Lost In The Night (On Hold)

A Turn Of Events

Are you freaking kidding me?! No! Mr. Coles, please, change today's work. Please. Oh my god, no no no no no. I actually have to work with Raphael today, most of the time, I can ignore him or have a minimal amount of interaction with him. Today, Mr
Coles wants to work on our cooperation skills, so he's having us do a short assignment that requires two people.

Slowly, I turn towards Raphael, who is grinning at me knowing that I dread working with him and having to actually talk to him more than necessary. "Ready to start working, Cress?"

"Shut up, here's how it's going to go. We discuss the work, and only the work. We stay on topic, and get the assignment done as quickly and efficiently as possible."

Raphael holds his hands up in mock surrender. "Alright, you're the boss. Let's start."

Surprisingly enough, aside from me giving Raphael the cold shoulder, we work pretty well together. At some point, I say, "Raph, can you pass me that please?" And Raphael stares at me for a full minute. "What?" I was growing impatient, but Raphael just keeps staring at me. Finally, he says, "you called me Raph, instead of Raphael. That's the first time you called me by my nickname. I'd say our friendship is progressing." I reply with, "what friendship?" And scoff.

Looking back at it, the way he acted was actually kind of hot... wait, what? No. No, not hot. But the way the right side of his mouth naturally curves up, and the glint in his eyes, the way he talks... ok, woah, no. Big nope Cress, back it up and throw it off the cliff. I glance over at Raphael who has his head bent, but I can see the ghost of a smile on his lips, perfect lips. I mentally slap myself. That train of thought needs to get off at the next stop and never return.

A new thought occurs to me just then, crap!!! I remember learning in training that older vampires can read minds, but they also told us not not to worry about that because most of the older vamps keep to themselves. But, here I am, sitting next to one of the oldest vampires alive, and all this time I've been thinking about things I don't want him knowing.

I chance a glance at Raphael to see if his expression will give anything away. He looks up and I'm staring into bottomless blue orbs that captivates the mind, stops the heart, and reaches the soul.

"You know, Cress, your thoughts are quite entertaining." His deep voice reverberates through me, and I snap out of my daze.

"Oh god, you pervert! Stay out of mind! Creep..."

Raphael laughs, careless and melodic, "I just find it amusing how you continuously push me away, yet you find yourself noticing small things about me."

"Shut up Raphael."

"Maybe if you stop giving me the cold shoulder and just try to be friends with me, this would be a lot easier. I understand you pushing me away, that's what you hunters are trained to do. But I promise I have no intention of harming you or anyone else, I'll be a good little boy."

I roll my eyes at that last statement, but I consider this. I mean, sure he can be cocky and a jerk, but underneath all of that, I've seen a caring and gentle person. Maybe that's not such a bad idea, considering that being mean to him only seems to encourage him to enrage me.

Instead of voicing my decision, I resume working and Raphael does the same. We fall into a comfortable rhythm, not getting in each other's way. To my surprise, I find that Raphael can be a pleasant person to work with, if he so chooses to make it a pleasant experience. We made small talk, got to know each other on a different level, instead of the whole "all vampires and hunters are enemies" thing. Raphael told me some stories of his past, like why he was banned from certain places. To both mine and Adrian's astonishment, I laughed at some of the things he said. Adrian kept glancing over to make sure everything was okay, considering I never let my guard down around Raphael. Which, I haven't, I've just chosen to loosen up a bit and try looking at things from a different perspective.

When class is over, I find that I'm a tad disappointed, I was rather enjoying myself with Raphael. Well, that's something I thought I'd never say.

Adrian walks over, his face slightly confused. "Hey, is everything okay? I heard you laughing and it confused me, 'cause last time I checked, you hate Raphael."

"Walk and talk brother," turning to Raphael, I say, "see you later, Raph."

"Later, Cress."

"Ummmm, I hope you have an explaination ready, sister dearest." Adrian is looking at me, trying to figure out what changed in the last seventy minutes.

So, I proceed to explain how I decided that I should try things from a different angle. That pushing him away only made him get under my skin more, and made him want to push me to the edge of a cliff. I also explained how Raphael is a good person underneath his cold exterior, he just chooses the people he shows his nice side to. I tell Adrian how he's not that bad of a person once you take the time to get to know him properly, Adrian listens intently and nods along slowly. But I also do not omit the fact that I still don't trust him fully, that I'm staying on guard and keeping an eye on him.

"Alright, I guess I'm okay with that. So, just to be clear, we're not killing him?"

"For now, no. He doesn't seem to have any intention of causing a dispute between the clans, but if things change, then yeah, we kill him." Adrian doesn't seem too happy about everything changing, buy he's willing to give it a shot, who says a vampire and two hunters can't be civil with each other? Our clans don't define us, yes we follow their teachings, and yes we have their traits, but their opinions are not ours. Adrian and I antagonizing Raphael from the start was us letting the League's opinions of vampires become our own, I realized this and decided to make a choice of my own and give Raphael a chance.

The rest of the day passes by fairly quickly and soon enough, Adri and I are sitting in our living room. Adri fell asleep on the couch and I was reading when the landline goes off, Adrian mumbles incoherently and attemps to get off the couch, but fails miserably. I laugh at him and go to pick up the phone, frowning when I see it's the head of the League, Amara, calling.

"Hello?" The League never calls our landline, normally they send text messages through an encrypted line, and they only contact us when they have a hunt for us.

"Hello? Cressida, it's Amara. I have a hunt for you and your brother, it's an important one. I need both of you as soon as possible, I need to brief you two on the hunt."

"Um, yeah sure. We'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"Perfect. See you two then."

I hang up and I explain to Adrian what just happened. "Shit," is all he says before jumping up and grabbing his stuff to leave, as do I. Getting a call from the head of the League means that something is wrong, and you should be worried. Normally, you get a call from our headquarters reception desk at most.

Adrian gets into the driver's seat of the car, and I in the passenger seat. We speed off, hoping we don't get stopped by the police on our way to HQ. What hunt could be so bad that we have to actually go to HQ and meet with Amara?