With the final vial opened and vampire activations dissipated Josh sighed. He was mentally exhausted, and he could not remember ever feeling this way. A chuckle escaped from his throat as he acknowledged that it was true that he had finally found something, someone he cared about. Mr. Warner called out to him as the students were sent back into the mansion.
“Josh, could you stay behind a minute? You are quite the young man already knowing how to resist activation. Let me ask you this, do you resist activation, or do you feel nothing and thus have nothing to resist?” Mr. Warner asked.
“I can activate, I assure you. With the blood used today, I barely felt anything stirring inside me,” Josh replied feeling a little insulted at Mr. Warner’s question.
“I just wanted to be sure. Sometimes vampires are impotent to activation. Anyway, since you have great control, I would like to offer you some lessons on subduing activated vampires. The goal of these lessons would be to have you help protect the other humans, and especially your partner. Of course, when it comes to Zoe, you should prioritize her safety above all the other humans,” Mr. Warner explained.
Josh was a little shocked that Mr. Warner used Zoe’s name, it made him think that Zoe was not like the other humans. Her blood made that obvious by being able to attract more than 4 or 5 of the vampires, but Mr. Warner may have used her name because there were very few names to memorize.
“I’ll take you up on that offer. Would these lessons be during this training time or do I have to do it on my own time?” Josh asked.
“We’ll just do it during this time. The activated students can be used for practice. And the students seeing you doing something else may encourage them to learn how to resist their activation,” Mr. Warner smiled.
“I look forward to learning from you,” Josh said with a shallow smile.
Josh followed Mr. Warner back into the mansion. When they returned to the gym, the humans were doing lunges around the perimeter of the gym. Some of the vampires who stopped to look before going into their locker room were laughing at how the humans were super sweaty, out of breath, and as red as tomatoes. Ms. Todd was hell-bent on making sure that the humans were prepared for an encounter with an activated vampire. Zoe and most of the other human students couldn’t feel embarrassed about how their exercising manifested because they knew that the only people, they could compare themselves to were other humans. Vampires were on a whole other level and there was nothing they could do to change that. If anything, they were more worried about whether Ms. Todd was done barking out orders or not.
Zoe was already so tired that she could no longer control her breathing. Her body had decided that it needed the oxygen in every gasp for air. She still allowed her eyes to roam the gym for anything distracting. They found their way to Josh. Seeing him, watching her, made her heart beat faster. She immediately closed her eyes and then decided it would be best if she focused on the person lunging in front of her. Ms. Todd shouted that once they finished the lap they were on, they were done. All the humans gave a huge but short sigh of relief. When they finished, they all decided to take showers and the vampires had to wait around for them to finish before they were allowed to go to lunch. The humans noticed that the vampire students were a little annoyed by how long it took them to be ready to leave for lunch. Zoe had a pretty good idea of what kind of training the vampires went through.
At lunch, the vampires quickly slurped down their first cup of blood, but some of them looked weird when they finished. They weren’t in a trance-like when they activate instead, they seemed lost in thought or maybe even in a daydream. When Zoe noticed this, she looked at Josh to check his state of mind. No changes there. She then checked on Evan, he seemed a little weird too. Zoe was worried that this meant that they were considering whether or not they should change their blood source to something they knew they liked. But she stopped worrying when she realized Ms. Todd had already noticed the vampire students’ changes in demeanor. Instead, Zoe wondered what the staff’s solution to something like this was.
After lunch during Mr. Westin’s class, the only vampire Zoe could monitor about this condition was Evan’s and it seemed he was still in this funk, even when he wasn’t in the same room as humans he would activate to. Evan didn’t respond to anyone that tried talking to him. What was interesting was that Mr. Westin went on with his lecture, not at all worried about how out of it Evan was. Mr. Westin’s disregard for the situation both calmed and concerned Zoe. On one hand, it was comforting that the partner program regarding this specific classroom setup was working. Evan was isolated away from the students he might attack, but what about when they exit this classroom. Who might be waiting just outside the classroom door, or in the hallways or stairways to the humans’ rooms, and what were the plans for dinner? These questions were beginning to weigh on Zoe as class was nearing the end.
Mr. Westin and Josh both noticed Zoe was worried about the change in all the vampire student’s demeanor. Her body was tensing up and she kept glancing at the clock, then the door, and back at the clock. They were both impressed she had noticed that the vampire students were different from their usual selves. Josh didn’t know what the college’s protocol was when this happened, so he was also starting to prepare himself to have to fight off irrational vampires. In the vampire’s world, this change happened all the time and was very common because most of the time the blood provided to the vampires is random. It was the best precaution that they could have, but sometimes when the vampires do experience blood that suits their taste and then are subsequently provided subpar blood they get stuck in a temporary haze. This haze goes away with no problem after a while but seeing as these young vampires are within feet of very attractive blood Josh isn’t quite sure what could happen.
The class period was over. But before anyone moved to leave, Mr. Westin received a phone call on his cell phone. The only thing he said was, “understood”.
“Okay students, firstly another staff member will be coming into the classroom. Then we will split you off as partners and as this is quite sudden, we will be essentially moving the humans into the vampires’ rooms for dinner and the night, and tomorrow we will make better accommodations,” Mr. Westin explained.
Both Josh and Zoe had their mouths agape in response. Zoe couldn’t believe that the staff planned to place the humans even closer to the vampires. There must be some information that she didn’t have that could make this plan make sense. But she couldn’t think about that now. She was worried about having to spend the night alone with Josh and he wasn’t dazed. If she was being honest with herself, Zoe wasn’t sure how safe she was with Josh as a member of the opposite sex. She knew that Josh hadn’t taken advantage of her the time when she was sleepwalking, which was slightly comforting. Deep down Zoe knew that if anything did happen it would be because she was becoming more and more attracted to Josh. Zoe at least promised herself that she would learn more about Josh before she would allow herself to develop real feelings for him. And then Zoe remembered Lily. Lily was going to go crazy knowing that Zoe and Josh slept in the same room.
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