Feelings - A Hosie Story

Chapter 32 - "Focus is key"

Punches, kicks, blocks. Fists fly as Hope and her partner demonstrate the techniques that Marcel, Kol, and Caroline are teaching them.

"Good. Now the rest of you try that. Use your senses and with enough practice and focus, you'll find it easier to predict the moves that your enemy is going to make." Marcel explains.

The pairs of vampires space themselves out and try it out. The adults float around, checking on every student and providing them some much-needed tips and tricks.

Hope allows her partner to try it on her. She tones herself down a bit, to give them the chance to do it successfully. The pair try it a few times until her partner calls for a five-minute break. She agrees and takes a sip of her water, deciding it's a good time to go and join the witch's training.

As a kid, Hope didn't have all that much time with her family. But when did, and when they'd leave her to wander the compound alone or take their eyes off of her for two seconds, she sneaks looks at some of the old grimoires they had lying around. It's how she discovered a lot of the magic she uses now. Nobody wanted her to grow up too fast. They wanted her to have a normal childhood, but that would never happen. From the moment she was born, her life was so complicated. As was her family. And she wanted to protect that family, in any way possible. So, when she'd find the old spell books, she'd learn as much offensive magic as possible. with the few tricks that she'd learned, she was sometimes able to steal a book or two without anyone noticing.

When she gets to the witch's training spot, she recognizes the incantations and the look of the spell. She'd learned it when she was fourteen. It had been rather easy to learn, but somewhat difficult to control.

"Remember, focus is key. Without focus, there's no control, and with no control, you could seriously hurt yourself or others." Freya states. She looks around at the students, who all seem to be doing okay. "Tomorrow, you'll be using this in a fight against each other, so it's important you guys can do this well."

Hope catches a glimpse of Josie. Her face of concentration is adorable: the frown in her brow, the biting of the bottom lip, the total death stare. That's until her magic starts to fade out and suddenly she's thrown to the ground. The whole class stops.

"Josie!" Hope shouts, vamping next to her side. "Are you okay?"

"Fine. I-I'm fine." Josie props herself up on her elbows.

"Alright everyone, settle down. Go take five." Freya says, before joining Hope to sit beside Josie.

"What happened?" Davina asks, kneeling next to her.

"I didn't siphon enough magic, but it's fine. I'm okay." Josie says.

"You're cut...on your arm." Freya notices. Hope grabs Josie's arm to inspect the wound. There's blood. Red blood oozing out of it, dripping down Josie's skin. It looks...

No. Hope spins her head so fast you'd expect it to roll off. The veins crawl under her eyes. It tingles, that's how she knows they've changed.

She can't look at the cut. She can't let Josie see hers like this.

"Hey. Hey..." Hope feels Josie's hand on her cheek, trying to turn her so that they are looking at each other. "You don't have to hide from me." It's probably the softness of her voice, or how calmly she says it, but Hope ends up turning her head. She doesn't look at Josie though, almost too ashamed that she let herself slip, because she doesn't slip. Not usually. She has control over this now, control that most vampires don't have so quickly. But with the emotion of seeing Josie hurt and the blood coming from the cut, it became stronger, and harder to resist.

The delicate brushing of Josie's fingers over the veins soothes Hope and soon enough she's back to normal. Only Josie is still hurt. Sure, it's nothing serious, but it makes Hope realize that Josie is right to have had the idea of drinking her blood. Hope can't lose her again, so maybe they should start Josie on it today.