The Hunted (20 page)

‘Me? What did I do?’

‘Seriously? Should I write you a list?’

‘What would be the point? It would just say “Blah, blah, blah, Lucas is a dumb-ass”.’ I grinned. ‘Oh, good, so you
have
read it?’ He flipped me off and I happily returned the gesture.

‘That’s quite enough!’ Susan yelled across the living room. ‘Your brother did the right thing by telling us where you were. Now I don’t want to hear another word about it. You were in the wrong, you were the one who snuck out and you have been punished accordingly. End of story! Now go and get yourself some dinner and pull your head in Elena before I do it for you.’

‘Why are you yelling at
me
and not Lucas?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Elena, did Lucas sneak out of the house last night as well?’

I grunted as loudly as I could muster. ‘Point taken.’

Remaining cautious of my facial expressions, I went back into the kitchen and threw the cleaning products back under the sink. I washed my hands and then grabbed a plate of the delicious Chinese food off the kitchen bench and stalked off towards my bedroom. I didn’t really want to look at Lucas smiling at me so smugly.

‘Elena, please do not take food into the bedroom. You can come and sit at the table with the rest of the family,’ Susan said as she turned and headed for the dining room.

Oh, goody.

I chewed my food in silence, concentrating on the flavours and mostly looking down at the plate in front of me. Occasionally I shot Lucas a filthy look, imagining what my fork would look like wedged up hard inside his nose. No one bothered to talk at the table this evening and I was grateful for the silence, particularly as I didn’t have anything nice to say.

When I was finished, I rinsed off my plate in the sink, placed it into the dishwasher, said a stiff goodnight to everyone, and headed upstairs for a shower. It was too early to go to bed, but I didn’t fancy spending the evening in front of the television with the rest of the family trying to make forced conversation. I guessed I was still in a ‘mood’, as Susan would call it, and it would be better for everyone concerned if I remained in my own company for this evening.

I took my time in the shower, letting the hot water work its magic over my body. I ended up washing my hair twice because I was daydreaming. I was picturing my life without my family, sometime in the future when time had passed and I was a vampire. I wondered if I would still be the same person or would I change as time drifted by, becoming something unrecognisable and deadly, a force beyond even my own control?

Vincent had told me once that he had met plenty of vampires that had forgotten their humanity. They were so consumed by bloodlust that they had no moral compass for wrong or right. Would that happen to me? Would I crave blood so badly that I forgot everything that my family had instilled in me? Would I not know the difference between a life that matters and a life that needed to be destroyed? Or was Vincent selling me scary stories just to be an ass? He certainly made a habit out of it.

I let the warm water wash over my face again. Surely not everything that the IMI knew about vampires was true? There had to be more to them than just pure bloodlust. If there wasn’t, and they were just blood crazy, dangerous creatures, then an alliance would not have been formed in the first place. Vampires had to see reason. How else would they have mutually decided that the Vân
â
tors were a threat to one and all? Or was it simply because vampires were no longer the top of the food chain with the Vân
â
tors around?

No, I couldn’t let myself believe that what I was destined to become was better off being destroyed than understood. If my family could attempt to love me, and the other Pro\tectors in this faction could at least tolerate me, then there had to be common ground after the alliance had ended. But, then again, I was still human right now. Having never actually met a vampire before, I had no idea what sort of person I was going to become.

Perhaps when Susan and George finally had that conversation with me I would learn more. All I had to do was be patient, difficult given the fact I was not a patient person, but I had little choice.

The Manory’s were all that I had. I knew no other family, and I had to trust in the fact that they would hopefully sometime soon reveal everything that I needed to know about my past, present, and future.

I sighed wearily. The day’s cleaning activities had begun to take its toll on me and the heavy thoughts in my mind were weighing on my muscles like no physical activity ever could.

I shut the taps off reluctantly and forced myself out of the warmth of the shower, wrapping a towel around myself. It was a good thing Lucas would rather go blind than see me sprint for the bedroom in a terry towel. He knew me well enough to avoid this area of the house until I was safely tucked away in my bedroom, unless of course he wanted to cop an eyeful of sister as I dashed past.

It had happened only once before.

He claimed he had never been the same since. I told him it was because it would be the last time in his life that he ever saw a girl who was half-naked. He hadn’t been amused by the prospect.

Before I made my exit, I stared at myself briefly in the mirror, looking at the reflection staring back at me and wondering just who that person really was. Was it possible to think that you knew the person that you are exactly, but at the same time constantly wonder if that person was a lie? Was I just a reflection of other people’s projections and influences and only a small trace of true genuine character that was based on my own personality? Because that’s what I saw staring back at me—a shell that was crafted by a vampire I had never known, a mind that was being moulded to conform, and a heart that was searching for acceptance.

Hopefully I wouldn’t have to wait until I was sucking down pints of blood before I found the answer.

Time was running out.

I slapped at my reflection in the mirror and then turned away, opening the door slowly and peering out into the empty hallway.

I padded quickly towards my bedroom, taking care not to be seen by anyone, namely Lucas, and then bolted the bedroom door behind me. I was relieved that this first day of enforced slavery was finally going to be over, and also vaguely aware that there was still twenty-nine days to go.

CHAPTER SIX:

IMI

G
ood morning,’ Susan said chirpily, as I rounded the bottom of the stairs and entered the kitchen.

‘Is it?’ I replied dryly, surveying the damage she was causing to a simple creation of what could be scrambled eggs.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you still cranky?’

I gave her a wry look. ‘It’s Monday. Isn’t that reason
enough to be sour?’

She smiled, tossing a mound of yellow, burnt-looking cotton wool onto a plate.

‘Are there any eggs in that?’ I said, pointing at the odd coloured pile of muck.

‘Of course there is,’ she snapped. ‘What else would there be in scrambled eggs?’

I shrugged. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t starting my week off with salmonella poisoning.

I took the plate from her outstretched fingers and headed into the dining room with everyone else. George was bent over the morning paper, reading some article about women up the coast that were going missing, along with a few ongoing homicides that had no leads.

The details were a little sketchy.

Apparently at least three women from Rockhampton had been abducted, followed by another four in Mackay, and one now in Townsville.

Perhaps that was why Susan and George were both going so mental about me sneaking out on my own on Saturday. It was amazing the clarity you could actually achieve if you switched perspectives and tried to look at a situation from the other person’s point of view. Of course I had zero intentions of telling them I understood. Hell would freeze over before I ever disclosed
that
little piece of information.

And speaking of all things hellish, Lucas was seemingly unperturbed by the smell of breakfast or the fact that I was pulling strange faces at him, trying to get his attention. He was sprawled out in the living room, his legs draped over the side of his favourite armchair watching Sponge Bob Square Pants on the television. I should have realised that communication with him during his morning cartoons was about as likely as Susan and George wrapping me in a warm hug and saying, ‘Just kidding, Elena, you’re not grounded anymore. You can do what you like’.

George poked his nose over the paper as I lowered the plate of eggs onto the table. He sniffed at the air and then glanced timidly back into the kitchen at Susan’s turned back. ‘Is that scrambled eggs?’ he asked me quietly.

‘Apparently.’

‘Anything else in there besides eggs?’

I shook my head. ‘Not as far as I know.’

He smiled and then lowered the paper, skewering a piece of egg with his fork and raising it to his mouth, before he changed his mind. I was waiting for the verdict on the taste test before I dug in.

‘It’s burnt, but not too bad considering,’ he said, scraping a lump onto his plate and grabbing two pieces of buttered toast from the centre of the table.

I followed suit.

He was right. Considering what she could have cooked for breakfast, it was definitely edible.

Lucas trotted up to the table a few minutes later. The cartoons he had been watching were now finished. He picked at a piece of toast that was now cold, and then toyed briefly with the idea of eating some of the eggs, but apparently changed his mind. He settled instead for just the cold, buttered toast only and a glass of orange juice.

Pussy.

‘I think we’ll have you mastering the Hevannatara spell today,’ George said to Lucas as he slapped him endearingly on the back.

‘You think so?’ Lucas sounded doubtful.

‘Of course. You are the son of two Protectors. These things will just come naturally with time and a little practice.’

I snorted. ‘I think Lucas was hoping to nail the spell
before
his seventieth birthday,’ I said, shoving a forkful of eggs into my mouth and grinning. I didn’t really mean it. If anything, Lucas deserved praise. He was smarter than I gave him credit for, learning spells far more quickly than everyone else at the IMI.

‘Shut up, E.’

I pointed my fork at Lucas and looked at George innocently. ‘Do you see what I have to put up with?’

He scowled and then picked the newspaper up again, abruptly halting our conversation in its tracks. But that didn’t stop Lucas from flipping me off and mouthing something that should have ended in having his mouth washed out with soap.

I grinned. ‘Right back at you, bro.’

‘How’s breakfast?’ Susan asked as she glided into the room and took her usual seat at the table.

‘Actually it’s—’

‘Excellent, my darling,’ George answered quickly, interrupting me mid sentence and tossing me another one of his ‘keep your mouth shut’ looks. How was keeping quiet ever going to help improve her cooking? Isn’t it called constructive criticism?