“Hey … Hey …” said a strange and annoyed voice.
Josh’s voice pulled Zoe from her daydream. Suddenly, she found herself alone in the classroom with her partner Josh standing at the end of the table, trying not to make eye contact with her. Zoe looked up at Josh, noticing his disinclination to look at her and a hint of urgency.
“What …?” Zoe stammered while her stomach began to drop.
“We need to go,” he replied succinctly in a deep voice.
“Where, Why?” Zoe quickly asked.
Josh rolled his eyes, unable to wait any longer for Zoe to get with the program he grabbed Zoe by the hand, forcing Zoe to grab her bag and stumble after Josh off her chair and out of the classroom.
Zoe’s mind was racing about what was happening. She squeaked “Where are we going?”
Josh, angrier by now, snapped, “The others are at the gym now, and we are late.”
“Oh,” Zoe replied softly.
Zoe knew she had skipped time again while in her daydream. But what is she going to do about the fact that she's alone with a vampire? Zoe didn't know where the gym was, or how to get there, but she wanted to be sure Josh wasn't taking her somewhere dangerous, so she asked him, "What is the class doing in the gym?"
He continued to drag her while answering her question, "The staff is going to do a physical on us. They want to know how strong we are and how weak humans are and some other things."
Another soft "Oh" peeped out of Zoe's mouth. It took a few flights of stairs and a couple of turns here and there for Zoe and Josh to ride at the entrance to the gym. The other students were there mingling as two separate groups: humans and vampires. Once we passed through the double wooden door threshold, Josh had let go of Zoe’s hand and proceeded toward the vampire group. Zoe, a little winded from the long trip from the classroom, walked towards the human group. As soon as she joined them, two girls who already seemed like best friends approached Zoe.
One of them asked, "So, Zoe, is that right? Do you know your partner, you know, Josh from somewhere before here, you two seem close?"
"No. I've only just met him, he's a vampire, I've never met a vampire before," Zoe responded.
“Oh, well, we haven’t either but it’s not fair that we don’t get partnered with male vampires. By the way, I’m Lily, and this is Jackie. We are actually from the same high school, if you can believe it,” Lily explained while directing a bit of the attention on her towards the shy girl next to her.
“Interesting. Anyways what are we doing in the gym, specifically? Josh mentioned some sort of physical test?” Zoe asked.
“Oh, the staff hasn’t told us yet, they are gathering extra staff at the moment. Seems like it might be extra protection for us,” Lily replied.
Zoe was finally able to catch her breath, while she waited awkwardly near Lily and Jackie for the extra staff to arrive. The extra staff trickled in over the next five minutes. There may have been adult vampires in them, but it was hard to tell. They all, just like the vampire students, looked just like humans. Zoe looked at all the faces and stances and compared them to Ms. Todd’s. Ms. Todd, although pretty for a human, looked mundane compared to some of the other female staff. Zoe had little time to entertain the idea before the staff had all arrived in preparation for this physical test.
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