Chapter 4 Jack
Chapter four
Jack
By the time classes were over, I was ready to collapse. Everywhere I went, someone wanted to talk to me about something or another. People I’d never seen in the entire time I’d been here suddenly wanted to be best of friends.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have Xinyi to be my buffer all day. She had classes of her own and her relationship with Iris. It wouldn’t be fair of me to rely on her too heavily.
After all, this was what I wanted. It was my idea to reveal who I was so our enemies would show themselves.
So far though… no dice. I had plenty of fan girls and guys, but those who didn’t fall into that category just glared or ignored me completely. No one had outright tried to attack me or show their malign intentions.
It’d only been a few days so there was time for that to change. I’d have to make sure to be seen around campus to give them the chance to expose themselves, even if all the attention made me want to hide in my room instead.
Sludging up the steps to my tower — not really, but that’s what it felt like — I longed for the comradery I had before I announced my heritage. Even then, people hated or liked me because of me and not just because of my family.
Now, it was hard to know who I could trust. At least, Xinyi and Iris hadn’t changed. They didn’t seem bothered one way or the other about who I was. That was a refreshing change of pace.
I only wished Kyren felt the same way.
Shoving that depressing thought aside, I dug in my bag for my keys as I reached my front door. My eyes lifted, and I froze in place.
There was a pile of gifts and mail in front of my door. How had they found my room already? My dads had assured me that this part of the building was off limits to students and that I would have my privacy.
Apparently, not.
Sighing, I unlocked my door, and shoved it open, kicking the boxes and papers into the room as I went with my feet. Once inside, I dropped my bag on the floor by the door and pushed the unwanted pile to one side, closing the door and locking it for good measure.
Maybe I should find a witch to put a blood lock on the door? I wasn’t sure how skilled the other students were in picking locks. But, with all of us having supernatural strength, I wouldn’t put it past them to just break down my door if they really wanted in here.
Moving over to the bed, I knelt and pulled the bag holding all my hunter equipment out. My eyes darted to the door as I dug around until I found my .22. The cool surface of the gun chilled my hand as I checked the chamber.
Once I made sure it was empty, I slid in the loaded magazine into the bottom with a resounding click. Maybe a bit too aggressively, I racked the first bullet into the chamber and made sure the safety was on before I set it aside.
I found two more daggers, each made of silver. It wouldn’t kill a vampire, but it would slow them down. Make them think twice before coming after me.
There wasn’t much you could do against a witch. Mostly we had to rely on other witches to help bind their powers when they got out of line. If you did catch a witch off guard, then any method that could kill a human would work.
As I moved around the room, placing daggers in strategic places for easy grabbing if I needed them, I wondered if I should tell my parents about the ‘gifts’ at my door.
I hadn’t opened any of them, so I had no clue if they were friendly gifts or not.
Standing over the pile for a long moment, my gun in my hand, I decided not to.
Even if they were all friendly gifts — which I highly doubted — it would only worry them and then we’d have the argument about if I really should be here doing this mission.
That wasn’t something I wanted to discuss again.
If I was to be any other hunter, I’d have to deal with this on my own and, if I wanted to prove to them that I could do this, I needed to act like any other hunter without my parents there as a safety net.
I picked up each gift bag and box in turn, listening and giving it a little shake before tossing it in the trash. My nose didn’t pick up any unusual scents like chemicals or some kind of potion ingredients.
A few of them did give off the scent of bodily fluids. Blood, sweat, and… other things. Those, I quickly threw away and dipped into my bathroom to wash my hands afterward.
The handful of notes and letters, I glanced at before tossing them. Most of them were the basic fan girl type letters. Praising my family. Wanting to hang out. Asking personal questions I had no intention of answering.
Then there were a few more threatening notes.
Mostly mean girl things. You’re a bitch. No wonder you’re so ugly. They hated my family and everything I stood for. Blahdy blah, blah, blah.
Nothing specific that I could take to Julian or my parents, unfortunately. The rebels were doing a good job hiding themselves from us. I was still kicking myself for letting the one chance I had to infiltrate their meeting slip by me. I knew I would have to do something extreme to make up for it.
Sighing, I grabbed my desk chair and shoved it underneath the bedroom door. Not that it would do much against a supernatural, but it would give me more warning than if they just snapped the lock and opened the door while I was in the bathroom.
Grabbing my gun in one hand and my phone in the other, I headed into the bathroom for a much-needed bath.
Inside was one of those old school claw-foot tubs my mom liked. That meant there was no lip to put my things on, so I dragged a small side table over to it. Sitting my gun and phone on it, I turned on the water and undressed.
I had barely been in the water for five minutes when my phone dinged. I glared at the device, willing it to not make any more noise. When it smartly listened to me, I closed my eyes and sighed, sinking into the warm water.
Ding.
Growling my frustration, I sat up and wiped my hands off before I grabbed my phone. If it was my parents, I was going to rage. My mom in particularly had a knack for calling me when I was napping or trying to relax or, more recently… busy with Tate or Kyren.
When I saw who had texted me, I sank back into the water, bringing the phone with me. It was Tate.
The moment that Kyren had ghosted me, I should have blocked both of them.
Leaving them unblocked was me pathetically hoping and wishing that Kyren would come around.
That he’d see me for me and not my parents.
Just as I was trying to remember that he wasn’t the one who kidnapped me as a child — it had been Kleon.
I knew that taking my anger and trauma out on Kyren wouldn’t make what happen to me unhappen. It wouldn’t give me closure or a feeling of justice. Kleon was dead. My mom had seen to it.
There would always be someone out there who wanted to hurt my family and would use me to get to them.
It’s one of the major reasons I’d joined the Hunter’s Guild shortly after it happened.
My parents had thought it was a good way for me to deal with my trauma, make me feel more secure, but it was less about being safe and more about keeping others from using me against them.
I wouldn’t ever be put in that position again.
Closing my eyes for a moment before opening the text, I stared at the three words there.
Tate: I miss you.
Three words. That’s it. No begging. No pleading. No infamous you up text begging to see me. Just I miss you.
I contemplated answering him back. What did I say? I miss you, too? I wish things were different? All things that he knew, and me texting them wouldn’t make them any better.
Tate hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t rejected me once he knew who I was. He’d shown me multiple times that he still wanted to be with me. It was unfair to put him in the middle of my and Kyren’s issues.
Except there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
He was with Kyren. Kyren hated me and clearly didn’t want to be with me anymore. Which hurt more than I wanted to think about. I’d cried about it for hours after he left, disappearing into his shadows without a word, and there’d been nothing since then.
I couldn’t think about it. About him. It was too hard. We’d only been together for a short time and yet I felt a crushing despair whenever I thought about him.
Sniffing, I swiped my fingers under my eyes, brushing away the tears that escaped. I had a mission to complete. I couldn’t get distracted by my love life. I was a hunter. The mission came first.
Putting my phone down, I drained the tub and dried off. Grabbing my gun and phone, I moved back into the bedroom and walked over to my bed. I slid the gun beneath my pillow and paused, withdrawing the shirt I’d forgotten I’d hidden there when Xinyi came to my room.
Kyren’s shirt.
Lifting it to my nose, I inhaled deeply. The smokey clove scent filled my senses, and a feeling of ease came over me. Without thinking, I pulled it over my head and curled up on the bed, my phone in my hand.
I stared at the message Tate sent for a long moment before my fingers moved. I typed out a message telling Tate to leave me alone, then deleted it. My fingers hovered over my keyboard, uncertainty of what to say stopping me. Eventually, I put my phone down without having said anything.
Sometimes silence was the best answer. In this case, I wasn’t so sure it was true.