just tell me whatever it is that's on the tip of your tongue or people do stop looking at me so strangely" I was expecting outrage at my tone, I was expecting a sudden denial of ever wanting to tell me. But what I wasn't expecting was for her to belt out a loud cackle of a laugh.

My anger was gone before I could even register why I should remain so and was quickly replaced with a look of deep confusion on my face.
"What's so funny?" I ask after she started calming down.
"Sorry-haha- it's just that-haha- For someoen who's so use to being lied to you can tell when someone wants to tell you the truth" I stayed silent wanting for her to continue but it seems she wasn't going too so I just snapped at her, the impatiences of the one thing I wanted to know but being in my knowledge yet.

"Well you would know wouldn't you" She sobered up at once and took a long gulp of her drink as an excuse as to not look me in the eye for a moment. She placed her glass down taking both our plates and putting them in the sink.

"Jen. Please you know I've explained this 'the less you know--'" I join in with the so overfully familiar pharse that when I heard it it was no more than a string of words that mad up a sentence "The safer you are" Mum slapped her mouth shut so tight I thought her lips were doing to disappear into her mouth. It was the look in her eyes but made me doubt myself for a second but then deciding I was too angry to care I stood up

"Mum. Do you think I like not knowing who my mother is? hmm? Do you think I like knowing that My own mother doesn't love me enough to be honest about