Cursed (Book # 3 of Hunted)

Painfully Normal Lives

As I was leaving the gym, Brooke popped up beside me and asked, "What's your next class?" I brought up the mental image of my class schedule and replied, "Financial Algebra with Professor Sardella." She gasped and exclaimed, "Me too. LiLi!" She turned to Jia li who was walking quietly behind us. "You have Sardella this hour too, right?" Jia li nodded and turned to look back at Cameron.

"What about you, Cam?" she asked and before he could reply, Brooke laughed and said, "Are you kidding? He's only in Algebra 1. He had to take two remedial math classes over summer."

"Hey!" he snapped whipping out a knife and pointing it at her. "I came here to learn how to kill vampires, not how to do math." He shook his head and mumbled, "Honestly, I don't see how algebra is even relevant to being a Hunter. What am I gonna do? Paralyze the demon with my astounding command of the quadratic formula?" He scoffed.

Brooke rolled her eyes and said, "You know why we have to learn boring stuff like math and English. There are over three hundred students here, you know how many of us will actually be assigned to a team after graduation?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "Less than 25%. We aren't being trained to save the world, Cam, we're being trained to save ourselves. Most of us will go finish our education at some abysmally boring high school, get accepted to a below average university and end up stuck in an office until we die. The only reason we are here is so we'll know how to protect ourselves if some creepy crawly catches our scent while we're out living our depressingly normal lives. That's why you need to learn goddamn algebra." She continued down the sidewalk that led towards building five leaving Cameron, Jia li and I to stare after her in shock.

"Well, that got real dark, real fast," I said after a moment of awkward silence. Cameron laughed loudly and twirled one of his knives saying, "I don't care what Miss Doom-and-Gloom says, I'm getting on a team even if I have to travel to the other side of the world and become a Japanese demon slayer." He laughed again and walked off.

Jia li looked down at me and said, "You'll have to excuse Brooke. She acts so cheerful all the time, but I think in truth she is very scared and sometimes that fear can make her seem kind of intense."

"Kind of?" I muttered and she smiled. She had a wonderful smile that reached all the way up to her dark brown eyes. We continued towards building five and she said, "Brooke comes from a long line of Hunters who never did much of anything with their abilities. Not because they didn't want to, you see, but because they never got the chance to. She is afraid that her powers will go to waste, that she won't be given the opportunity to do something worthwhile."

I thought about what she said as we entered the building. Here I was constantly wishing that I had never become a Hunter, thinking that if I wasn't one then maybe my parents would still be alive and this girl Brooke was worried, she might turn out boring.

"Could they not make their own opportunities?" I wondered out loud. Over three-quarters of the students here would wind up living relatively normal lives. That was a lot of wasted potential. Could they not form teams of their own?

"You shouldn't say things like that," Jia li said as we neared room 107.

"What?"

"About making your own opportunities. That's Rogue talk. Jobs are assigned. Hunting on your own or in unauthorized teams is forbidden," she said and that was the end of that. Brooke was already in class by the time we got there and she boisterously hailed us, her previous intensity dropped like a hot potato.

Financial algebra wasn't as boring as I thought it was going to be, but it was still pretty boring. The teacher, Professor Sardella, was the oldest living Hunter in the United States. She was sixty-eight, but in my opinion didn't look a day over fifty. Brooke said it was because of our advanced healing abilities. Hunters aged very gracefully...not that most of them lived long enough for such a thing to matter. Most Hunters didn't live past fifty due to the nature of their occupation. Even the ones who lived, as Brooke called it, 'painfully normal lives,' rarely lived to see their grandchildren. Hunters attracted monsters like flies to a corpse whether they were 'active' or not.

Professor Sardella had been part of a team up until the birth of her seventh grandchild fifteen years ago and it was widely accepted among both students and staff that despite her age, she could still wipe the floor with anyone who dared to challenge her. She was also a mathematical genius.

There was no fooling around in this class. She barely even paused when she read out my name and sent us packing with a refresher assignment. I had just taken algebra 2 last year so I felt pretty confident about the assignment. I would have to get a planner; first day and I already had two homework assignments.

At the end of class, Brooke and Jia li followed me out and Brooke asked, "Do you wanna sit with us at lunch?" I thought for a moment wondering if Phoebe would be comfortable sitting with a bunch of strangers. Who was I kidding, of course she would be. Phoebe loved meeting new people and I had a feeling her and Brooke would totally vibe.

"Sure," I replied, "I just gotta stop by my dorm real quick."

"Why?" Brooke asked and Jia li shot her a look.

"Uh, because I couldn't fit all four of my textbooks into my back pack at once."

"All four of your classes require textbooks?" she exclaimed then she shook her head saying, "No, you had WT so you should only need--"

"I have seven classes a day," I said and her eyes widened.

"I am so glad I'm not on the fast track," she said and Jia li laughed quietly covering her mouth with her hand. Brooke set her hand on my shoulder and grimly said, "We will wait for you in the mess hall with brain food and caffeinated beverages." I smiled awkwardly and as we parted way, I called, "Is it okay if I bring a friend?"

Brooke twirled around and with a huge grin replied, "Sure! The more the merrier!"