Aster

      “Gay?” He asks dryly, raising an eyebrow. I nod silently, feeling a bit embarrassed. “No actually, I’m not.” I feel heat start to creep up my neck, “I’m bi. I play for both teams.”

      His eyes were sparkling with amusement, and I tried to spit out what was on my mind, “I, uh, I’m not-”

     “I know,” He reassures me, “I could tell.” The elevator dings, the doors sliding open saving me from a response. He walks out, a slight smirk on his face, and I follow warily. He stops in front of one of the doors in the hall, knocks, and then opens it. He guides me into the room then shuts the door.

      I look around the large ornate office. There is a large mahogany desk, parallel to the direction the door is facing, on the left side. There is a window with red outer curtains directly in front of the door, with the white sheer inner curtains closed, blocking my view.

      There are two bookshelves on opposite sides of the room. The one behind the desk only had half a shelf full out of four filled with books. The rest were filled with different sorts of trophies. Not like first place trophies, but hunting trophies. There were two what would have human looking skulls, if not for the razor sharp fangs on them. The rest were a few cloudy looking jars, a lock of hair, some bones, and pictures of people and places. The other bookshelf had nothing but books.

      The man sitting at the desk looked to be of native descent, in his late fifties with slicked back black hair, and clean shaven. He was wearing a dark gray business suit and a red tie. He stood up and leaned a bit over his desk to shake my hand. He smiled.

      “You must be Aster. I am James Magister, the head of this branch of USHUA.”

      “It is nice to meet you, sir.” I said, smiling slightly; his personality had a way of putting people at ease. I met his dark brown eyes.

      His eyes crinkled at the edges as he as he fixed me with a look, and said, “Kid, you won’t believe how long it took to find you, and that’s saying a lot. Your mother had you guys almost completely off the grid. We only picked your trail back up when you moved back into Cincinnati.” I shifted, mildly uncomfortably to hear how they had been stalking me.

      “Why did you want me that bad?” It wasn’t like I had any special gifts or talent. I’d gotten in a few brawls in high school, but hadn’t won most of them. I was athletic, but nothing Olympic. My grades were As and Bs.

      “You are a survivor.” He stated, “You survived a vampire attack at age fourteen, then continued on with your life with minimal psychological damage. You have a resilient mind, Aster. Most people after trauma like that would suffer from extreme paranoia, crippling anxiety, and I am not saying that you have never been affected by them, but you pushed through them and healed. That is what we need in our ranks, someone that won’t quit the second day because your friend died” I flinched slightly, “or, won’t kill themselves from the stress.” He pulled out some sheets of paper from a drawer in his desk, and slid them over for me to look at.

      Those were the nondisclosure agreement, and committal to USHUA. I swallowed. Maybe I had made this decision too fast. “Are you sure that I would be right for this?” I said slowly, uncertain.

     Eli piped up “Come on! Of course you would be, and don’t worry, you wouldn’t be seeing action for around the first year.” I pulled the agreements closer to me and looked at them.

      “They simply state that you won’t reveal what you have and will learn here, that if you die or are injured, you or your family will get healthy compensation for medical bills, and that you are part of USHUA now.” James explained patiently. My lips thinned at the remark about death. It reminded me how real this was.

      “I… I don’t know.” I said at last. James pushed a pen at me.

      “This is your decision, but I want to let you know that we take utmost care for our hunters safety, and we never send the minimum to confront a threat. We don’t want you to die. That is why you spend around the first year purely training, preparing you for any threat. It would be no different than the danger in serving the military.” That made me feel a little better, but I had never considered serving in the military, risking my life like that. Jamie’s eyes flashed in my mind, and a heavy turmoil of thought turned themselves over in my head.

      I slowly picked up the pen, and before I could change my mind, I signed both the papers. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding.