Chapter 9

I didn't sleep that night - I was too busy tossing and turning, thinking about what Chase had said.

It was five a.m. by the time my eyelids started to droop, but then that horrible bell sounded. Chase again was up and ready to go and Scarlett wasn’t even in her bed. I didn’t think she even stayed here last night. I was overtired and so I wasn’t as irritable. Chase was very surprised at this. He quickly vacated the room so that I could get dressed into my Paramore t-shirt and my black jeans and then when I came out, he was waiting for me on the platform, ready to escort me downstairs and to my first class. When I got there, I saw Mr. Gabrielle smiling at the front of the classroom, but no-one was even in the classroom yet. I walked in reluctantly, wondering where everybody was - if they were sane, they’d all still be in bed, trying to block out the horrible bell that woke everyone up in the morning at some ungodly hour. Eventually, everybody came swarming in, each in little packs, ready to begin another boring lesson on Lycanthrope Culture. Adam didn’t make it. Today was going to be a brilliant day, I decided and so it began.

Mr. G was talking about how we originated and it was kind of the shortened version of what Chase had told me last night except there was only two details that Chase had missed out. The woman - or the witch - who had casted the spell on both Valeska and Mavra, her name was Magus Alena or ‘light.’ And I couldn’t remember the other one. Sav and Paul were doodling in their books and the rest of us were bored and restless. I was especially because I lacked concentration when I had no sleep. Slowly, the hands on the clock ticked and I wanted the bell to go for breakfast so bad because there was no possible way I would make it through the next few classes a) as tired as I was and b) without any energy. My looking at the clock of course made it tick slower and so the class dragged on like nobody’s business. Mr. G was even yawning at how slow the class was going. When it was finally over, I walked out of the classroom and started making my way through the corridors that were filled with lockers, linoleum floors and big white walls. There were these two girls leaning against their lockers, twirling their blonde hair around their fingers and then I saw Charlie come out of the girls’ bathroom. When Charlie started down the hallway, they started whispering and then one of them wearing a pink mini-skirt and a pink singlet top stopped her in her tracks, “hey, you’re the lesbian that hangs around Ashley Jacobs aren’t you?” She smiled venomously. Charlie rolled her eyes and shook her head. She was beyond people like this. Her friend giggled like a little girl and then she fired an insult.

“Ew, at least do your hair when you wake up in the morning! That’s disgusting!” I really wanted to go up to them and give them a piece of my mind, but I had to think about this; deal with this rationally...

“Hey! You have no right to go around and b***h at my friends just because your life sucks, okay?” I told them and they looked a little taken aback. Scratching her head, the girl that made the first comment to Charlie looked at me with an unimpressed and bitter look.

“And you have no right to speak to us like that,” she said, her high-pitched voice would really get on my nerves.

“Here’s an idea, if you stop being a b***h, then you won’t get called that.” That was definitely a no-brainer, but they didn’t seem to know that. Rolling their eyes and sighing impatiently, the girls turned to go to breakfast.

History of lycanthropes was a pretty cool subject when you got past all of medieval origins because it was mainly focusing on the feud of vampires and lycans and that included somewhat fighting, so it was bearable. I looked around my class a lot and noticed that most of the rooms in the school looked the same; fluorescently lit and the desks were in an organised cluster with seven rows and seven columns. I got out my pen and paper and began doodling all over everything and because I can’t draw for nuts, I only drew triangles and tried to make something awesome out of them, but my tired brain didn’t want to work with me. Instead, I sat through the rest of the lesson just fiddling with my pen and then the bell went for art class.

Tikaye was waiting for me in art and all we did there was muck around and write out lyrics to our favourite songs and speak about loads of random stuff. I found out who the girls that were giving Charlie a hard time were. Their names were Chelsea and Stacey and they had always been the school b*****s as far as Tikaye was concerned. They were in Strategy three and Combat two and apparently they were the average classes. It was quite intriguing to find out how much those two girls got on everyone’s nerves. Adam had them twisted around his little finger and they would do anything for him; that was what I’d heard by Scarlett anyway. Scarlett hated their guts as well, if I recalled. We’d spoken about it on the way back up to the dormitory one time. Lunch was so much better because I’d almost stopped being a zombie by about twenty-five percent. When I’d made my way to the lunch table with Tikaye, I saw Chelsea and Stacey picking on Charlie again. That was so it. I was so going to go over there and punch them but then something stopped me. Anton Trezman was walking towards the three to break it up and I caught a glimpse of Chelsea’s body language. She had a little crush on Anton. I was amused to have a thought spring to mind. He was really into his strategy and she sucked at it, so she’d never have a chance. Yeah, her life did suck, but that was still no excuse to bully Charlie. Eventually, the two clones moved away from Charlie and then Ash appeared beside her and they got their breakfast together. I went to line up to get mine and then I realised someone may take the table and so I waited. Jake was nowhere to be seen today and I really wanted to know why. There was only one person who would know and that would be Charlie. Eventually, Charlie, Tikaye and Ash came to the table and I went to get my breakfast.

“Charlie,” I asked when I got back to the table, “Have you seen Jake?” She was too engaged in conversation and laughter with Ash to give me a straight answer until after a while when she looked at me completely sober,

“No, I haven’t seen him since yesterday, sorry, Avril,” she told me. Chase had finally joined us and I didn’t feel out of place anymore. I was looking forward to strategy class and combat class because I loved those two subjects. Chase was smiling when he saw us all, but I looked at him harder and saw a tint of sadness in his eyes but it was very faint. It was like he’d always sad but when he was with us, some of that sadness disappeared and he was able to be genuinely happy. Somehow, I got the impression he was holding back from telling me or any of us something that was secretly eating him up inside. I decided to keep an eye on him. So that made two people whom I was keeping an eye on.

Math and science were next on the list. Core subjects - great. I was never any good at core subjects, unless it was English. I went to math and took notes, not really taking anything in. Tiredness was definitely taking its toll. I got issued a test because I was new and needed to be graded into obtuse, regular or accelerate - dumb, average or smart pretty much. I looked around the classroom to see who I knew and then I saw Sav but not Paul. They were like the best of friends and one looked strange without the other. It was just like Fred and George Weasley in Harry Potter - one was not complete without the other. I sat beside Sav, who was a little anxious today for some reason.

“Sav, are you okay?” I asked, genuinely concerned for him because his eyes showed that he was afraid of something immensely. He smiled at me sweetly and then replied,

“Oh, yeah, it’s just... yeah, nothing.” He shrugged. Okay, that was not ‘nothing’. I refused to be told otherwise and so I was persistent. I wasn’t nosey, just... inquisitive.

“Spit it out,” I told him and he looked at me with a look that said, ‘you-are-so-creepy.’ I didn’t understand why though; it was just a simple way of reading people.

“It’s just something that I saw last night,” he shrugged, “in a dream. It was just a nightmare.” Oh, I was certainly no stranger to them. I always had my nightmares about vampires in capes chasing after me. But I was never as frightened of my nightmares as Sav seemed to be of his.

“What was it about? Talking helps,” I prompted, using my lame excuse. It worked every time with Charlie, so I hoped it would work with Sav.

“It was about Emilee Valeska,” the scary kid that called me dark for no apparent reason, yes? Carry on. “She was lost inside the forest surrounding this place and she was getting taken by the vampires and then she suddenly got bitten and changed from lycan status to vampire status.” He told me. I knew that was the shortened version because he knew wouldn’t understand most of what he had to say anyway, so in a way, it was specially formatted for yours truly. I was left imagining Emilee running, lost in the woods with no direction when I had to make my way to science class.

Science was definitely going to be unbearable because Chelsea and Stacey had been moved up to our class. Let the good times roll. We were partnered up people and I just happened to be partnered with Chelsea. This was definitely not going to end well.

“Hey, you’re Lezzy’s friend, right?” It took every single ounce of my self-control to stop myself from telling her to f**k off and leave me alone. I had to work with her and I thanked the lord above it would only be for an hour. After this, we were allowed to go to the best class ever. We were doing a practical and it involved burning plastic to try and create something out of it. Oh, I wanted to burn plastic alright; there was a whole person of it right beside me. We all had to wear masks of course. Even through the masks, she could still make her bitchy comments about Charlie and I. “So, you and Lezzy; are you guys like together or something?” Chelsea asked me happily. I should have turned the sarcasm on and said, ‘we’re hardcore fruits!’ but she wouldn’t understand it, so instead, I didn’t reply. “I bet cha all the guys are like your besties because like you would not fit in with the girls.” Not the s**t-type of girls anyway, I thought, but didn’t say anything. I let the anger boil in my blood. Just a few more hours and then I could punch someone to let off steam. If only Chelsea was in my combat class.

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