This Chapter is dedicated to xXaveragegirlxX she's a great fan and hasnt failed to comment on all the Hunter Academy chapters so far :) it really motivates me.
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Chapter 14
When we got back to the room there were a few full plates of food awaiting us and Erik and I immediately started eating them. Erik picked up a plate of roasted chicken with fries and gravy while I chose to eat the three pizza slices. The smell of food made my mouth water and I ravenously took a bite of pizza.
We didn’t talk a while as we polished off all the food on the plates and only once we were done did we notice Jordan and Liz had been gone for a while. I swallowed my last mouthful of food and wiped my hands on a napkin then cleared my throat. That caught Erik’s attention, I noticed, he was now looking up at me curiously.
“Shouldn’t Liz and Jordan be back? Did they have to travel far?” I asked Erik, slightly worried but it was probably nothing, it could have been a long drive or walk. Erik paused to think.
“About thirty minutes, Tristan lived on the other side of the city,” he replied also looking worried.
“So then they probably just got there,” I assured myself no longer worried.
“Not exactly… they were gone for forty-five minutes before I came to find you on the roof.” He pulled out his phone and checked his messages prompting me to do the same. No messages. I glanced at Erik and we both shook our heads. No messages from Liz or Jordan, that wasn’t good.
“You didn’t think that was important enough to tell me?” I asked him annoyed even as I started dialling Liz’s number.
“We’re sorry the number you have reached is not in service at this time, please check the number or try your call again,” said a robotic automated message. I hung up even more worried and dialled Jordan’s number only to get the same result. I looked at Erik alarmed. For Liz to have her phone off was unusual because she always kept her phone on at least silent but for Jordan to have his phone off too? That wasn’t a coincidence.
“You know the address right?” I asked Erik receiving a nod from him. “Okay let’s go then, I think Liz and Jordan are in trouble.”
“Let me make a stop along the way,” said Erik as he left me and entered the landlord’s apartment. I waited impatiently for Erik to return and understood then why he had to talk to the landlord, Erik had borrowed the landlord’s keys.
“Good thinking,” I praised him as we went outside and got into a blue unmarked sedan. Erik slid into the driver’s seat and took off driving slightly above speed limit as to not draw that much attention from cops to merit being pulled over.
As Erik drove I kept calling Liz and Jordan’s phones alternating hoping that I wouldn’t get the same automated voice I got each and every time. I would blame myself if anything happened to Jordan and Liz. This wasn’t supposed to be their job, I should have just declined their help and as soon as I found them I would make them leave the search for Tristan alone. I would make Erik do that too so no one else would get in trouble for me.
Erik manoeuvred the car into a tight parking space beside two badly parked cars and got out. I slid out of the car then shut the door quickly behind me.
“So this is where Tristan lived?” I inquired. Erik nodded quickly.
“Somewhere around here.” Then he pointed to a tall apartment building made entirely of red bricks after he spotted it. “That’s it right there.” Then we took off running towards the building.
As we entered the building we noticed the front door was wide open and that was never a good sign. We ran up the steps not quite trusting the elevator and when we finally reached Tristan’s floor we looked around in dismay. There were scuff marks in the hallway outside the separate apartments and scattered debris everywhere, including two crushed almost unidentifiable electronics; Liz and Jordan’s phones.
The door to one apartment was also wide open and I pulled out a stake as I stepped towards and sure enough my precautions proved to be useful when a male Caucasian vampire launched himself at me. I didn’t allow him anytime to fight me and threw a stake at him effortlessly killing him on the spot.
“I used to look forward to becoming a full-time hunter but now I’m realizing its tiring hard work,” grumbled Erik. He scanned around the hallway warily.
“I know what you mean,” I replied rubbing my neck. I walked forward cautiously and tapped the door open with my foot in case any vampires attack again but nothing happened. Inside Tristan’s apartment everything was a mess; papers were everywhere takeout containers cluttered the counter and the place smelled. It was almost as if Tristan had forgone his neat clean ways and decided to live like a typical human bachelor. Maybe that was part of his undercover work?
“Alright first let’s search his apartment for information on what he was doing and who might have had a grudge on him. While we do that also look for information about where Liz and Jordan are,” I commanded as we entered the room that could only be Tristan’s study. It had big sturdy maple desks and bookshelves filled with many books. If there would be a place to find the information we were looking for this would be it.
“This is going to take a while to shift through everything to find something important,” Erik said. He opened one drawer and started looking through the file folders while I looked at the bookshelves. Maybe Tristan was researching something specific? I couldn’t find anything to prove that theory. Most of his books were just random textbooks and best seller books. We had only been searching for around fifteen minutes when Erik groaned, “This is going to take longer than I thought.”
“How long did you think this was going to take, half an hour?” I asked. Erik shrugged.
“I don’t know but I thought at least after fifteen minutes it would have seemed like we made some progress. I sighed as I considered his words. He was right, more than fifteen minutes and Tristan’s study still look like it had looked when we first got here. We still had so much to go and we had barely done anything.
“Well I wish there was a way to take this all back with us but there isn’t. So just quit complaining and keep looking. We have to at least finish searching this room, I have a feeling this is where the information we’re looking for is hiding,” I answered back.
As soon as I replied Erik grabbed a duffel bag from the closet and shoved all the papers in a bag. “What are you doing?”
“Well you said it yourself that you wished there was a way to take this stuff back with us. I just thought it would be better to look through this stuff back at the apartment because I’m too lazy to sort through his messy place to find things at the moment. So grab a bag and stuff it with everything you think is important,” huffed Erik.
I rolled my eyes but decided it would be more time efficient to just do what he says and not argue. I picked up a second duffel bag wondering why Tristan needed two duffel bags and put his laptop on top of the bag and covered it with stacks and folders full of paper that I thought could be important. The room was so silent as we worked to pack up Tristan’s things into the bag it’s a wonder we didn’t noticed the intruder.
“What are you two doing? I’m pretty sure breaking and entering is illegal not to mention you stealing things.”
Erik and I spun around grabbing stakes quickly after we dropped the duffel bags.
“What if I was human? If I was a simpleminded human, the fact that you were holding weapons would have scarred me for life,” Alexandria said dramatically.
“I’ll give you five seconds to leave us alone or this stake is going through the spot where your dead heart is,” Erik threatened. Alexandria smiled amused.
“Is that so?” she asked and then ducked quickly, evading the stake Erik had thrown. Her eyes caught mine and instantly I was put in a hard decision. Do I stop Erik from killing her or just let him kill her? Then again I didn’t think Alexandria was incapable of killing Erik; she was merely restraining herself now.
“Erik, just hold on a second,” I sighed. Erik glanced at me uncertainly then returned to suspiciously watching Alexandria. I stepped towards him putting myself between him and Alexandria.
“Are you crazy? She’s a vampire; she’s probably planning how to kill us now. You can’t trust a vampire or haven’t you learnt anything at the Academy?” muttered Erik. I smiled, the two of them reacting to each other was comical, Erik scowling at Alexandria and her looking at him with her eyes narrowed. “Why do you find this amusing? She’s a vampire,” Erik said forcefully as if he trying to get through to me. I shrugged in response.
“First of all, I didn’t become number one at the Academy by not learning anything; you’re an example of what happens when you don’t learn much. Second of all, if she was planning on attacking, she would have done so when we weren’t paying attention. No vampire would talk to us first while there was a chance to kill… unless the vampire was a suicidal one,” I added.
“I’m not suicidal,” clarified Alexandria. She nodded at me and then smirked at Erik. It was clear by her actions that she didn’t sense any danger or tension in the room anymore.
“So you trust her?” asked Erik. He took a step back from and regarded Alexandria with a cool expression no longer bent on killing her.
“Sort of,” I replied.
“Ouch, that hurts,” Alexandria remarked. She was smiling as she stared out the window.
“Why do you trust her? I know you’re not stupid enough to just trust a random vampire,” said Erik.
“She’s not random, I sort of know her, I met her yesterday,” I admitted.
“Yesterday, you met her yesterday! Wow I can’t believe the day has come that Damien Sullivan has gotten careless.” Erik put down the stake he was holding and crossed his arms. “Alright, I know I was willing to let you keep your secrets but now you have to explain.”
I opened my mouth to speak and was met with the sight of two vampires crashing through the window. One long black haired vampire ran towards Erik and the red headed female ran towards me. I gaped at the opposing threats and then caught sight of Alexandria leaning against the wall smirking and my heart sank. How could she do this to us? That was the last thing I had a chance to think about.