Hunted

Chapter 23

... Isaac ...

"Go to bed, Isaac. I know you haven't had any sleep in a while." Ms. Keefe dismisses me.

"But..."

"Elizabeth will be fine. Go." She waves her hand at me. I sigh and leave her office and go to my dorm, helplessness bottled up inside me.

She'll be fine. If you want company, I'll come with you. Blaise's sudden voice makes me jump. He's hidden in the shadow, so I can only see his bright eyes.

"Sure. I guess I'm used to having someone in the room while I go to sleep." I've been staying in Lizzy's hospital room since she was staked. Which was like a month ago.

Blaise follows me outside and into my dorm, where he settles on my windowsill. I fall asleep almost immediately.

The next morning I get dressed so quietly, I don't even wake up Blaise. I run outside, with the hopeful thought that Lizzy will wake up today. The sky is a perfect shade of blue, giving me a calm feeling.

Students make their way to their first period class with the usual crowd. "Hey, Isaac, how's Elizabeth doing?" Norman walks up to me.

"Hey Norman. She's only woke up twice in the last month, but other than that, she's doing fine." I nod and I suddenly hear a bunch of shouts behind me. I turn around and I see some students grouping around a tree, pointing and yelling. It's probably just lizard or something.

I ignore them and continue walking towards Ms. Keefe's office. I push open the biggest door and walk down a couple of hallways to Lizzy's room. The door is already open. It's never open.

I cautiously walk in, seeing if Lizzy's alright. But she's not here. The sheets are carefully folded up, the heart monitors are laying on the bed, and the IV is hanging close to the ground, a pool of blood underneath it. I quickly turn it off and run to Ms. Keefe's office.

"Ms. Keefe, she's not here!" I barge into her office, where she's meeting with a student who's probably violated dress code.

"What do you mean she's not here?" She stands up and demands.

"She's not here." I say it slower and she sighs impatiently. She walks towards me and closes the door behind her.

"She probably went outside looking for someone." She briskly walks into the sun. "I'll check the girls' dorms. You check everywhere else." She instructs, and my first guess is that she would go to my place, but I didn't see her on the way out, so that's out.

"Isaac, come over here! Hurry!" Norman calls from the large group of kids, panic spreading across his face. What if Lizzy is being surrounded by kids? I quickly run over there, and push through the crowd. Everyone yells at me to get back, but I ignore them.

At the base of the tree, is a bright red fox, a bandaged wrapped around its chest. Oh. My. God. I've heard that some Vampires can shift into nocturnal animals if the amount of venom is high enough. That didn't even cross my mind.

"Get back!" I yell at the crowd. They don't listen though. "NOW!" I scream and they all go silent.

"Back up, will you?" Norman starts physically pushing people back. I crouch down in front of the foxes head and run my hand over her face.

"Lizzy, I need you to wake up." She doesn't even twitch an ear. I sigh and look back at Norman, who's trying to keep the crowd back.

"It's her, isn't it?" He asks, realization crossing his face.

"Yeah, I need to call Ms. Keefe." I pull out my phone and quickly dial her mobile, which she always carries on her.

"Did you find her?" She picks up almost immediately.

"Sort of." I slide my hand down my face.

"What do you mean, sort of? You either found her or you didn't." Irritation sharpening her voice.

"She's a shifter. Come outside, we're in the big group of students." She hangs up, and she quickly walks out of the girl's dorm, her high heels clicking on the sidewalk.

"Get to class!" She yells at all the students, who quickly dissemble and run to their first period class.

She sighs when she sees Lizzy. "I should have known. With that much venom in her she was bound to become a shifter. Especially with her connection with Blaise." I look down at her, the rare type of shifter she's become. She's a fiery red all the way to the tip of her tail, where it looks like she dipped it in white paint. Her chest and bottom muzzle is snow white, but with gray flecks almost dotting it all out. Her legs are a pitch black that rises all the way to her shoulders. On her back left paw, is a shimmering of gray.

"How are we going to move her?" I ask.

"She's probably only about fifteen or twenty pounds. She's smaller than most of the red foxes I've seen." She gives Lizzy a critical glare. "Did you know, the most common type of shifter is not a bat? It's actually an owl?"

"No I didn't, but now I do." I smile and move to Lizzy's back. I carefully slip my hands under her stomach and neck. Her muzzle scrunches up in pain, and I quickly move my hand to her shoulder. The look of pain goes away.

"Wow, she is pretty light." I walk up to Ms. Keefe who nods.

"Told you. We should probably get some blood in her before we do anything else. Come on." Ms. Keefe leads the way inside and opens all the doors for me.

I gently lay her down in the bed and Ms. Keefe inserts a clean IV needle in her. As a precaution, I put the oxygen mask in front of her nose.

"She should be waking up soon. I'll go find Blaise." Ms. Keefe leaves in search of the cat, and I text Mason.

Get down here now!

He should get over here pretty quickly.