1046 Chapter 31- Zayden – Sleepover Part 3 (VOLUME 6)
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Zayden
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My brothers and I were each allowed to invite two friends each to the party that we were having. That would be six total friends for us, and I thought that was more than fair. Yes, Zaley had three guests, but two of them were family so it didn’t count. And there would still be more of us than there were of them.
The party was going to start out as one big event, but I was pretty sure that we were going to split into smaller parties before the night was over. We had a lot of things that were planned for our friends, but not all of them needed to happen in the communal room.
Just in case though, an empty room on the kids’ floor had been turned into a makeshift party room. Because the rooms were so large it was more than big enough for the nine of us. There were nine twin sized beds on one side of the room where we could all sleep if we wanted to, as well as extra twin sized beds added to our rooms so that we could separate if we had to.
Also in the room, aside from the beds, there were nine TVs that were hooked up and placed on the walls at various places. This was so that if we wanted to play video games as a group, we would be able to. Or if we wanted to play an individual game, that was an option as well. There were dart guns, laser tag guns, tables piled with junk food, and so much more. Because there were more of us, we were told that we would be able to use the theater room to watch movies if we wanted to. Especially considering that Reagan was going to be with us as well, bringing our total to ten during most of the party.
As soon as our friends had arrived, Kent and Gavin for me, Leroy and Parker for Zachary, and Tanner and Diego for Zander, we started with dinner. We were all hungry and wanted to have some of Abigail’s delicious cooking. None of our friends had had any of Abigail’s cooking aside from the holiday parties, so they were excited to try some of the more normal foods. And her homemade pizzas were amazing.
There were piles of food other than the pizza though. There were burgers, fries that never seemed to get soggy, and so much more. It was all so delicious, so we ate and ate until we all felt like we were going to burst. Then we ate some more because, why not?
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After the food was gone, it was time to get the party started. We decided to work off some of the food that we just ate by playing football in the room. With Reagan we had two teams of five. It was fun, and I was glad that we weren’t in any of our bedrooms, because things would have definitely been broken. As it is, I was shocked that we hadn’t broken the TVs and game systems that were in the room with us.
When we did finally sit down to start playing games, we also started to talk about different things. I think that the topic of our friends finally being allowed to come over was the first thing that our friends brought up. It was mostly Zachary’s friend Leroy who asked about this.
“So, why now? Why are we allowed to be here now all of a sudden?” He sounded a little angry as he asked this. I think he had felt like he wasn’t a true friend because he hadn’t been allowed to come up to our rooms before. “And we’re not really invited to your place because we’re not in your room.” He still seemed really angry.
“Well, we can move to my room later. My brother thought that a central place for our party would be better to start.”
“Uh huh.” Leroy looked at Reagan. “And why do we need a babysitter? We’re at your house. What are we going to do? Run away?” He was starting to sound really rude, and I saw that Reagan wasn’t happy with him.
“He’s not a babysitter. He just wanted to help with the party. He’s our brother, so there is nothing wrong with that.”
“Seems to me like he is here because he doesn’t trust us.” Leroy glared at Reagan.
“Do you have a reason not to be trusted?” Reagan asked him with his eyes narrowed. “I am not here as a chaperone. I am here to help my brothers in any way that I can.”
“Yeah, sure you are.” Leroy took his eyes off of our brother and avoided the question. I didn’t like that. It made me feel strange. I had never felt like this before. Not really. It was like something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. I could feel a prickling on the back of my neck and a twisting in my gut. It was like some weird anticipation and nervousness at the same time. What was happening?
I let it slide for a few moments though, because Leroy had stopped talking about that. And things started to move onto other topics. We were talking about the movies that we wanted to watch and the other things that we were going to do for the night. Then Leroy asked something that I knew made us all mad.
“Is your sister going to be there?” He asked when Zander had mentioned the theater room.
“No. Zaley is having her own party and Rika and Talia are with them right now.” Reagan answered for us.
“Good.” Leroy’s voice sounded mean and nasty at that moment.
“Why is that good? I mean, I am glad that my sister is having her own party, she is having fun with our sisters and her friends.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want to see Zaley at all.” He shuddered like he was scared or disgusted about something.
“And why is that?” Zachary snapped at him. Never mind that this was his own friend that he had invited over here.
“I have just been hearing a lot about her lately. Like, I know you all have to love her because she is your sister, but even you must be scared of her and want her to just go away.” He looked like he was about to go on a tirade that was sure to make me angry. And I could tell that all my brothers were feeling the same way.
“I am sorry, but I don’t know what you are talking about.” Zander growled at him. “We love our sister very much and we definitely don’t want her gone.”
“Why not?” Leroy looked taken aback. “I wouldn’t want a sister that was like that. I mean, you do know who she is, right? Who she is the reincarnation of?”
“Yeah, our grandfather, Edmond. He was a bad guy when he was alive, but he changed when his soul went to the underworld. We were there with our mother when he saved us. Back when she was pregnant with us. And Zaley would not have lived if it wasn’t for our Grandfather Edmond giving her his soul. So yeah, we are happy that she is here. She is a good person. And she would never hurt anyone.” Zachary explained this to his friend and hoped that it would be the end of it. Too bad that it wasn’t.
“OK, you say that now, but I bet you that she will grow up to hurt just as many people as that bad warlock did. He was evil, and she is too.”
“SHUT UP!” I jumped to my feet from the poufy beanbag chair that I had been sitting in and leapt to stand in front of Leroy. I wasn’t the only one either. Zachary and Zander were right there with me.
“DON’T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT OUR SISTER LIKE THAT!” Zander screamed at him.
“IT IS PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT MAKE PEOPLE MISERABLE! DID YOU KNOW THAT OUR GRANDFATHER WAS A GOOD KID, BUT PEOPLE TREATED HIM BAD BECAUSE HE LOOKED DIFFERENT!? SO JUST SHUT UP!” Zachary was screaming at him as he shook in anger.
“OUR SISTER WILL NEVER BE A BAD PERSON, BUT YOU ARE!”
“Calm down.” Reagan stepped closer to us and put his hand on mine and Zachary’s shoulders. “It’s OK, you three. Just calm down.” He spoke soothingly to us, but when he turned his eyes onto Leroy, I saw that they turned cold and angry, and so did his tone of voice. “As for you, I think that you should leave. As my brothers have stated, we love our sister. She is a beautiful person inside and out. And we will not stand for someone that doesn’t treat her right.”
“Whatever.” Leroy rose to his feet. “My parents didn’t even want me here in the first place. They said that anyone that loved a monster like that girl shouldn’t be my friends. I thought that you all just tolerated her because she was your family. I never knew that you loved that little bitch.”
“CRACK!”
I had lost control at that moment. My hand shot out and slapped Leroy’s face so hard that the sound echoed throughout the room, even louder than the video games that were paused and still making noise.
“What the hell!?” He looked at me angrily.
“Be glad that is all it was.” I snarled at him. “Don’t you ever call my sister that name again. And I can guarantee that your parents will be hearing from our family. You don’t know what it means to mess with the royal family, do you? Your stupidity will not be tolerated.”
“Fuck you, Zayden. Fuck all of you.”
“Zip it.” Reagan snapped at him. “Do not say another damned word while you are in this castle. We will have one of our guards drive you home. And do not even think about badmouthing Zaley in front of her.”
“Oh, why not? Think you can control them now as well?” He glared at Reagan in defiance.
“No. It’s because she is Zaley’s guard, and she is quite devoted to her charge. And she is a very powerful witch. I wouldn’t play games with her if I were you.” That was diabolical of our brother, but it was also perfect.
“Your-.”
“Shut up.” Reagan snapped at him again. “I don’t want to hear it.” He stopped Leroy from speaking again as he texted Holly. She was going to just love Leroy. He better hope he didn’t piss her off too much. She was the vindictive type.
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Thankfully, after Leroy left, the party moved on and started to get better. The others, who had been mostly silent during the incident, made sure to tell us that they weren’t like Leroy.
“I like Zaley, she is super nice.” Tanner said as he looked at the door. “Leroy is an idiot.”
“Yeah, don’t listen to Leroy.” Parker said soothingly.
“We would never be mean to Zaley. She is too nice for that.” Kent assured me.
“I don’t know why someone would be mean to a friend’s sister. It’s stupid.” Gavin clapped me on the back.
“Come on, let’s have a good time without him here. And now that he is gone, Reagan can play games with us. He can take Leroy’s place.” Diego grinned. “This is a better party now that he is gone.”
We all felt a lot better when our remaining friends showed that they weren’t like Leroy, it helped us to calm down. And when we all had large pieces of chocolate cake while we played the games it helped out a lot. None of us wanted to think about the fact that a friend had turned into an enemy so quickly.
After the video games, we ended up going to the theater room and turning on a scary movie marathon. We had popcorn, soda, candy, and more chocolate cake. It was delicious, and perfect.
I knew that we all needed to calm down, and thankfully, we were able to do just that. The movies were so good that it literally pushed all thoughts of Leroy the loser from our minds. We watched three of them, not finishing until around two in the morning. We were mostly asleep when we turned off the last movie and dragged ourselves back to the party room that we had. It was time for us to get some sleep.
Reagan was about to leave, most likely to go back to his own room to sleep, but we told him that he didn’t have to.
“Come on, Reagan. You’re as much a part of this party as we are.” Diego told him. “Stay here. And we can tell scary stories until we fall asleep.”
“You’re sure that you don’t mind having their big brother here with you?” He looked surprised.
“No, you’re cool. And I want to be like you when I grow up.” Tanner told him happily.
“Aww, thanks little buddy.” Reagan looked so happy to hear that that he decided to stay.