I GIVE VIRTUAL HUGS TO ANY COMMENTERS ON THIS CHAPTER I SWEAR I WILL. EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO COMMENTS ON THIS CHAPTER WILL GET ME RANDOMLY ON PRIVATE MESSAGES JUST SENDING THEM VIRTUAL HUGS. I DARE YOU TO QUESTION THIS.
GO ON. TRY IT. I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU.
(I think this is my longest chapter yet ...)
Read on.
***
Okay, where'd I leave it last?
Right, Kenzie and Niamh taken away to be tortured, allegedly. At least, that's what I figure; because Kenzie had been taken away and we did hear her screaming ... how's about we don't dwell on that though.
Tose hadn't said a word -extremely rare, yet it seemed to keep happening more and more- while on the other hand his boss and his brothers would not shut up.
Oh and Lily was turning bitter and sarcastic.
Basically she was turning into me.
Do you think it's time for another story? Like the flashback into my high school life all the way back in Rule 8 only this one's gonna be about us separating from our parents. Or more, our escape.
So here goes.
***
It was a Friday, best day of the week.
And, most importantly, anything-goes night. Remember? The night that Scott and I steal his dads’ whiskey and try to play videogames OR we all go out and do something crazy, either way I love me a Friday night.
This specific Friday went by incredibly slow, I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning so Scott had to come inside. Lily always had this crush on him so when he came over -which was a lot of the time- she'd disappear or not talk, which we delicately ignored. Then I couldn't find one of the shoes I wanted to wear so I spent a good ten minutes looking for it, then I didn't get to have coffee because of course Scott was rushing me out the door.
Well, you see the point.
Reece didn't look any better than me when Scott and I actually -finally- got to the school; he'd been out all night last night but wouldn't say where. Lana didn't want to tell us either, even though she knew.
The day dragged by slowly, having all of my least favorite subjects one after the other kind of made my already tired and grouchy mood become even more pronounced, and I snapped at anyone who tried to talk to me, even Steph. Lunch could not have arrived sooner, as I conned Reece into breaking into the teachers lounge to steal some coffee.
I managed to sneak a nap into free period, so after that I was a lot better, so I was prepared and up for anything that night. Literally, anything.
This is how the conversation went, "I can't be bothered going out tonight, and can’t we just get drunk off my Dad's whiskey?" Scott was wining.
"I had a nap fourth period! I could do some parkour!"
"A nana nap?"
"YES!"
Scott pulled up in front of his house and I almost fell out of the car trying to open the door, "Your car sucks."
I marched up to the front door, I crossing my arms as Scott unlocked the place.
"Dude you bring the Doritos?"
"What you making me feed us? Do I look like your slave?" I threw two bags of Doritos on the table and walk to the kitchen, grabbing two bowls (because if we tried to share one it would not end well), and tried to evenly distribute the Doritos into both bowls.
"KINKY," he yelled from the other room, "MARIO KART OR SMASH BROS?"
"Mario Kart, now go get it." It being the alcohol we need.
He made a weird noise but stood and marched down the hallway, leaving me to finish setting up the Nintendo 64.
Where're his parent's you ask? Where's his Dad every Friday? Well I'll tell you. Scott's Mum and Dad split up ages ago, and his Dad got full custody because he -out of the two of them- was the only one with a steady job and a real home for Scott to grow up in. His Dad works as a police officer, and Friday is steak-out night so he usually comes home at about four in the morning on Saturday.
I also strongly suspect that his dad knows we steal his alcohol every Friday, but he still keeps it in the same place every time we go to look for it.
***
"Nonononono Zelda's NOT Link's name and YOU KNOW IT!"
"HE MIGHT AS WELL CHANGE IT everyone keeps calling him that so WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT, HUH? TELL ME THAT!"
"A GUY CAN ONLY BE CALLED ZELDA SO MANY TIMES BEFORE HE SNAPS."
"YOU GOT THAT OFF THE INTERNET!"
"SO SUE ME! YOU STEAL ALL MY JOKES WHY CAN'T I STEAL THEM FIRST!?"
"THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!"
"SHUT UP JAMIE!"
"NO SCOTT YOU SHUT UP!"
The 'conversation' then degraded into a name-calling session. In which I won because of my extremely colourful vocabulary, and because I won I got to play Zelda and Scott got to sit there with his arms crossed and try to side-seat-play the game.
Oh and I forgot to mention; we were both drunk off our faces.
After almost another hour of us doing shots every time someone told Link that he was special or asked him to do a job, I had the greatest idea ever. "SCOTT I HAVE A SECRET TO TELL YOU!"
He giggled for a solid minute, almost falling off the couch, "D-du-dude MAY-be-be y-you shhhhhould not shhhhout?"
I giggled too, "Ohhhh, yeah silly me," only fit of giggles led to me shouting "PUT ON YOUR SERIOUS FACE."
He pinched his lips together and looked at me while I held back the next giggle attack, "I hunt monsters."
He burst out with laughter, "You do not!"
I shot up from the couch and swayed for a second, trying to stop the mass-stabbing going on in my head, "I DO TOO! I can prove it! TOO THE JEEP!"
Then we were outside, looking in the compartment in the boot where I keep the weapons.
Scott looked at me funny, "Jimmy WHY do you have all these in here?"
"I TOLD YOU, I hunt monsters! I can prove it!"
And that's how we ended up at the cemetery, armed with silver steaks and holy water and hunting for vampires.
To become actual vampires, they have be drained of blood after being bitten and then have to drink the blood of vampire, then they have to be buried and claw their way out. Sort of like a right of passage for them. It ensures survival of the fittest.
"Duuuuude can we go I'm cold!" Scott hissed at me, he was sitting crossed-legged and leaning on some poor sods gravestone, picking at the ground with his stake.
"Nope, my parents' notebook says that this is one of their vamps favorite cemeteries, AND as it is Friday night-SATURDAY MORNING and there is creepy fog everywhere then this is where they should be I know- oh crap."
There were three people standing at the opposite end of the cemetery, and me being me had to get closer so we could listen to what they were saying. I had no idea who they were, or what I was going to listen in on but I didn't care. I was too drunk to care.
"She's gonna hate you for this Tose," One of them crossed her arms and leant back on one of her legs.
"I don't care, she can't die I won't let her die." Another replied, only to be shushed by the only one who was wearing a suit and looking like an accountant or a sales rep, not someone who would fit into the cemetery setting.
I cocked my head to the side and narrowed my eyes at the sales rep person, waiting for the hunter genes to kick in and the slight night vision to start working.
The man sniffed the air and looked around and I pulled Scott behind one of the massive gravestones, I heard the man's voice, "She had better hurry this along, there are hunters nearby."
Shit.
I clamped my hand over Scott’s mouth as his asthma started to play up, warning him with my eyes and instantly snapping into battle mode. The kind of mode that sobers you up faster than a cup of red bull and an espresso.
We were in some serious trouble if we got caught.
"She'll make it," She has too, is the subtext I heard from that sentence.
The sales rep rubbed his eyes, and I saw the red rim around the iris -confirming the presence of a vampire. Normally not a problem, but if this guy could smell hunter -me- from that far away then he either had super-mega-ultra smelling OR he was an elder, which spelled ever more trouble than usual.
Hunters can only take down elders in groups, usually coming out way worse for wear than the vampires did in those situations.
"Ahhhh here she is, she took her time." The sales rep crouched down and eyed the ground with keen interest.
I turned to Scott, mouthing at him; we need to leave right now, and then putting my finger to my lips and pointing back towards the Jeep.
I pulled him from gravestone to gravestone, stopping to make sure that they didn't see, whoever they were they probably didn't want us to see what they were doing.
I shoved Scott into the passenger seat, doing up the seatbelt and about to walk around to the front seat before I remembered, "Scott where's your stake?"
He snored in response.
I looked at his feet and then muttered, "Fuck", when I looked back to one of the gravestones we hid behind. I took a deep breath before glaring at Scott, "If I die I want you to hide my porn collection."
He snored again.
"I hate you," I told my best friend before turning and running back into the cemetery, closer and closer to the rebirth going on with the elder vampire and the other two people. What if the new vamp tries to eat me I thought in a moment of panic, before I put my hunter face on and carefully crept back to the stake.
I nearly made it back to the Jeep before I turned around and one of them, Tose it was, was looking me straight in the eyes.
I didn't breathe for a good three seconds before turning and running from the cemetery. I didn't look back or slow down the car until I got back to Scott's house. I felt like I was having heart palpitations or an anxiety attack, and I had an idea why. It was his eyes, they were just ... dead.
And it scared the shit out of me.
I got home at about two in the morning, not tired in the least. It's something about a near-death experience that just wakes you up. So when I walked in the door I walked right into the kitchen to grab a snack before watching a movie in my room.
And who should be in the kitchen but the rest of the family, Mum was making coffee while Dad was concentrating on something on Lily's neck.
Mum turned around, her eyes widened when she saw me standing there in confusion, "Jamie-"
"What's going on?"
Dad swallowed, glancing at Lily and then me as she turned around.
I bit back a gasp as I saw that her neck had been mauled, there were bite marks and scratches and there was blood all up the side of her face, and arm and torso. I'd gotten some scars on the job, but even if Lily had been out on a job she still would not have been that injured.
I rushed to her side, grabbing my phone out of my keys out of my pocket, "C'mon Lily we're going to the hospital."
"Jamie wait-"
"No Dad I don't care, you should not have let her come with you on a job." My jaw clenched as I watch both my parents exchange glances, "That's what you did right? You took her out on a job."
"... Not exactly..." Dad said the same time Mum said, "No."
I stopped fussing over Lily for a second and faced Mum and Dad with my arms crossed, glaring at them, "What. Happened."
Dad let out a huff of air; "A group of rabid Wares took her on her way back from school."
My reaction was startled at first, but then I turned to Lily and had the sort of sibling telepathy via eye-contact thing, basically I was asking her if Dad was bullshitting or not.
Lily stopped holding the cloth to her mouth to glare at Mum and Dad, "Bullshit Dad and you know it."
I smirked but it dropped immediately when looking at a particularly nasty claw mark on her wrist that managed to get the vein and was bleeding badly, "Look we don't have time for this, I'm driving her to the hospital."
I guided her to the Jeep and drove her to the hospital.
The wait nearly killed me, and Lily. And I got extremely annoyed when Mum and Dad appeared two hours later, just as they were letting Lily see the doctor. They insisted on coming in with me, but then Lily -the genius- told the staff that she had no clue who they were so they had to stand in the waiting room as they patched her up.
In total she needed one hundred and thirty three stitches, up and down her face, neck, torso, arm and hip. When one of the nurses was helping Lily into her washed and clean set of clothes the doctor pulled me aside.
"What happened to your sister?" He let go of my arm.
Ask mother dearest, I thought bitterly, "She was going for a run out in the forest -I told her not to, but she never listens to me- and was attacked by a bear ... or was it a wolf ... either way she managed to run home and that's how we got here."
He nodded as if that story was credible, "Will you be the one looking after her?"
Yes if I have anything to say about it, "Yes, I'll pay for any prescriptions or medicine she needs."
"Where are your parents?"
Risking the life of their only daughter, "on holiday."
When we were finally released, I guided Lily to the Jeep, only to be confronted by our parents as I was helping her in.
"Lily baby, are you okay?" Mum asked, glancing over my shoulder.
Lily turned away with a grimace.
I glared and crossed my arms, "So what really happened?"
Dad looked at Mum who was twiddling her thumbs, "I -that is to say we ... um...”
"Spit it out Mum."
She threw up her hands, "I did what I had to do, we were informed of the threat of a rabid were infestation at the Horsham farm outside the city borders, but we needed a distraction while we went through the house to see if there was only one pack..."
"ARE YOU KIDDING? You used your DAUGHTER as a DISTRACTION!? What kind of parents are you?" I demanded.
Mum put her hands on her hips, but Dad spoke, "We did what we had to do Jamie. Living the life of a hunter takes sacrifices, that you're obviously not willing to make-"
"That is not what this is about Dad this is about you putting your daughter at risk and nearly getting her killed. I knew the risk when I signed up but Lily obviously did not." I stepped closer, "She would have done anything you told her to, she's your daughter, she loves you, and you took advantage of that." Then I turned and walked around the car to the drivers’ side, "Don't be surprised when you come home to find us gone."
With that I got in the car and drove off.
It didn't take much convincing on my part for Lily to want to leave. As soon as we got home I got her suitcases and left her to pack while I packed my stuff up. It didn't take me long, but Lily was handicapped at the time.
I had a very extensive first aid kit in the back of my car so I didn't need that; I grabbed a pen and paper, writing notes to each of my friends. I couldn't say goodbye to them. Lily wrote notes to her best friends as well, then we each deleted all of our Facebook and Skype accounts then loaded the car up.
We were gone before Mum and Dad got home.
I didn't even need to write them a letter, they knew what they did.
***
Yes the scene in the graveyard was Tose making the deal with the elder vampire to bring Niamh back. No I didn't remember, I had too much alcohol in my system to remember the actual event. Only that I had to get Scott out of there, he was untrained and a liability to me as drunk as he was at the time.
He hardly remembered any of it (which was a relief), only that I dragged him for a joy-ride in the Jeep, which he got reamed for by his Dad. Better than getting dead I thought, but I didn't say it to his face.
I was so angry with my parents for putting Lily in that kind of situation, I never wanted the hunters’ life for her. Not that she couldn't handle it -she could kick my ass to hell and back- it's just that I am an older brother, and allowed to be fiercely protective of my baby sister. And if my parents don't want to be protective, than they are unfit to parent both of us.
After I turned eighteen, I knew I would legally be allowed to take Lily and run, but I had to finish school so I could tick it off the agenda. No one would want to hire someone who wasn't fully educated. So I branched away from my friends, concentrating on studying to try and get into a scholarship program across the country, so I wouldn't have to pay for my education. When I ditched all weapons but that enchanted gun (that I won in a game of poker with a warlock friend), Lily came to me and said she was ready to leave, so we moved to my Aunty Maxine's place half way across the country.
When the education plan didn't pan out -I was clever but not academic smart, more street smart- I gave up and turned to what I knew I was good at. Being muscle. I took the odd bodyguard jobs, for celebrities or C.E.O's with too much money who needed guards, or even the sons and daughters of diplomats; if they needed protection then that's where I was.
After living with Aunty Maxine for a while I earned enough money to buy my own place, and I wanted Lily to come with me, but by then she had already put roots into the community and applied to a boarding school, so I left her there with the warning and instructions to call me if anything seemed strange or odd and set off for a nice and boring life in the big city, working at Gladys' bookshop and leaving my hometown and my parents in the dust.
The boring life was pretty sweet. I know loads of hunters that think it's impossible to get out of the life, but it isn't. You just have to stop thinking like one, and start thinking like a civilian or a normal person who's life is boring, and suddenly you realize that there is more out there than just killing things.
I never wanted my sister in the life of a hunter, and my parents insisted on dragging her in. It's not a 'family business' it's a train wreck, so when I tell myself to run I mean we need to pack a bag that'll last for days so that we can run for the hills because that's where we'll be safe.
Safety is a luxury that a lot of people take for granted, and I swore to never make that mistake again.
So let's get back to the story at hand.