The Rosen Vampire Knight Series

Thread of Thorns: Chapter 9

Emma

"What was that about?" Satoru asks. He's the first one to speak since Kogeta disappeared up the stairs.

Everyone remains silent. I can see that Kaito is troubled by his assistant vampire's behavoir. Zero and Yori are staying out of the disscusion, not wanting to involve themselves in vampire business. Raki doesn't seem to care at all. Violet immediately goes after her boyfriend, starting the long climb up the stairs.

As soon as she's at the top, I decide to speak. "Excuse me." I dismiss myself.

Seeing me head towards the doors, Zero quickly joins my side. One of the Perfects has to escort me and he'd rather not stick around for the aftermath of this failed attempt at resolving things. The others don't even bother looking my way as I exit.

Outside, I begin walking down the path that connects Moon Dorm to the main building. There's several questions on my mind I want answers to and neither Kaito nor Kogeta can help figure them out. The two people who can are not on the best of moods with me either.

"So, where are we going?" Zero gets the nerve to ask, feeling he at deserves a general idea.

"Back to the main building. I want to talk with my cousin Keirrin first." I explain.

"Cousin?" Zero echoes.

I've almost forgotten that he doesn't know a thing about her. "It's a long story." I sigh. "All you need to know is that she's extremely annoying---even more than Risa's worst."

He frowned. "And the reason we're going to her is...?"

"Information." I fill in the blank. "She was the last person who ever saw her butler Byron, who has been missing since the same exact time Kogeta had gone missing. Now that we have one back, the other is still unaccounted for."

Zero nodded, understanding completely. "You think there's a pattern." he assumed.

"Possibly." I answered. "It depends on what Keirrin tells me. If Byron was also a telepath, then we know the person is targeting telepaths only. That might mean someone is trying to catch the school, vampires specifically, off guard."

When we approached the main building, Zero held the door open for me. I was one of the few he acted gentlemen-like to. Yuuki was another, since they'd come back together with a sister-brother relationship, starting last year. He understood that a relationship wasn't possible between them because they'd grown up most of their lives together.

Zero decided to stay with me as I walked down the halls, searching for my cousin. She didn't turn up in a single one of the lounges. I knew why. Keirrin wasn't very welcome because of her personality. Most of the vampires prefered cool conversation over a supershow of emotion. 

"Let's try the classrooms." I suggested out loud, but if Zero had a problem with it, he didn't say anything.

Although I didn't know where my brother Jarred's class was, I guessed that it was in the other direction of mine as we entered the building. Keirrin, on her first day here, had followed him that way so I supposed that it was in that direction. I'd just have to check the each classroom down the hall until I found her. 

We returned to the site where the doors on that side of the building faced Moon Dorm. From there, I systematically began elimating where she wasn't. By the time I got to the seventh class, I still hadn't found her.

"Now what?" Zero sighed, finding this as boring as me.

"We'll just go find the other person I want to talk to." I told him, giving up on the idea of talking to Keirrin. It seemed when I wanted her around, she was never here.

"And that would be...?" My Level-E friend asked, leaving me to fill in the blank.

"Toran." I admitted.

As angry as the redish-brown haired vampire might be, I needed to get answers from him. He was one of the few who had traveled along when Kaito had taken me to his parent's house. There was a detail I was particularly interested in that we'd never been able to figure out.

We walked down the hall and happened to bump into him around the corner. Toran looked like he was going to excuse himself, then he noticed.

"Oh, it's you." he muttered with as much staleness he could muster.

"Listen." I spoke up before he could make a quick get-away. Toran held still, his body obeying my pureblood order. "I want to ask you something. Do you remember when we were attacked in the limo by those plants?"

He frowned, blinked a couple of times, then decided to answer. "Yeah. The old man gave me that cigarette lighter. I burned the vines off of your arm." Toran recalled.

"But when Annie fought me," I reminded him, "she had levitation."

"So what." He scoffed. "She was a pureblood. They can have more than one power."

"Then why didn't she use it when we fought?" I countered.

Toran paused and thought for a moment. He couldn't make sense of it either.

"And Koien can only read emotions." I added, going through the list of people that were there. "He's a noble so he only has that one power. None of the other guests had tried to attack me. Kaito's parents were fair. And Annie's recruits didn't show any sign of having any abilities."

"Who attacked you with the plants, then?" Toran asked, suddenly concerned for me.

"That's just it. I don't know." I shrugged.

"It must mean that someone else has it out for you." He replied, completely sure of himself. "Hana wouldn't have attacked you. She's a loyal noble...." he trailed off for a moment. "Sorry." he apologized. "I know I haven't been fair with you. I deserved to be slapped after making that joke."

"It's okay." I answered in return. "I was frustrated at a lot of things that day and you were the one who finally pushed me over the edge. I snapped and didn't think how it would effect you."

Toran's mouth turned into one of his famous grins. "Friends?" he asked playfully.

"Friends." I agreed.

~"~

A little mid-night dreaming, a little mid-night scheming.