Walkers Book 1- Changing

Part II - Dead To Me - Chapter 16: The new norm

Say something, Tanner suddenly thought to himself. The nurse was looking at him liked he belonged in the psychiatric section too.  He cleared his throat. “Lead the way.” Tanner finally managed to reply.

            Because this was a Night Walker hospital, everything was dark. He kept bumping into obstacles, and Tabitha. Curse his Day Walker blindness!

As they walked, Tanner prepared various scenarios in his head of how he was going to explain his presence to Hayden. So far, the best one was to just be honest with her, but he knew that was never going to happen.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts, that he didn’t notice that Tabitha had stopped in front of a door; until he accidentally walked right into her, again.

            “Sorry.” He tried to sound innocent; however his charms didn’t work this time. The nurse regarded him with a cold look. He supposed that she was simply getting irritated that he couldn’t walk on his own without bumping into her; for what it was worth, he was tired of it too.

“Here are the rules, Day Walker.” She harshly said. “If this girl demands space, you leave. If this girl starts in any way showing signs of abnormality; press the red button on the wall, and then leave. If she starts to hyperventilate, you try to calm her down, press the red button, and then leave. And, if she asks you to leave, you leave.” Tabitha was about to open the door, but she looked once again at Tanner as if she’d forgotten something. “You should probably know that we gave her some pills not too long ago.”

            “What kind of pills?” He asked curiously.

            “You’ll find out soon enough, Day Walker.” The nurse simply responded with a hint of a smile.

            Tanner rolled his eyes—a typical Maria thing—, as the nurse opened the door and Tanner slowly stepped in.

Aria    

            Sitting in class, she only had one thing on her mind: smoking. She had started the bad habit when Hayden was taken to the hospital a week or so ago. The cigarettes helped Aria, a lot. Not only did it sooth her worries about her sister possibly becoming crazy, but they also supported her emotional problems and terrible mood swings. Aria didn’t need to fear about getting cancer; the chances of that happening to a Walker were about one in a million.

            Aria was about to consider taking out her pack of cigarettes out during class and smoking right at her desk, when Evander suddenly started shouting over what the teacher was saying.

“Holy shit” He yelled. “It’s snowing!”

            There were many exasperated moans and sighs from Day Walkers, but all the night vampires immediately ran to the windows, including Aria. Every Night Walker knew what the first snow meant: hunting season. Back at Night Walker High, hunting season lasted close to two months, and they had been allowed to hunt down nearby Humanas. But because their school was now mixed, the hunt could only last a maximum of two weeks and they were completely forbidden to kill any Mortalis’, plus they had to attend school in the morning and were only allow to hunt in the woods around the school. Just as well, Aria thought, they still missed some classes and had authorisation to do it while the Day Walkers didn’t. Aria smiled.  

           

The final bell rang and all of the Night Walkers were quickly running out of the school doors and into the woods. They didn’t need coats, or hats or gloves; their skin was probably colder than the snow was.