Hello everybody! I feel like I haven't updated in so long. I want to start by thanking you all for the wonderful reviews that I got. You guys are amazing. I have good news! I'm going to be the assistant entertainment editor on my school's newspaper next year! I was so worried I wasn't going to get an editing position, but I did so I'm in a pretty good mood. Sadly I also have bad news, I take two AP classes and the AP exams are in about a month. I have to do MAJOR studying or I'll fail. School always comes first, so you won't be seeing much of me for a little while. If I do get to post the chapters will be pretty short. I'm sorry. But don't worry, AFTER the exams (supposing they don't kill me) you all will get chapters galore AND I'll make them long. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this one! Your praise is wonderful, but if you feel like telling me I suck you can always feel free to do that too. Hope you like it!! :D
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 here eithr.
I panicked momentarily. Was he suspicious? Then I forced my nerves to calm down, he couldn't be. I texted back: I went home. I wondr where the vamp is?
Anthony came back into the room. He sat down on the couch and kissed my cheek. "So now that you've drilled me with questions about being a vampire does that mean it's my turn to ask you about being a hunter? I have to be able to defend myself if this is all a trap and you're just playing with me."
My eyes widened. "You think I'm tricking you?" I asked in shock.
He smiled. "Anything's possible right?"
I rolled my eyes. "What do you want to know?"
He considered for a moment. "All hunters have a power right? What's yours?"
"Invisibility," I told him.
"Really? Let me see," he said curious.
I rolled my eyes and then shielded my body view.
"Wow, that's impressive," he said.
I smiled. "Yeah, I'm good like that."
Time went by at a rate that couldn't be considered normal. I cursed and jumped up when I glanced at the time on my cell phone.
"What? What's wrong?" he asked concerned.
"Look at the time," I said shoving the phone in his face. "I have to beat my sisters home!"
"Miss Huntress? Do you or do you not have the power to teleport?" he asked playfully.
I came out of my frantic state. "Right, of course."
He laughed. "Are you always this scatterbrained? Or is it my amazing good looks that have out of your element?"
"I am not always scatterbrained," I said haughtily.
"Ah, so then it is my good looks," he said with a grin.
"Shut up," I said, and then added, "I'm leaving now."
"No wait," his eyes widened a bit with panic. "You don't have to go now. I'll be good."
"Actually I do have to go now. I'm supposed to go hunting with my sister tonight," I said.
He sighed, "Fine. If you really have to…"
I have to say, I more than a little excited that he was disappointed to see me go. "I do, but I'll see you tomorrow right?"
"Mhm," he said, "Ok, fine I'll see you in school."
He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me again. I sighed, disappointed that I had to pull away first. He smiled a little at that, and then kissed my cheek one last time before I teleported home.
At home I didn't know what to do with myself. It wasn't like I had any friends to go running to with excitement. All of my close friends and family were hunters, telling them about my new vampire boyfriend wouldn't really help the relationship.
"You cut class today?" I jumped when I heard Nicole's voice.
"Hey Nicky," I said.
She raised an eyebrow. "Where were you?"
"I spent some time at home just hung out. I was feeling a little tired, and I didn't want to be in school. It's not like I'm going to do it often. Just this once," I said when I saw the disapproving way she was staring at me.
"Home huh?" she said it while staring me down as if expecting to figure out something I was holding back. "Don't mix me up with Cheryl, I don't care about whether or not you skip class every once in a while. But why did you lie and me that you were home. I know that you weren't home at all because I was home."
My heart was pounding. She caught me, she didn't know about Anthony, she couldn't have known that, but she was suspicious. So I told another lie, one that might get me into more trouble I would like but it was better than the truth. "I went hunting. I don't like always having to go with somebody like a little kid. I was bored, and I wanted to get out. Sorry," I said.
Her face relaxed. She trusted me. She'd believed every single word I'd said, it made me feel bad. How many lies was I going to have to tell?
"Well you could have just said so. I wasn't going to tell on you. It's dangerous though, and another hunter could've seen you and told Mom," she said.
"I know, I'm not going to do it again, it was only a one time thing," I said.
She turned to leave, but then stopped remembering something. "Did you see the vamp in school today?"
"In the morning before class started. I told him to leave me alone, and Ethan showed up, so it was fine," I said, "Ethan sent me a text saying that the vamp wasn't in Trig today," I added. Everything I'd said to her was true. I'd just neglected to include the part about me spending the entire afternoon with him. It made me feel even worse when I remembered my promise to stay away from him.
"We're going to have to do something about him. But it'll be tricky since he goes to school, he'll have records and files surrounding him. If he goes missing there'd be a big investigation," she worried. Then I worried when I heard the next words out of her mouth, "Do you want to help us with a plan?"
Damn, how was I supposed to say no without looking suspicious? "Who's 'us'?" I asked.
"Well me, Mom wants updates on it's going, and Ethan said he'd want to help," she said and paused before adding the final name, "and Olivia said she'd be interested."
Yes! I never thought I would be so happy for Olivia's existence. It was common knowledge that we did not work well together. "Olivia?" I asked letting slight disgust lace voice. "No thanks."
Nicole sighed, "Alright, I'm hunting tonight. Coming?"
"Yeah sure," I said. "What time?"
"Around eight, I guess," she answered.
She left and I went to my room hardly believing my luck. I'd been so close to getting caught. I knew I wouldn't always be that lucky, and it wouldn't always be Nicole, who always played the role of the cool big sister, asking the questions. Next time it could be my mother, who had a knack for spotting lies a mile away. It worried me about what I was going to do with my family, but I didn't feeling like thinking about it for long.
I called Ethan with the hope of making some kind of amends. I invited him over to the house, and we watched TV for a little while. I did everything possible to make this not awkward. I made sure that he would not confuse anything for being romantic. I ordered pizza, I wore old jeans and an oversized t-shirt, and I put on Shrek for us to watch, no way would he ever confuse that with some sort of date.
"How come you didn't tell me you were skipping today?" he asked in the middle of the movie.
"You know, the movie isn't as enjoyable when people talk through it," I chastised.
He raised an eyebrow not saying anything.
"I just didn't feel like being in school. I wasn't hiding anything from you. I knew you'd find out eventually," I said trying to grab hold of some fact that would make what I was saying believable.
He took a deep breath, he wanted to say something, I knew it. "Do you want to go to the movies tomorrow?"
I did my best to not let the horror show on my face. He was asking me out on a date. "I told Nicky I was going hunting with her tomorrow," I said quickly. Why was it that everything I'd said this afternoon was lies?
"I thought you were going with her today?" he asked looking upset.
"Well yes, but tomorrow's different. I invited Jack and Emily to come with us," I lied again. Jack and Emily were friends, who also happened to be hunters, living in New York.
This sparked curiosity. "Really? I haven't seen them in a long time," Ethan said.
"I know, me either, it's why I called them. I don't know for sure yet though. I'm still waiting for a definite yes," I continued lying hoping that he wasn't seeing right through me.
Nicole walked into the room and smirked when she saw us sitting together on the couch. My whole family seemed to think that Ethan and I would get together as soon as I got past my supposed "phase" of playing hard to get.
"Hey Ethan," she said to him. "Evelyn, I'm leaving in about ten minutes if you're ready or not."
"Okay," I said jumping up. I saw disappointment in Ethan's eyes at the realization that I now had an excuse to avoid his question.
I hadn't hunted with Nicole in a while. I liked it though. She wasn't as critical as my mother, and not nearly as overbearing and overprotective as Ethan.
I remembered I had to tell her about my plans to avoid Ethan. "Will you go hunting with me tomorrow?"
"Yeah sure," she answered immediately.
"Okay good," I said. "Will you call Jack and Emily and invite them to go with us?"
"I guess if you want to, we haven't seen them in a while. Why though?" she asked curiously.
I told her about Ethan and how he'd asked me out. She laughed at my attempt to avoid his awkward questions. "You know you won't be able to avoid him forever right?"
"Yeah, I just don't want to deal with it now. So are you going to call them or not?" I asked her impatiently.
She laughed again. "Yeah, I don't see why you just won't date him though. You guys are good for each other."
"Eww," I said making a face. "He's like my brother."
We were keeping close to home. Still though, I had no idea exactly what we were doing.
"Nicky? Who exactly are we tracing?" I asked.
"There was a vamp that hurt a human really bad about two days ago – I've been trying to find him. I didn't get to see his face or track him or anything because I was healing the human and he managed to get away. I did sense him though. He was powerful," her expression turned thoughtful. "It was similar to the vamp in school."
I didn't say anything. I wasn't thinking about the vamp in school. Well, okay I was, but I wasn't proud of myself for it.
Nicole stopped walking. I paused with her, then I sensed it. A vamp and he was powerful.
Nicole held her knife tightly. I went invisible – it was always good to have that element of surprise. Cleary the vamp had sensed us too. He didn't come at us to fight or to defend. He sauntered in all confident and cocky. When I saw his face I realized why.
My apologies about the cliffhanger, but it isn't my fault this time. I thought about telling you guys who it was really, but XxSilverxXxRosexX convinced me otherwise. XxSilverxXxRosexX says that she would personally hate to read a cliffhanger like this one, because it's so good and literally leaves her wanting more. She says she's sorry for encouraging the aforementioned cliffhanger, because she knows how upset all of you will be and how many different scenarios will run through your mind, as they ran through hers as well. Aka -- this is not my fault. Although since XxSilverxXxRosexX is kinda an insider on the story she can't sympathize completely since I did throw hints at her till she got it, but don't hate her too much for knowing, I did torture her quite a bit first.