Hunter Trials (The Vampire Legacy Book 2)

by Rita Stradling

  Justin explained about his private investigation into his cousin's murder and how he took pictures of every record he could find in the medical department that was marked Alphastrain or Alphastrain XNFSB. Justin didn't understand why Elites were marked with the letter combination, while others were simply given the word "Alphastrain." The information that I gave along with the rooms of files and documents the Hawthorn Group discovered in that office building made that clear.

  Thirty years ago, when the Elites powers were starting to go extinct, the then CEO of the Hawthorn Group, Jameson Holter, had begun the Alphastrain project. They took hybrid humans, turned them into vampires, and harvested the vampires to create Alphastrain XNFSB. They had then started injecting that serum into the pregnant bellies of the Elite families. They injected every child that they believed came from an Elite Bloodline. Justin had only been spared because Gina Roberts had a bodyguard with her at every prenatal appointment. People with hybrid blood were marked Alphastrain; those who were given the serum to become an Elite were marked Alphastrain XNFSB.

  Meaning, Marisa had been given that serum Alphastrain XNFSB. She hadn't been harvested like the other hybrids. Sebastian had simply killed his half-sister because he wanted to. I could tell from Mitch’s expression that it wasn't the explanation he had hoped for.

  Everyone in our group except Mitch and I had been marked as hybrids and potential Alphastrain serum factories. According to Justin’s research, more than half of the school were hybrids, but Agent Miller said that what a hybrid actually was, was privileged information.

  The only thing that we avoided discussing in our group interview was that I was a dhampir, and the king of the vampires was my father. Justin simply said that Dante Mortus told him about Sebastian’s partnership with the vampires and that they planned to attack, and that Dante was going to help Justin and me escape. He’d once been part of the Hawthorn Group and was now working to take down the Holters.

  That part wasn’t a lie. My father's name was one of the first marked Alphastrain just before his disappearance. Documentation found at the site confirmed that he was one of the first in the Holter family's little Elite experiment, but he'd escaped.

  There was a very real and clear reason why the Elites born in the last twenty-five years were the most powerful to have ever existed. So far, only Sebastian Holter and his father Jameson had been implicated in the Alphastrain Serum Project, as the Hawthorn Group now labeled it. Someone tipped off the former owner, and when the Hawthorn Group showed up to arrest the Holter patriarch, the man was gone along with his wife, son Tyler, and their entire household staff.

  The only good news was that my father’s body was also missing after the fight, but he’d left six vampire corpses in the stadium pit. No one knew if he was alive or if the remaining vampires had carried off his corpse.

  With a jolt back to reality, I realized that I’d stopped dancing and I was simply standing in the middle of the dance floor like a weirdo. I shot a glance behind me to where Justin and Mitch sat at a table, surrounded in legacy students. The two might be at the center of the buzzing crowd, but they were focused only on each other. They both wore black, shiny tuxes. I had to say that I'd never seen a crowd of teenagers so comfortable in formal wear. It was as if their school uniforms were playing dress-up, and the ballgowns and tuxes were everyone's true attire.

  As if sensing my gaze, both of the guys looked over at me. A frown sat heavily on Mitch's features, but a smile spread over Justin's lips as he saw me.

  I waved and turned away, not wanting to interrupt the pair.

  I started to dance again, bumping my hip against Lucas', when the song died, and the chapel hushed.

  "Everyone," Principal Chambers called from the dais. She wore a loose gray gown that emphasized the silver in her short hair. "Hello, seniors. Thank you so much for your understanding and patience this week as we had to postpone our Hunter's Ball due to unfortunate and uncontrollable circumstances. We are grateful for the safety of our staff who quickly handled the seemly chaotic ..." she paused to hold up a hand. "But controlled vampire attack."

  "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

  I spun to find Zack smirking behind me.

  "But what else is new?" I whispered back.

  Zack threw an arm over my back. "It would be nice if she gave us some credit."

  I squinted up at him. "For what? Getting kidnapped?"

  "Saving your ass."

  Lucas put an arm around my back and leaned in from the other side. "I'm pretty sure that we were locked in a cage and Trouble here got the bad guys to kill each other before she got help and found us."

  "Well, when you put it that way ..." Zack smirked. "I guess only Blondie should get credit."

  The crowd erupted in applause, and we all turned back to the front where Principal Chambers was holding up a long sharp stake made of what looked like polished gold. "This year's Senior Huntress is Mia Acosta!"

  The crowd erupted in shouts and cheers and surged toward the dais, blocking my view. A chant of "Mia" echoed through the throng. Susie spun back and grinned like it was such an amazing surprise, even though we all knew that Mia won the moment she finished. Susie then managed to slip through the crowd and head up to the front. Immediately, the people around us formed a solid wall, and I couldn't see shit.

  Everyone chanted, "Mia!"

  I went to my tiptoes and hopped in place as I joined the chorus calling her name.

  "Want us to lift you up?" Zack asked with his brows lifted. "Maybe we could find you a chair to stand on."

  "Thanks, I'm good," I said dryly.

  "You could get on my back," Lucas offered, sounding genuine about it.

  I glanced down at the tight orange dress I was wearing. Susie didn't have anything in her closet that wasn't bright and colorful. I was considerably taller than Susie, and the hemline was only a couple inches under my butt. If I climbed up on Lucas' back, I was sure that I'd be giving half of the school a full moon.

  "Hey! Hey! Thank you!" Mia called over the speaker system. "Now all you shut the fuck up so I can talk," she said the words on a laugh, and several other people laughed as well. "Hey, so I want to call a couple of students up here with me. Can I do that?" She paused. "You know, I don't even care if I can. I'm going to. Susie, Lucas, Zack, January, Mitch, and Justin, will you all come up?"

  "I guess you're not going to need a chair," Zack said. He put his hands on my shoulders and walked behind me while Lucas pushed his way to the front before us. We hopped up onto the low stage, joining Susie who'd already climbed up. A moment later, Mitch and Justin jumped up from the side. Justin came over and immediately threw an arm around me, and I leaned into him. I was trying to spend as much time with my friends as possible, but when Justin held me in his arms, warm contentment spread through my chest, like wrapping up in a blanket after freezing my ass off for far too long.

  Justin leaned in and whispered in my ear, "Do you know what she's doing?"

  I peeked over at Mia, who stood in a long yellow dress. She was gorgeous with her black hair up in complicated braids and yellow flowers decorating her coiffeur. She looked like a queen, and the crowd stared up adoringly at her like she really was one.

  I shook my head. I had no clue why she was calling us up here.

  "Hey everyone, I need you to be really quiet and listen," Mia said as she leaned into the mic.

  Shushing sounds rippled over the crowd. "So, this year, I'm your Senior Huntress. Those of you who are close to me know that I value truth and honesty over all else. It's how I work. It's how I operate. Sometimes that can be a fault. I can be too honest with people when silence is best, and I can hold my friends to impossible standards and ignore the emotions that fuel dishonesty." She shot a smile over at Susie for that. "But as your Senior Huntress, my main goal for us this year is to bring some fucking honesty to this place, because I for one, am tired of getting lied to."

  A cheer rose up through the crowd. At the other end of the dais, Pri
ncipal Chambers and a few of the teachers shot each other looks.

  "Hey, ya'll, I still have more to say," Mia said with a grin. When the crowd quieted, Mia called out, "All right, so, two weeks ago, Hawthorn agents showed up to arrest Justin Roberts for handing over our personal information to the vampires. One week ago, they told us that Sebastian Holter, owner of the Hawthorn Group, fabricated evidence and that they were wrong. The manhunt for Justin was a mistake as was the kill order they had after they believed he helped in the vampire attack. And we're all supposed to accept their word."

  Justin stiffened at my side. His teeth were clenched, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. Where the hell was she going with this anyway?

  "See, what the Academy and the Hawthorn Group aren't telling us is that Justin and Mitch here started an investigation after what happened in the trials three years ago." A murmur ran through the crowd, and Mia nodded. "Yeah. We all know what happened then, but they don't want us to talk about that." She nodded toward the teachers who huddled on the far side of the dais.

  Principal Chambers had her arms crossed over her chest, and her lips pinched so tight they were turning white.

  "These two guys took it upon themselves to look into our medical records, and they found out that—"

  "Your time is up, Mia," Principal Chambers said as she crossed toward us. And as if we practiced it, we all closed in around Mia, forming a circle and blocking the principal.

  Mia continued, "Justin and Mitch found out that a lot of us are hybrids. What this means, we don't know exactly. They won't tell us."

  This pronouncement was met with absolute silence. It was so quiet that I could hear Mia clear her throat before she continued. "Justin and Mitch also discovered that Sebastian Holter and his father were taking hybrids and turning them into vampires. They had a factory where they held vampires strapped down to hospital beds and bled them to make a serum called Alphastrain XNFSB."

  "That's enough!" Principal Chambers called.

  "No, it's not. It's really fucking not. What Principal Chambers doesn't want me to tell you is that Jameson Holter had this serum injected into the Elites fetuses while Mr. Holter was the owner of the Hawthorn Group for almost thirty years. The Elites were getting weaker and weaker, their powers were waning, and this was the solution they found to get that power back."

  "What the fuck?" a guy in the audience yelled. Voices rose all around us. Near the front of the crowd, someone shoved Mark, and he fell into Amber who stood nearby.

  "Wait," Mia said. "Don't turn your anger on the Elites, okay? Listen to me. It was two Elites and a legacy student that found this information and shut it down. Also, you see us six up here. Two of us are Elites, two are legacy students, and three are here on scholarship. We were the project's next victims. All seven of us barely escaped with our lives. Mitch Holter, an Elite and their direct kin, was nearly killed along with us. Okay, this isn't about them versus us. It's not about which of us are Elites or legacies and the ones who aren't. This is about the fact that all of us here together—the Elites, legacy students, and scholarship students alike are going to be inheriting the Hawthorn Group very soon. We're going to be the ones living and dying for them, and they're lying to us. They're lying to us about our very genetics. They're covering up the fact that their owner did horrible experiments on our classmates to keep powerful. They're lying about the fact that they did experiments on the Elites, while they were fetuses, injecting them with mutated vampire blood so they could be better tools. It has to stop. The lying has to stop, and we need to work together—all of us, to make this community something worth living and dying for."

  The cheer that rose up was so loud that my ears immediately started ringing, but I was cheering too.

  "And I'm not blaming the teachers or the soldiers. They're doing what they have to. But things need to change." I could barely hear Mia's voice over the tumult, and I was standing a few feet away.

  "Guys! Guys," she called, and finally, the crowd quieted. "That's why my first act as Senior Huntress is that I'm forming an after-school club in the library, every day from six to eight, where we will eat pizza and seek the answers that the Hawthorn Group are keeping from us. And the first order of business is finding out what being a hybrid is and what that means. It's time to demand the end to the lies!"

  The crowd took up the chant of, "No more lies!"

  I turned to Justin, feeling a strange sense of unease at their words. I agreed with everything that Mia said, but tension was clotting in my chest, and my palms were beginning to sweat.

  "I think I need some fresh air," I whispered to Justin, and when I made my way off the dais, he kept pace with me.

  Justin and I stepped out into the night, but outside seemed like it was almost warmer than the ball. We wandered out onto the front stoop of the school and sat side by side on the pavement.

  "Hey," Justin said as his fingers webbed through mine.

  I turned fully toward him. "I feel like I've spent the whole week with you and somehow not a single moment."

  He nodded. "That's because we're always surrounded by people. January… I have a question for you."

  I curled into his side, and his arms wrapped around me.

  "Can you ask me while we're doing this?" I slipped my hand across his abs and under his jacket.

  "Well, this pretty much answers my question."

  I leaned back and furrowed my brows. "What was your question?"

  "If we were still together."

  I shook my head. "Why was that even in question?" Fuck this. He was too far away. I climbed into his lap. The teachers could write me up if they caught me. I didn't care anymore. "From the moment you disappeared, I was trying to find you."

  His arms wrapped around me and tugged me closer. "I guess it's not in question." He brushed some loose strands of my blond hair behind my ear. "I feel like it's my fault you almost died—the shit you had to suffer—"

  "Wasn't your fault. And I refused to murder my father when Sebastian said he'd kill you if I didn't. So, if anyone should be breaking up with anyone, it's you with me."

  He stared up at me and squeezed me tighter. "I guess I'm just trapped in a pretty big mindfuck storm, and I'm afraid I've fucked this up. I lied to you and went behind your back, talking to your father."

  "To save my life."

  "I should have told you. Also, I'm pretty sure my cousin Mitch is in love with you."

  I rolled my eyes. "The only chick your cousin Mitch is in love with is St. Pauli Girl."

  "She's hot." Mitch fell onto the stair beside us, pulled a flask out of his pocket, and took a long sip.

  "Mitch, we're busy," Justin growled.

  "I'm not here for you. I'm just out here thanking my lucky fucking stars that I don't have to follow Dirtbag around anymore." Mitch took another deep swig of his flask before screwing on the top.

  "Well, don't be too much of a stranger, Mitch," I said as I leaned back to look at him. "You're one of my best friends here, and I have a feeling the attitude toward Elites is about to change pretty drastically."

  I didn't mention the fact that the attitude toward Mitch was already changing drastically. The fear that used to fill people's eyes when Mitch walked through a room had changed to a healthy dose of scorn. People were saying that Mitch's property and wealth had been seized by the Hawthorn Group. Mr. Roberts was again CEO, but there was talk that Amber's father, a powerful Elite, might be the next owner.

  Mitch stood and headed down the steps. "Yeah, Mia's little speech did us no favors. We're about to head out into a shit storm."

  "Together, okay?" I called after him, but he only waved and kept going.

  Justin shrugged and squeezed me tighter. "He's fine."

  I leaned back a little and narrowed my eyes. "Are you feeling threatened, Justin Roberts?"

  He lifted his dark brows. "Should I be?"

  "No." I grabbed his jacket and tugged him closer. "Do you want to crouch over me and growl if anyone gets too close?"r />
  His fingers squeezed around my hips. "You'd let me do that?"

  "No, seriously," I laughed. "You never seem jealous when I hang out with Lucas and Zack, and they're super physical people."

  "Yeah, but they're just your friends. Mitch wants to be sitting where I am right now."

  "No, he doesn’t." I rolled my eyes. "But he is becoming one of my friends, whether or not he admits it. I really hope you'll be cool with that."

  "Of course. His feelings might bug me—"

  "He doesn't have feelings."

  Justin continued like I didn't interrupt, "But I trust you, and I trust him, and I won't give you a hard time about being friends even if you guys end up getting close. Just, if you ever want out of this, please tell me first."

  "Shut up and kiss me," I whispered over his lips.

  His mouth slanted over mine. Our lips slipped over each other's slowly at first, before pressing harder. My hands caressed up and down his chest, feeling the ridges of muscle under his shirt. Justin broke off our kiss. "I want to do so much more with you than we can do sitting here on the school steps."

  A thrill ran through me and tingling heat lit low in my belly. "Do you want to sneak into my room?"

  His gaze heated. "I can get Mark to sneak me up."

  Damn. I winced.

  "He... kind of asked me out while you were kidnapped."

  "Really?" Justin drawled. "Then I'd say that the guy owes me a big fucking favor."

  It wasn't ideal, but beggars couldn't be choosers. After what Justin said about Mitch, I didn't feel comfortable asking him for this. It was ridiculous, but I still didn't want to do it on the minuscule chance we'd hurt Mitch's feelings after the week he had.

  Even though it would have been much less suspicious for me to go in second, Justin insisted that I headed up to the room first and he and Mark followed after. Justin's soft knock came at my door only a few minutes after I'd arrived.