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 you and your friend stayed with us you wouldn't hunt humans while you were here," I heard one of the voices say, it was gruff and stern.
"It wasn't me feeding, it was Patrick," I sat up at the sound of Edmund's voice. It was so like a vamp to sell out his friend.
"We don't keep guests that hunt humans in our territory. The deal was either you stay and refrain from hunting, or you leave," the voice that said this sounded familiar. I tried focusing, but my brain didn't feel like cooperating with me.
I heard a cry from Edmund. At least, I hoped it was Edmund, and then my body gave out again and I lapsed back into sleep.
When I woke up again it was morning. This time I felt no extreme drowsiness. I was horrified at how out of it I'd been last night. I hadn't even thought about teleporting. I took a deep breath and surveyed my surroundings more thoroughly; I was in a normal bedroom, plain white walls, a full sized bed, and a painting of flowers on the wall. Things like this were always happening to me to give my mother a reason to ban me from hunting by myself.
Not only had I let myself be knocked out, I'd been out of it for an entire night. And I still had no clue where I was. It was embarrassing. Worse, I knew Ethan would be frantic looking for me; my mother on the other hand, would do just the opposite. To avoid trouble, the Administratio forbade us from searching for a missing hunter who was sixteen or older unless they were missing for forty-eight hours or more. As a matter of fact, if I told my mom that I would be gone to L.A. for a week on hunting business her response would probably be something along the lines of "don't forget to take enough poison for your knives." As I've said, hunters don't really make the best parents.
I contemplated my options, right now I could be anywhere in the world. I could either teleport back home now and save Ethan some worry or I could explore. As much as I would have rather done the latter, I chose to be smart and do the former.
I mustered up my energy and focused on teleporting home, except that it didn't work. I didn't panic and tried again. Nothing happened.
My powers must have been drained. When my body and mind were exhausted my powers reacted much the same way. I would need food and more rest to supply myself with enough energy to teleport.
I took a deep breath and walked out of the bedroom. I stepped out into an empty hallway. I probably looked like one of those girls in a horror movie, walking through the house oh so slowly hoping to not come across the killer. In the middle of the hallway to my left was a stair case. I tiptoed down and hoped that nothing would come out of nowhere and push me from behind. The staircase took me to the living room. I looked around and wondered if anyone was even home.
I didn't know the layout of the house and I had no idea where I should go. I would just have to hope that I didn't bump into anyone. I would need to defend myself if someone attacked me. Although, now that I thought about it, my odds of survival weren't all that great seeing as how my invisibility at the moment, was being just as lame as my teleportation. I would have to rely purely on my fighting skills. One or two vamps I'd probably be able to take down, three if was lucky, any more than that and I would be dead.
It would be better for me to go out the back door rather than the front so that I didn't draw any attention from the neighbors. I turned left and walked into another empty hallway, this house had the strangest design I'd ever seen. As if that wasn't bad enough, it was huge. I wouldn't be surprised if I got lost in here.
My shoes were making annoyingly loud noises against the floorboards. The hallway had several doors along it that I had no desire to look into. I turned right and ended up in the kitchen.
"Oh my god!" I gasped as I bumped into someone. That someone caught me so that I didn't fall onto my back and pulled me up. I looked in shock. "Anthony?"
"I see you've woken up. It's about time, we were getting worried. Want some breakfast?" he asked.
I stared at him with my mouth hanging open. He was still holding me. I pulled away and tried to decide what to do. All I ever had to do when it came to vampires was attack and kill. I followed that doctrine without hesitating for basically my entire life, strictly because I knew that if I didn't kill them, they would kill me. But now, here was one who was trying to be hospitable. That couldn't really be it. There had to some kind of trick involved here. I knew that I wouldn't be able to kill him; I didn't have my powers or a knife, and speaking of my knife, I had no idea where that disappeared to. That meant that Anthony had taken it, proof that this was some kind of trap. Even worse we were on his turf.
"What happened?" I asked carefully. I tried scanning the room, getting a feel of the setting. I noticed a door that led to outside, I could try to make a run for it, although chances were if Anthony wanted to stop me he probably would and could.
"We took care of Edmund," he said. "You don't need to worry about him anymore. And I understand your boyfriend was fighting with his friend Patrick, who I'm assuming is dead right now."
I realized that the voice I'd heard that sounded familiar had been Anthony's. "Wait we?" I asked carefully trying to keep the panic from my voice. If there were more vamps than him in the house right now I was screwed. "And Ethan isn't my boyfriend," I said haughtily. As childish and immature as I knew it was to feel the need to point that out, I couldn't resist.
Anthony smirked, "only in his dreams right?"
I glared at him and then glance at the door.
He followed my eyes. "We're not holding you hostage you know. You can feel free to leave whenever you want," he assured me.
I looked at him curiously and hesitantly moved closer to the door. Someone walked into the kitchen. It was another vamp. I tensed when I he looked at me.
"Oh, your hunter friend's awake? She staying for breakfast?" the vamp asked Anthony. He was tall, about 6'5" with short dirty blond hair and grey eyes. He looked a lot like Anthony with the same facial structure, square jaw, almond shaped eyes, and tanned skin tone.
"She's not my friend as I'm pretty sure she'd be happy to tell you," Anthony told the vamp, "and I think she was actually just about to leave." To me Anthony said, "This is my brother Eric. Eric this is Evelyn," he introduced.
"Hello, nice to meet you," Eric said extending his hand. He quickly retracted it when he saw the look on my face. "Little brother, you have the craziest friends," he told Anthony.
My hunter senses were going crazy. Vampires and hunters were natural enemies. Instinct dictated that I should be fighting these two right now. I realized that Eric was just as powerful as Anthony was. Vampires like this were not supposed to be dealt with by sixteen year old novices like me; these were for the best and most experienced hunters.
"Okay I'm just gonna leave now," Eric said, probably sensing the tension in the room. He walked out the back door.
Anthony just looked at me. "Okay I'll bite," I said. "Why did you save me?"
He looked at me as if trying to find the right words. "You wouldn't believe me," he said finally. "Most of my own kind doesn't believe me, so I don't see how a hunter could."
"I'm an open minded hunter," I said.
"Ha, yeah right. Are you really going to tell me your parents didn't engrave the idea that all vampires are evil cold blooded killers into your brain since you were little?" he sounded bitter.
I couldn't believe that he was saying things like that. "Only because all vampires are evil cold blooded killers," I answered.
"Then you see, there's no way that you can be an open minded hunter," he said.
"What are you going to tell me that you've seen the error of your ways and so you've decided to be a good vampire? It's an oxymoron, there's no such thing as a good vampire," I said.
"Really?" his face hardened. "Well, I'm a vampire and I saved your life last night. I'm also a vampire who stopped your almost murderer from ever being able to get to you again. And, I'm a vampire who gave you a safe place to stay while you were out of it last night. So the only possible conclusion that you can make is that I must be evil right?"
I opened my mouth only to have nothing come out. I tried again, "this could be a trap," I said.
He raised one eyebrow. "I already told you that you can leave whenever you want," he said. "You know, for people who claim to be all about good and protecting mankind from evil bloodsuckers, you're all really stuck up."
I couldn't believe that I was letting him say all that stuff. But, I had no comeback. "You know, your race doesn't exactly give us any reason to let you all have a break."
"Whoever said we were all the same?" he asked.
I stayed quiet. I felt like an idiot. Not only had I failed to win a battle or muscle with a vampire last night, but now I was losing in a battle of wits.
"Evelyn, why don't you go home? I'm sure your boyfriend's worried about you," he said. He seemed to have lost the energy to argue with me.
"He's not my boyfriend," I growled. I probably shouldn't have insisted on saying it again, but hearing everyone say for months that Ethan and I would end up together was more than a little annoying.
Before either of us could say anything more, someone else walked into the room.
Mwahahahaha. Sorry, I just had to. But I'm sure you'd love to know who that someone is, am I right? You've probably noticed that I love evil cliffhangers, at least, I love writing them, when I read them they annoy me, so yeah, I'm a hypocrite. I would write more, but I can't because I have homework, so you can blame my teachers for this one. I plan on updating soon and next time I won't be quite so mean, I promise. Reviews would be nice.