Vampires Rule

by Kasi Blake

“What is wrong with you? You can’t go around punching people for no reason. You didn’t even give him a fair chance.”

  He stared down at the toe of his left shoe. He had only been in school for two hours, and he’d already screwed things up. Angry with himself, a muscle worked in his cheek. Some of the fury focused on her. Why was she defending this Tucker guy so vehemently? Did she like the jerk?

  Jack grumbled, “I’d better go. I have to see the principal.”

  “No, you don’t. I want you out of here.”

  “Too bad. I’m staying.”

  Silver glared at him. “I can’t believe I was looking forward to meeting you all these years. You’re going to ruin my life. Stay away from me.”

  Her words cut deep. She was his only friend, the only one outside of his brother who knew the truth about him. In fact, he suspected she knew more about him than he knew about himself. He needed her.

  She walked away, but he followed her. “I still need a ride home.”

  Her lips compressed into a tight line. She refused to look at him, charging down the hall like a bull, dodging stationary students. It was kind of hard to keep up with her.

  “It might make you feel better if you hit me.”

  She spun around and the flat of her hand struck his chest. Jack wasn’t prepared for the attack. The force of it sent him flying backwards. He crashed into the lockers with a loud clang before falling to the ground. His flailing arms knocked books out of some guy’s hands.

  Stunned, it took a second for Jack to get his bearings again.

  Jack noticed the janitor watching them from the other end of the hallway. In a light brown uniform, he had long graying hair that covered his face, and the greasy strands hung down, blocking the rest of his face. There was a mop in his hand, but he wasn’t using it. He turned and walked away.

  Passing students laughed and pointed at Jack.

  Silver knelt next to him. “Are you okay? I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you that hard.”

  “Guess you don’t know your own strength.”

  He groaned as he struggled to his feet with her help. Students snickered as they passed them by. A couple made random comments to Jack, warning him to watch out for Silver.

  Ignoring them all, Jack said, “I’m sorry about Tucker. I didn’t mean to do what I did either.”

  They stood toe to toe, their eyes locked. Her lips quivered before forming a reluctant smile. “Maybe we both need to take anger management classes.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “I’d better go see the principal.”

  “I’ll go with you. Maybe he won’t be too hard on you if I’m there. I’ve gotten pretty good at arguing with him over the years. I know all the right buttons to push.”

  “You would do that for me?”

  “Sure.”

  They headed for the principal’s office together. Their arms swung at their sides and fingers sometimes bumped. The idea of taking her hand in his occurred to him, but it was too soon. He certainly didn’t want to wind up on the floor again.

  “What’s taking so long?” Jack leaned forward in the metal chair and looked past Silver at the principal’s half-open door. Hardwick paced back and forth as he put his tie on. “What is he doing?”

  Silver explained, “You can tell the time of day by what Hardwick is wearing. He starts each day in professional mode, a full three-piece suit, usually black or navy blue. Sometimes he wears chocolate-brown. By mid-morning he loses the tie. The jacket follows just before lunchtime. Early afternoon you’ll find him with his sleeves rolled up, and by the end of the day he’s walking around in nothing but socks.”

  Apparently he thought punishing Jack meant he had to be fully dressed. That was not a good sign. Hardwick shoved his arms into his jacket while stuffing his oversized feet into polished black shoes. He jerked the door open the rest of the way and violently gestured with two fingers for Jack.

  Silver followed him to the doorway and hovered there. Jack hoped she wouldn’t say or do anything to get herself in trouble. He appreciated the support but didn’t want her to get on Hardwick’s bad side because of him.

  “Here for a day and already in trouble,” the principal muttered. His statement was followed by an angry snort. He pulled a bottle of pink antacid from his desk drawer and chugged it. After recapping the bottle, he wiped pink goo from his moustache. His hands shook. “Unbelievable. You may as well tell me now…you were in trouble a lot at your old school, weren’t you? That’s probably why you moved here to Nebraska.”

  “No,” Jack said, but it didn’t sound convincing.

  The principal glared over Jack’s shoulder at Silver. “Don’t tell me he’s your client now. I’m getting a little tired of this, Miss Reign. I’ll be glad when you graduate and move on to law school.” His bushy brows wagged as he turned to Jack. “I don’t want troublemakers here. Consider yourself gone... two weeks suspension.”

  “You can’t do that,” Silver said. “There were extenuating circumstances.”

  “There always are with you.”

  “Every kid in this country has a right to a free public education.” Her hands went to her hips. “You didn’t give him a chance. I could give you a huge list of students who have been in fights around here, and you haven’t kicked them out.”

  Hardwick rolled his eyes. “Life is too short to put up with this. You have detention, but one more fight and you’re suspended.”

  The two of them left the office. Silver looked pleased with herself. Jack walked fast down the hallway even though he didn’t know where he was going. He needed to burn off some steam before he put his fist through a wall. He hadn’t appreciated the way the principal had scowled at Silver. And the way the man had talked to her…where did he get off?

  Silver dropped a book.

  Jack stopped.

  He bent over and grabbed it at the same moment that she did. Their fingers collided. A flash of white-hot electricity shot through him from hand to feet. Sizzling pain accompanied it.

  One second he was looking at Silver and the next, he was looking through her eyes. It took a while to realize he was inside of Silver’s head. He was reliving one of her memories. It was more vivid than a dream...

  ...and more revealing.

  Silver entered Trina’s room after rapping once on the door. Her best friend since the second grade, Trina was painting her fingernails, listening to music, and reading her email at the same time. When she noticed Silver, she capped the fingernail polish. She set the bottle on the nightstand and smiled up at her guest.

  Trina had a girly room to the tenth degree. The walls were white with pink flowers, covered with an assortment of decorative things like a necklace holder, foam letters that spelled her name, and plastic blossoms with pictures in the middle. It looked like a clothing store had exploded. Trina had a flair for the dramatic. It was no more evident than in the things she wore.

  At the moment she was in pink tights, a lime green mini-skirt, and an oversized striped blouse with a tiny denim vest. Her long blonde hair was a tangled mess, thrown to one side, mostly straight, but she had curled a few strands. Holding the hair in place was a butterfly clip, a black barrette, and a silver fashion comb.

  “I have been dying here waiting for you,” Trina said. “It took you long enough to get here. You promised me details. Tell.”

  Silver sat on the edge of the bed. She couldn’t contain the huge smile for another second. “I just drove him home. I had to make sure Billy wasn’t going to kill him before I left.”

  “Did I hear you right on the phone? Did you really spend the night with him?”

  “Say it a little louder why don’t you?” Silver sent an anxious look to the door. It remained closed, and she didn’t hear any footsteps. “It wasn’t as dirty as you make it sound. I slept next to him. That’s it. There wasn’t any touching involved.”
>
  “Why not?”

  “He was wounded for one thing. Jack almost died. He tried to save me from a werewolf. Can you believe it? He tried to save me, the great werewolf killer.”

  Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

  Trina blew on wet fingernails. “Hmm. Tell me something. Is he as hot in person as he was in your dreams?”

  Silver blushed, picturing his rock hard abs. “Oh yeah.”

  They both squealed in delight and clasped hands for a moment. One of Trina’s fingernails got smudged. She rolled her eyes before grabbing the polish again.

  “Describe him to me,” Trina said.

  “He has dark hair, a little long for me, but it looks good on him. The bangs fall into his eyes a lot. It makes him look ultra-mysterious, and his eyes are like the prettiest green I’ve ever seen. I don’t need a jury for this one. He’s guilty of being totally hot.”

  Trina squealed again.

  Silver got up and went to the window. She looked down on the backyard, watched Trina’s brother playing with an invisible sword. Things were so simple when you were a kid.

  “I wanted to kiss him,” she admitted.

  “In-tense!” Trina jumped off her bed. “Why didn’t you do it?”

  “Because it wouldn’t be fair.” She turned to look at her friend. “I’m keeping a huge secret from him. You know that. He has no idea who I am or what we’re supposed to do. If I kissed him, it would make things even more complicated.”

  “I know I’m not a hunter and I don’t get it, but why don’t you just tell him everything? Purge your soul. Tell him that you’ve been dreaming about him since you were twelve. Then kiss him like there’s no tomorrow.”

  Silver was afraid to tell Jack what she knew because his reaction couldn’t be predicted. He could refuse to talk to her again. He could refuse to cooperate. Or he could suck it up and deal with it like she had. She wished there was some way of knowing before she opened her mouth.

  “You have to tell him,” Trina said. “I mean, there’s no way around it, right? It’s destiny.”

  “You’re right. I have to tell him.”

  But first she was going to figure out how to tell him in the best way possible. If she could put a positive spin on it, he might accept the information better. Maybe she should enlist his brother’s help.

  Silver nodded, determined. “I’ll do it. The second I get the chance, I will tell him he’s in terrible danger. I’ll tell him now that his powers are gone he’s going to have every crazy werewolf and vampire in the area after him. Not to mention hunters, of course.”

  “Totally intense.”

  It was Jack’s first time in detention. Although he had pulled a few pranks in the past, he hadn’t gotten caught. He didn’t think detention was as bad as the name implied. Four other students joined him in a classroom with about thirty desks. He chose to sit near the back. Jersey Clifford had them spread out so they wouldn’t be tempted to talk, which wasn’t a problem for Jack, since he didn’t know anyone except for the teacher. Besides, he needed time alone with his thoughts. Jersey told them to study or start on their homework. Jack dropped his gaze to the book in front of him and pretended to do exactly that.

  For the entire hour Jersey’s penetrating eyes were on one student. Jack. The teacher’s fascination with him boggled the mind.

  Jack kept his head down, refusing to acknowledge the teacher. He stared at words on a stark-white page until they blurred together. His lips moved as he pretended to read, but he was thinking about Silver and what had happened in the hallway. Touching her hand had somehow given him a ticket to spy on her memories. Only it was more complicated than that. He’d been inside of her head, living the scene as Silver.

  He had no idea how long he’d stood there staring at her like a brain-dead moron. By the time he snapped back to reality, she was waving a hand in front of his face and calling his name, clearly exasperated.

  Jack kept his new power a secret. She already wanted him to drop out of school. If she knew the vampire-reverse might be temporary, she’d tell Billy. Then the two of them would confine him to his bedroom. Maybe Billy would even get the stake out.

  The thought of turning back into a vampire made him sick to his stomach. He had a second chance to live, and he wasn’t going to waste it. No one was going to stop him from attending school for as long as he reasonably could.

  Being a vampire hadn’t been a hundred percent awful. He missed the heightened sense of smell the most. Cowboy would die laughing if he ever found that out because Jack had complained about the smells before. The nastiest smells clung to the inside of his nostrils, refusing to depart until Cowboy introduced him to cigarettes. Chain-smoking helped them cope.

  And now he missed it (the sense of smell, not the cigarettes). Actually, if he was going to be honest, he missed being able to smell Silver the way he had at the cemetery. He also missed being able to hear her heart beat from several yards away. In a strange way, he even missed being able to hear the blood rushing through her veins.

  On the other hand, he didn’t miss wanting to feed on her.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Jersey hovered over Jack. He gestured to the empty classroom. “Everyone’s gone home. You don’t strike me as one prone to daydreaming, Jack. Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

  Jersey sat on the edge of the adjacent desk. His tall and lanky body moved with graceful, fluid motions. The man could have been a ballet dancer in a former life.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You can trust me.” Jersey eyes narrowed. “I can see the grief in your eyes. It darkens the soul. You know, I recently lost someone very close to me. He was like a brother. He died suddenly. It was a shock.”

  “I’m…sorry.” Jack shifted in the desk, uncomfortable under the scrutiny of Jersey’s probing gaze. The man was a starving dog with a meaty bone. He wasn’t going to turn loose. Jack admitted, “I lost my friends too. They aren’t dead, but they might as well be. I’ll never see them again.”

  Jersey quoted, “I loved—but those I loved are gone, had friends—my early friends are fled. How cheerless feels the heart alone when all its former hopes are dead.”

  “Lord Byron.”

  Jack smiled at Jersey’s stunned expression.

  Cowboy had insisted he spend his vampire years defying gravity, the speed of light, and every other mortal law, but Lily had pushed him to read and learn to appreciate beauty whether it was the written word, classical music, or an abstract painting. He owed her big time.

  “Do you want to talk about your friends? It might help.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m not really much of a talker.”

  “More of an action man, huh?” Jersey grinned. “I have a feeling you and I have a lot in common, a lot more than meets the eye.”

  Jersey patted him on the shoulder. For a moment the hand froze to him as if stuck. The teacher stared at him with a look of total disbelief.

  “Is something wrong?” Jack asked.

  Jersey removed his hand promptly. He swallowed several times and took a few steps away from Jack. Something was wrong. Something had changed between them. Jack didn’t understand what or why.

  He stood, picked up his textbooks, and headed for the door. He didn’t want to talk to the English teacher about his vampire friends anymore. The only person he wanted to talk to was Silver. She was forefront in his mind. He didn’t know what he would say to her, but he knew he had to see her.

  Jersey followed him to the door. Jack looked back at him once and saw that odd expression still on his face. He couldn’t label it. It seemed to be a mixture of confusion and awe.

  “I’m still trying to figure out where I know you from,” Jersey said. “No luck yet, but I’ll continue to work on it.”

  Fabulous. Jack wondered how long it would take the English teacher to piece it together. It was ano
ther thing he couldn’t tell Silver about. She would hit the roof if she knew the teacher thought he looked familiar. To her it would be one more reason why he shouldn’t show his face in public, especially not at Jefferson Memorial.

 

  Chapter Six:

  THE WEREWOLF POPULATION GROWS

  During the next two weeks Jack found a routine he could live with. He went to school, did his homework, and tried to stay out of trouble. Silver stopped pushing him to drop out, but she still shot him warning glares now and again. He found a couple of new friends. Even Billy seemed to relax, let down his guard...

  ...and isn’t that when the bad stuff always happens?

  Another school day ended on a quiet note. Jack searched the building for Silver after the last bell rang. He had been talking to a teacher about making up the work he’d missed at the start of the semester while he’d been running around the country with his vampire friends. Of course he left out the vampire part. He’d expected to find Silver standing outside the door when he got done, but the hallway was empty.

  Jack wandered around for ten minutes before deciding she must be waiting for him in the parking lot.

  His footsteps echoed in the long hallway. Being in school without anyone else around was unsettling. But was he alone? The hairs prickled on the back of his neck, signaling trouble. Curious eyes watched him. He didn’t know where they were. However, he could feel them burning a hole into his skull... or maybe it was just his imagination. No one except for the English teacher had shown any interest in the new kid, and Jersey Clifford had left for the day.

  Still, the nagging feeling lingered. He thought he heard metal scraping the floor as if something was being dragged. Another sound caught his attention. He jerked his head to the left and saw a brown blur move behind the row of lockers, out of view. Maybe someone was spying on him. Even paranoid people had enemies.

  Around the opposite corner a door banged against the wall. Loud voices struggled for dominion. The words were unintelligible. It sounded like a group of geese chattering on their way south for the winter. A piercing whistle cut through the noise.

  “All right, everyone, calm down!” The female voice held authority. Jack knew it belonged to a teacher before he rounded the bend. The Drama teacher, Ms. Tomlin said, “I’ll call for an ambulance. Give him room to breathe.”