The Vampire Hunter's Daughter The Complete Collection (6 page)

The next morning I woke and opened the
curtains to look outside. Just as I suspected: Snow had covered
everything. It was pretty, though. The moon was almost full, and
the white winter wonderland glittered in the moonlight. The trees
had all lost their leaves, and the snow that had settled on their
branches appeared crystallized.

I sighed and found my pink velvety jogging
suit. After tying my hair up and putting on a headband that would
also cover my ears, I set off into the woods for my run. Running
the trails on the snow could probably be listed as my least
favorite thing to do, aside from getting my butt kicked.

My run was actually closer to a walk. I did
so much slipping and sliding that, by the time I made it back to
the house, I was soaking wet and running late for school.

School in the vampire hunter community was no
different from regular school, except that it was smaller. So far,
I hadn’t made any friends, but I hadn’t really tried to make
friends either. It had become habit. At my old school, I usually
just kept to myself. I guess I’ve always been a loner. At lunch, I
would grab my food and sit on the stairs in the hallway with my
eyes closed and my iPod blaring into my ears, blocking out
reality.

After walking to school in the snow, I ended
up with soaked feet. My quest for making friends didn’t go any
better. I sloshed into the school and wanted to cry. Was I going to
have to spend the whole day like this? Why couldn’t I have looked
for a pair of boots in my mother's stuff? Things worsened when
Christina Livingston—who was considered the school
bitch-slash-slut—slid in the puddle that had formed at my locker.
Just as she was going down, my reflexes kicked in and my hands flew
out to catch her. Well, I caught her all right. Right in the nose
with the back of my hand.

“You stupid bitch!” she screamed at me in a
nasal voice. She lay on the floor in a puddle of melted snow and
held her nose, which was dripping blood all over.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!”

I bent to help her up.

“Get away from me. Just get away from
me.”

She moaned. Suddenly there was a huge circle
of kids around us. She reached up with her other hand and moved her
black hair out of her eyes. Her little skirt was hiked up so far
that we could all see her lacey pink panties, surprisingly, not a
thong. She rolled over onto all fours and slowly managed to stand.
We all stood there watching her. I wasn’t going to try to help her
again, but I sure wasn’t going to leave either.

“I’m really sorry,” I said, trying again.

Her bleeding nose had slowed, but there were
blood spatter marks all over her tight white shirt.

“Shut up!” she snarled and then lunged at
me.

She slammed me up against the lockers and
rammed her fist into my stomach. I felt like I was going to throw
up. Distantly, I could hear the commotion of all the other students
in the background. Most were hollering “fight, fight,” and I could
hear a few others yelling to get someone.

As soon as she backed off, I slapped her. The
return I got was another hit to the gut and then another with the
other fist. Before I could recover, she threw an uppercut to my
jaw.

“Ow, shit!” she screamed. “My hand!”

That hit hurt… bad!
We hadn’t moved to
hitting each other in the face during training yet. Drew said we
would do that once I was better at blocking.

“My face!” I screamed back at her. It made me
mad that she was kicking my ass in front of everyone. It was one
thing in training where I was learning, but this was just plain
embarrassing. I felt heat rise in me all the way down from my cold
wet toes.

She wasn’t expecting it right then because
she was jumping around holding her hand, and I was bent over in
pain. I lashed out as quickly as I could and grabbed two handfuls
of her long black hair. I pulled her whole head down and lifted my
knee at the same time. My knee connected with her face. A loud
cracking noise echoed through the hallway.

She fell, crying and yelling about her
nose.

“Screw this,” I said. I grabbed my backpack
and sloshed my way by the group of students and out the front
door.

By the time I made it home, Luke had already
heard about the incident and sat in the living room in his rocking
chair, waiting for me.

I dropped my backpack on the floor and pulled
off my dripping tennis shoes. “So, you heard?”

He nodded sternly and pointed to the chair
next to him. “Tell me what happened.”

I sighed and plopped down in the recliner.
“My shoes were wet, and Christina slipped on the puddle my shoes
made. When I tried to catch her, I accidentally hit her in the
nose, and then she attacked me.”

“That’s all?” He raised his eyebrows.

“After she hit me a few times, I decided I
wasn’t just going to let her beat the snot out of me, and I fought
back.”

“You do know you broke her nose, right?”

I nodded. I didn’t know for sure, but I had
figured as much. “I’m sorry, Luke. I just couldn’t stand there and
let her beat on me for no reason.”

“And I would never expect you to. You
defended yourself and nothing more.”

The relief I felt at not being in trouble was
immense. I had been so afraid Luke would be totally irate over the
whole thing.

“This is the problem with raising so many
hunter children all in one place. You are all trained well and
could actually kill someone without even trying very hard. When the
typical teenage fights break out, it’s never a good thing. This
could have been far worse.”

I shrugged. “I’ve seen worse fights in my old
school. Once, I even saw a kid get stabbed.”

Luke closed his eyes and shook his head like
the thought saddened him. “Chloe, I know you were only defending
yourself, but you must try to stay away from situations like this
one.”

There was nothing else to say about it. He
could be damned sure I would try and avoid stuff like this. I
wasn’t sure what I could really do to avoid it. I already kept to
myself most of the time. “okay. Can I go to my room now?”

“Yes. We have to be at the school in the
morning. You are going to be suspended for a week because you were
involved in the fight. There is a zero tolerance rule, so no matter
if it was your fault or not, you and Christina will both be
suspended.”

“Wonderful,” I said, my voice dripping with
sarcasm. I headed out of the room. I paused a moment and then
turned back to Luke. “Can I go to the library?”

He nodded his agreement and clicked on the
television.

When I told Drew about Christina, his eyes
narrowed. I wondered what was up with that.

“You know her?” I asked.

“Yeah, she was my girlfriend for a year.”

I choked on my carrot juice.

“Your girlfriend?” I blurted when my throat
cleared. “Isn’t she my age?”

“Chloe, I’m only three years older than you,
for one, and I just turned eighteen.” He sighed. “Christina is a
senior this year, so she was only one year behind me in
school.”

Oh
, that made more sense. On the
upside though, I was in a fight with a senior, and I didn’t
lose.

Sweet.

“Well, why the heck would you date her
anyway? She’s mean and a slut, too.”

He laughed. “She’s not a slut. She just wants
everyone to think she is.”

“That’s stupid. Why would anyone do
that?”

“Christina is one of those girls who just
wants attention. She wants attention because it makes her feel
loved and wanted. Her family isn’t exactly the best family in the
world.”

When I raised my eyebrows in question he
said, “Christina’s father had to be banished from the community.
One night, he got so drunk he beat Christina’s mother so badly she
died. Christina was ten years old at the time. She had been hiding
under her bed in the other room and heard the whole thing.”