Chapter Six

I looked from Mrs. Firn to Ethan and then walked to my seat. I was instantly uncomfortable, and very aware of both Ethan and the vamp staring at me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, I would have felt better if Ethan was sitting closer, but he sat on the other side of the room. His last name was Bentley and mine was Sinclair, why teachers felt the need to seat us alphabetically I would never know.

"Okay we're continuing with conics today," Mrs. Firn said to the class. She waited as everyone groaned in unison and then announced, "But first, we have a new student in class today." She turned to the vamp and said, "Anthony if you need help with anything you can feel free to come after school when I do tutoring, or you can ask Evelyn, she's very good."

"Okay thanks," he said to her and then he turned to me and smiled. The worst part about his smile was that it wasn't threatening, it wasn't arrogant, it wasn't even condescending. It was friendly?

I glared at him. His smile grew wider, okay now it was arrogant. He stared me down and held my gaze. I realized that he was trying to hypnotize me; no way in hell was I going to let two vampires hypnotize me in less than forty-eight hours. This time I kept my focus, humans were hopelessly defenseless against vampires, but hunters could protect themselves from most of the vamps' tricks. I put my energy into keeping control of my mind, adamantly refusing to lose this staring contest.

He looked away first, and I turned to stare at the board satisfied that I had kept control. I honestly did try to listen to Mrs. Firn go on about ellipses, but it was very hard to concentrate on finding the foci when I was very aware of the demonic killer seated next to me.

I decided to ignore the lecture and just figure out the work later, math was my best subject, I had the highest grade in the class, unlike in English, where I was failing miserably, but that's a whole other story. I spent the first half of the class concentrating on Anthony, I wasn't so conspicuous as to stare him down; subtlety is a skill mastered by all hunters, so I was able to keep track of him, not that this was an interesting task. I mean in class what more can you do than just sit there and doodle?

After the first half of the class, Mrs. Firn finished teaching the lesson and she told us we should start on our homework. So naturally, everyone started talking, listening to their ipods, texting, and every other activity imaginable that didn't include homework.

"When are you going to go out with Ethan?" I looked up completely surprised by the question. My friend Caitlyn was looking at me with a curious expression on her face.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"He keeps looking over here. Besides, how can you not know what I'm talking about? He's had a crush on you for how long now?" her voice was teasing.

I looked across the room and saw that Ethan was in fact staring over at this general vicinity, but it wasn't me he was looking at (for once, thank god), it was Anthony. He was doing the same thing I'd been doing, keeping an eye on the vamp, but since he was across the room he couldn't be as inconspicuous about it.

Anthony, who was the only one in the class who seemed to actually doing trigonometry, was obviously listening to our conversation. He looked over and caught Ethan glaring at him, but instead of rising to the bait and glaring back he raised his hand.

Mrs. Firn looked up and answered, "Yes?"

"I don't understand number six," he told her.

Mrs. Firn, already in the process of helping another student asked, "Evelyn? Will you help Anthony please?"

"Sure," I answered, seething inside, this was not my day.

Ethan's glare grew more pronounced, and this time Anthony smirked in response. He scooted his desk over closer to mine and asked, "So do you get number six? I keep trying to get it but it doesn't match the answer in the back of the book."

I glared at him, glanced at his work, and said through gritted teeth, "you have to subtract "A" squared and "B" squared."

He smiled his friendly smile at me and his arrogant one at Ethan and said, "Thanks."

He made no move to move his desk back over. I stared at him expectantly.

"So you're Evelyn right?" he asked conversationally.

I would have loved to make some witty, intelligent remark, but instead I just stared at him stupidly. Was a vampire seriously trying to be my new best friend? He leaned over to look at the blank page in my spiral, moving into an uncomfortably close proximity towards me.

"Didn't take any notes huh? Can't say I don't blame you, it was really boring. Want to have a study session after school?"

"Can you move your desk back?" I asked rudely.

He laughed, unfortunately it wasn't maniacal, no it was soft and friendly. I would have preferred maniacal, just to have another reason to hate him.

The bell rang, thank god, and I hurried to stuff my things into my bag and sprint out of the room. Once outside I turned to realize that Ethan was right there next to me.

We started walking towards my next class. Ethan spoke first, "we have to do something about him."

"I know, we can worry about it after school," I answered.

I headed off to my next class, and my mood dampened considerably when I realized that my next class was English, and that was saying something considering how terribly my day had been going, the good thing though, was that when things get to be as bad as they could possibly get nothing worse can happen to you. I sighed as I took my literature book out of my locker. I hated English with a passion. Writing was just not my cup of tea. As for reading the classics, let's just say that I was never able to fully appreciate whatever it was that Shakespeare and Mark Twain did for the world.

When I walked into class I almost laughed out loud at my stupid belief that nothing worse could happen today. Who do you think was seated in the desk behind mine? Anthony of course, when he saw me walk in he flashed me a grin, which grew wider as he saw that my seat was right in front of his.

I sat stiffly in my desk; one thing that every predator knows is that the next thing worse than being cornered by your enemy was having your enemy behind you. I tried to keep breathing normally and I did put honest effort into listening to what Ms. Carlly was saying, but I couldn't get rid of the feeling of unease.

"Okay we're starting a new book today called Of Mice and Men," Ms. Carlly announced.

I was almost about to groan, I hated all assigned reading, but then I saw the size of the book, probably about a hundred pages give or take, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Anthony didn't say anything to me for the entire class period, which meant that the entire conversation in math had all been meant to irk Ethan. Of course, that was all it could have ever been, there was no way a vampire would be interested in befriending a hunter.

"So where did you move from?" I heard one girl, Michelle ask Anthony.

"Well for the past two years I lived in New York, but I've lived in a lot of different places, my family moves around a lot," he responded.

"Do you like Florida?" she continued, fluttering her eyelashes ridiculously.

"Too soon to tell," he answered, smiling a little.

I would bet big money that Michelle was swooning from the attention. Humans were always taken aback by vampires' beauty, it was a little pathetic; I wondered how long it would be before Anthony tried to drink her blood and whether or not I would be the one to have to save her.

I listened to what he was saying, and tried to figure out how much of it was true. Any little bit of info on your enemy is always good to have. He said he lived with his family, that wasn't uncommon; when most vampires get turned they go back and turn at least one member of their family, usually a sibling or a cousin, just to avoid loneliness. Others turn their friends. And some vampires that are older when they get turned go back and change their lovers or spouses. Not that this is very common, most people that get turned are in their teens or early twenties.

"So where do you live?" I heard another girl, Lisa, ask.

"Not too far from school," Anthony replied vaguely. I wasn't surprised; of course he wouldn't divulge the location of his crypt that he called home in front of a hunter.

The bell rang and again I rushed out of class, I always felt uneasy around the vamps and I wasn't used to being near any of them without weapons.

The rest of the day passed quickly and thankfully I didn't come across Anthony again. I walked to Nicole's car, and waited for her to arrive.

"Did you see the vamp?" those were the first words out of her mouth when she saw me.

"Yeah," I answered, "he's in two of my classes."

Her eyes narrowed. "What are we going to do? There can't be a vampire walking around the school, think about how many people he could hurt."

"I know, but he's a weird vamp," I told her. I explained about how he wasn't bothered by me or Ethan and how he had tried to hypnotize me that one time in math class. "Mom said that we should bring knives to school."

"That might be risky. If one person sees it…" Nicole worried.

"I know, but if the vamp tries anything we won't be able to kill him without knives."

A regular knife wouldn't kill a vampire; it wouldn't even pierce one's flesh. In order to kill a vampire the knife has to be coated in a poison that only hunters know how to make. It requires vampire blood mixed with hunter blood and some strange other mix of ingredients that some hunter centuries ago decided to mix together on a whim. The poison is lethal to vamps but doesn't do anything to hunters, no one's ever tried it on a human before, although chances are if someone did inject a human with the poison the result would be catastrophic.

Nicole took me home, and once we arrived I remembered that I was supposed to be angry with my mother, so I headed straight to my room with the full intention of staying there for the rest of the night.

My mom didn't try to come up to talk to me. Any information that she wanted about Anthony she probably got from Nicole. I wallowed in self pity, depressed that I wouldn't be able to hunt by myself. It wasn't that I was opposed to the idea of hunting with other people, I did it all the time, I was just opposed to being forced to hunt with other people.

I lay on my bed thinking for a while and then realized that the only way my restriction was going to be lifted was by proving myself somehow. Killing Anthony would probably be a good way to do it. I entertained the idea of being the big hero and soon realized how unlikely that idea was. I was an extremely powerful hunter, no one would ever argue with that statement, but I was notorious for making mistakes and getting in over my head. And, like I had sensed earlier, Anthony was powerful, he wouldn't be an easy kill. I was going to need to form a plan.