Blood Hunt (Blue Blood Babies sequel!)

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

A shrill ringing pulled me into consciousness the next morning.  It had been a long night.  After seeing the announcement telling us we were scheduled to begin our “participation” first thing in the morning, the rage had deflated out of Connor.  Neither of us had felt like talking.  Not about anything.  It was still early but we’d wandered back to our room.  The other boys were glued to chairs in the little common area, going round and around what the doctors might have in store for us.  The little we’d heard about their theories had been enough to set my teeth on edge, my nerves jangling.  Because the truth was, they didn’t have a clue.  None of us did.

And that didn’t make me feel any better.

Sighing, I stretched across and yanked up the receiver of the phone, which was still trilling loudly.  My muscles protested, stiff and cramped from spending the night in an unfamiliar bed.  My mind, though, that was already whirling.  Foggy, though, with lack of sleep.

“Hello?” I rasped.

Nobody answered.  Instead a robotic female voice informed me that this courtesy wake-up call could ring back in ten minutes if I dialled nine.  I didn’t.  There was no way I was going to fall back asleep. Instead I dumped the receiver back down before she’d even finished speaking.

“Who was that?” Connor asked, his voice muffled by the pillow he still had his face pressed into.

“Alarm,” I said.  Then I rolled up and out of bed, wincing as I tried to straighten out the kinks in my back.  They might have invested in state of the art scientific equipment, according to Dr Reynolds in his little welcome speech, but they hadn’t spent much on soft furnishings.  I scratched at my hair as I wandered into the bathroom, trying to slick down the section at the back that was sticking straight up. 

Not sure of the time, and aware that Ryan expected us to be ready to go by half past eight, I took a quick shower then, after glancing guiltily at the wide pool of water I’d somehow managed to slosh all over the floor, kicked the towel about the tiles so that it was in a somewhat decent state for Connor.  When I came out of the room, though, encased in a billowing cloud of steam, he still hadn’t moved. 

“You alive?” I asked, smirking.  I flicked the main light on – it was still pretty murky in the room, just a thin stream of grey light creeping in around the blinds – and watched in amusement as he tried to burrow deeper into his pillow.

“Cut it out,” he complained, pulling his duvet over his head.

Connor, then, was not a morning person.

“We’ve got to be read by half eight,” I reminded him.  “And we’ve got to get something to eat by then as well.”

“Not hungry,” Connor muttered.

I yanked my clothes on while I waited for him to come round and fight his way out of the cocoon he’d created around himself, but by the time I’d run gel through my hair and laced up my trainers, he was still there.  I stood over him for a moment, undecided.  If it was Anna, I’d drag her out by her leg, then maybe dump a glass of cold water over her to get her moving.  That generally worked, and she was usually too disorientated to hit me before I’d legged it out of the room.  But Connor was a lot bigger than she was; and I’d had a glimpse of what he could do with his fists.  Plus, I didn’t really know him well enough to do something like that.

It was the first day, though.  I had a feeling it wouldn’t be good to be late. 

“You coming,” I prompted again.  I saw him shift about under the covers, but he didn’t respond.  “I’m starving,” I hinted.