I knew I needed a plan, but my brain wasn't really cooperating. I decided to sleep on it and worry tomorrow. At least it would be Saturday, that was always guaranteed to brighten any teenager's outlook on life.
I woke up the next morning and headed downstairs. My mom was home and she was staring at me curiously as I searched through the kitchen trying to find breakfast.
"You didn't go hunting last night?" she asked. I couldn't really blame her for being surprised, I always hunted on Fridays. I honestly couldn't remember the last time I had been home on a Friday night.
"I didn't feel like it," I answered.
She frowned, "Evelyn, when I restricted your hunting privileges, it wasn't to stop you from hunting. And, I can't lift the restriction if you decide to boycott it."
"I'm not boycotting anything, I just felt like staying home last night. I'm going hunting tonight. I'll call Ethan to see if he can go with me okay?" I reassured her.
She pursed her lips and surveyed my face. I think she might have been regretting my new restrictions on hunting, but I'm not entirely sure.
"I'm going to be with the Administratio all day if you need me, alright?" she told me.
Administratio is the Latin equivalent for government. The members of the Administratio were the ten hunters that made and enforced all the rules. Back when it was first formed they had unlimited power and did basically anything they wanted, but over the years they became a lot fairer.
Technically, they still have a lot of power over the rest of the hunters. Way more than the American government has over its citizens. The Administratio is the group that decides the rules and punishments. They also decided who gets into their elite group and who gets out. They even used to be able to decide how many people were in the Administratio. Sometimes there were five members, other times there were fifteen. It was only about eighty years ago that everyone decided it should have ten members, five male, five female. Also, most of the time they're the only ones who vote, the only time the rest of the hunting population gets a say is when there's a tie.
The system seems a little harsh, but no governing system is perfect and ours works as well as anyone else's. The Administratio isn't a group of strict, stuck up, know it alls either, they can actually be really flexible, even though they do have a lot of power.
After my mom left, Cheryl and Nicole both had things to do, so they would be gone all day. Olivia, the only late sleeper in the house, woke up at eleven and then she went to the mall with her friends leaving me with the house to myself.
I spent most of my day trying to figure out ways to get Anthony. I couldn't attack him in school, and while I didn't think he would do anything there either, I wasn't taking any chances. I would follow my mom's advice about taking a knife to school, and I would coat it in the strongest poison we had. My school wasn't a bad one, so the security there was pretty lax, we didn't have metal detectors, we didn't have to wear ID badges, and the number of security guards was fairly limited, if I brought a knife and left in it in my backpack no one would ever know.
I called Ethan and asked if he wanted to go hunting with me later that night. He agreed, which wasn't surprising. Later that night, we were in South Beach near a new club that seemed to be popular amongst the vampires. It might seem strange to humans that there were vampires living in Florida, "the sunshine state," but that's because only the stereotypes get burned by sunlight. Sunshine has no effect on vamps whatsoever, although, if they did get burned by the sun, it would make my job so much easier.
Since we have teleportation powers, we can hunt just about anywhere in the world that we want. One of the biggest perks to being a hunter is being able to go to wherever your heart pleases. I've been to New York, Hollywood, Las Vegas, Paris, and a ton of other places that people would kill to go to, for free. I would consider myself extremely lucky, if I hadn't been to all those places to catch evil, bloodsucking vampires.
"Did you hear that?" Ethan asked me.
"Yeah," I answered. "It sounded like bones breaking."
We ran to an empty back road to find a vamp standing over a girl. She was blond, a little chubby, and appeared to be drunk. A closer look told me her leg was broken.
"No wait don't do it." her words were slurred. "No I can't get pregnant, my parents will kill me."
She thought he was going to rape her. Some vamps just feed and then kill; they do it without caring about how painful it is, or how much their victims scream. Others, like this one, played with their food. They had sick, twisted minds, and tortured people before they drank. It actually wasn't uncommon for them to rape people either. Some are even worse, my dad once dealt with a vamp that used to skin his victims alive. Those are the truly evil vamps, not that all vamps aren't evil, some are just more so than others. The ones that aren't quite so twisted, pick a random victim, snap their neck, have a meal, and move on with their lives. Cold hearted, yes, but still better than torture.
Ethan ran and grabbed the girl up from the floor. His power was super speed, vamps have this one too, but I've never met one faster than Ethan. The vamp turned and spotted Ethan, he couldn't see me of course. I was invisible. The vamp's nostrils flared in fury, I walked up to him, glad that he was so focused on Ethan that he didn't hear me, and I kicked him. While I fought the vamp, Ethan ran with the girl back to a club, and he called an ambulance. The vamp kicked me in the stomach, hard. He was clutching my wrist so tightly it was going to leave a bruise.
Ethan was back. I shoved the vamp away from me, and Ethan grabbed him and held the knife ready to stab him in the heart, when I felt another vamp grab me from behind.
"Don't do it," the vamp holding me said to Ethan. His voice was gruff and sounded vaguely familiar. He looked at me and asked, "Evelyn don't you remember me?"
Ethan stared at the vamp with his fangs at my neck and I could tell he was trying to guess his chances of killing the one he was holding, and then saving me from the one holding me before he bit me. His chances weren't good.
When vampires bite humans, their fangs numb them so that it doesn't hurt. Hunters aren't spared the pain, if a vampire bit a hunter the pain would equal that of a paper cut, times a thousand.
I struggled against the vampire, but he was strong. As I struggled, I tried to figure out how he knew my name.
I saw the vamp that Ethan was holding trying to struggle too, but Ethan had him in an iron grip. "Let go of me," he hissed at Ethan. Ethan glared at him.
The one holding me chuckled. "Bet you're wondering I know your name, huh?" he asked. I didn't say anything. "Your father killed my cousin in Washington. Do you remember now?"
I did remember. It happened a few months before my father died. My dad had been doing some field training with me. This vamp's name was Edmund, when my dad killed his cousin he was pretty pissed.
"I was as happy as the next vampire when Lucas killed your old man. Hell, the whole vampiric community was happy when David Sinclair died. It was like an early Christmas. The only regret I had was that I couldn't get my revenge. Of course, I can get it now. I seem to remember you knocking me out of the way using that nice little invisibility trick so that I couldn't stop your dad, so that means you're just as much to blame as he is," Edmund decided.
"Look, just let her go and I'll let your friend go," Ethan offered. He was starting to struggle with the vamp he was holding down.
"I don't think so, I think I'll kill her and then move on to you," Edmund said.
Now I'm sure at this point you would wonder why I didn't just teleport away from him, but it doesn't work that way. When I teleport, I take everything that's touching me with me, so whether I stayed in the exact spot I was standing or I teleported 1500 miles away from here, neither option was going to get this guy off of me.
"Ethan, just kill him already," I said. "Don't worry about me."
I could see that he wasn't going to listen to me. He never listened to me. That vamp he was holding was putting up a more serious fight than before. At the risk of him getting hurt, I knew I was going to have to force him to kill the vamp. Doing so would require something that was sure to get me in trouble later, supposing I survived.
I tried one more time, "Ethan, kill him."
"Yeah, go ahead, and as soon as you do it I'll snap your girlfriend's pretty little neck," Edmund said cheerfully.
Ethan would tire out faster than that vamp he was holding. Vamps were immortal, they didn't need to sleep or to rest, the only thing they ever needed was blood. I needed to stop Ethan from bringing about his own death.
So what did I do? I teleported.
I ended up two blocks away from Ethan and the other vamp. Edmund, still holding me, was only disoriented for a second. But I made the most of that second. I managed to elbow him in the solar plexus and pull away from his grasp. He lunged at me and I dodged him. I grasped the handle of my knife and reached up to stab him. And then, blackness. I recalled something, someone, smash me onto the floor, hard. My head made contact with concrete and after that I have no idea what happened.I woke up groggy on a bed. I looked around, too out of it to register where I was, I couldn't even work up the energy to panic. I felt stiff and I had the worst migraine ever. My eyes were still heavy and it felt so good to collapse back onto the bed and relax, within seconds I fell back asleep.I woke up again, this time to voices, all of them male. I tried to listen to what they were saying, but my brain wouldn't let me focus, and sleep was inviting me to lie back down on the bed…"That was the rule, if yo
I watched as a male figure entered the room. He was shorter than Anthony and had that blond haired, blue eyed, pretty boy look about him. He was vampire, I could sense it. Great, I thought, another one.Like Eric, he spoke to Anthony first, "when did she wake up?""A little while ago, I think she wants to leave, but everyone keeps interrupting her dramatic exit," Anthony said while I glared at him. He then looked at me and said, "This is my other brother Mark.""Hi there," Mark said smiling at me. "Okay she looks pissed, I'm not messing with a hunter so I'm leaving now," he said to Anthony.He walked out of the room just like Eric. I stared at Anthony for a little while, unsure of what to say. Since we were natural enemies an apology seemed out of place, but he was right, he did save my life."Thanks," I said, "I owe you one."He seemed surprised at my apology. "No problem."I sighed. Well there went my plans to wow everyone with my awesome hunting skills by killing him. I wouldn't be
As I expected, my mother asked few questions about my being gone for an entire night. She wasn't exactly happy that I'd ditched Ethan, but she wasn't angry enough to punish me or anything like that. She left a few warnings about being safe and taking care of myself and then went about her business.I ended up spending the rest of Sunday in the house. Ethan didn't call, I was a little worried that he was angry with me for leaving like that last night, but I didn't dwell on it for very long. I was going to see him in school tomorrow, so I'd be able to give him a proper apology then. Besides, he couldn't really be that mad. If I'd stayed we'd have probably both ended up dead.I did the rarest activity that I ever did and hung out with my sisters. We don't bond like normal siblings. No watching TV together, we don't do each other's hair, or talk about boyfriends, or try to figure out how to forge our mother's signature. No, whenever we spend time with each other we practice our hunting sk
I was just standing there looking at him with nothing to say, feeling more and more like an idiot as the seconds passed by. And then who showed up? The worst possible person of course."Hi Ethan," I said when he came up to me. Thankfully there were other students in the hallway now, so there wouldn't be a scene.Ethan was glaring at Anthony. "What do you want?" he asked rudely.I looked at Anthony hoping that he wouldn't say anything to provoke Ethan, or to get me in trouble. Thankfully all he said was, "nothing." He glanced at me one more time and then walked away.As soon as he left, Ethan looked down at me. "What did he want?" he asked."Nothing, I think he just wanted to mess with me," I said.Ethan pursed his lips, "Are you sure?""Positive," I answered. The bell rang, "we're going to be late for class," I said and started walking off leaving Ethan at the lockers.My first three classes passed by in a blur. Like every other student in the school I was anxiously anticipating lunch
I ended up spending the rest of the day with Anthony. We would have a very strange relationship, and at various times I wondered if he was just using me to get to the other hunters, but he didn't seem to have any ulterior motive, and he didn't ask much about my hunting lifestyle. It was kind of nice to spend some time not thinking about all my supernatural stress. However, just because he didn't ask me about being a hunter doesn't mean that stopped me from asking him about being a vampire."What, you never felt weird about drinking blood?" I was asking. At first I'd thought if my curiosity would seem rude, or that vampiric lifestyles would be a touchy subject. It turned out that Anthony had no problems talking about it with me."No, it's different when you turn. You feel that it's necessary, and only crazy people deny their bodies the necessities," he answered.The phone rang and he left to go answer. While he was gone I got a text message from Ethan.It read: Where r u? The vamp isnt
Lucas, the vampire that killed my father, was standing there grinning with his hands in his pockets. He looked at Nicole casually, waiting for her to do something. I was still invisible."Hmm which Sinclair sister are you?" he teased Nicole lightly. "Couldn't be Cheryl, she would have attacked me by now, definitely not Olivia, that girl has way too much pent up anger. So that means you're one of the younger ones. Nicole, correct?"Nicole, at first startled by his appearance, regained her composure. She gripped the handle of her knife and stared at him with hawk eyes, taking in his every movement."Why are you here?" she asked him.He grinned. "Don't tell me you're not happy to see me. I was so looking forward to it. Besides I think your mother will be pleased that I'm back, I heard she spent a rather long time looking for me."Anger was boiling inside me. I wanted to kill him. He murdered my father and now here he was back, ready to taunt and threaten like the bastard he was. I just w
Ethan showed up about two minutes after Anthony left. "Hey, I heard you stabbed Lucas, nice," he said with a grin.I smiled a little. "It was luck. I'm free now, though. No more chaperones.""Cool," he said. "So what are you doing tonight?"Uh-oh. I really hoped he wasn't going to try to ask me out again. "Jack and Emily are supposed to be coming, remember I told you?""Yeah," he said, "I haven't seen them in forever.""You can come over," I offered. "I'm not really sure what we're going to do though. It's not going to be just another hunting trip if Lucas is back," I frowned."And we still need to worry about the vamp that's in school," Ethan said.At first, I didn't say anything in response. "What do you think we should do about him?" I asked casually.Ethan watched me strangely. "Kill him. What else?""But it's not like he's one of those reclusive vamps. He's actually social, people will notice if he all of s sudden goes missing. The government will get involved," I rambled."We ju
He didn't have any noticeable reaction. "Why do you want to know?"I shrugged. "Curiosity. I mean, I don't even know how old you are. I want to know what you were like before you were changed too."He looked at me for a minute and then said, "Okay." He started twirling my hair again. "I wasn't very different before I was changed. At least, I don't think so, personality wise. Most of the changes came with changes in society. For example, women were considered inferior up till very recently. Obviously, I don't think that way anymore.""Better not," I grumbled."You were the one who wanted to know," he said. "Would you like me to stop?""No, keep going," I said."It was 1605 when I was changed, two days after my eighteenth birthday. My father was a baron, so we were fairly wealthy. He died when I was fourteen. My mother died three years after, and my uncle took in my brothers and me. My uncle loved money; he was much richer than my parents had been. I think he got a lot of his money ille