Reckless

Reckless - Chapter Fourteen

 *puts on fez* here's chapter fourteen! 

R E C K L E S S . . . 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN-

It wasn’t until Wednesday that I found Brittany, and it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Ever since Sunday I’d been keeping an eye out for the young vampire, who never seemed to show herself in normal circumstances. I’d been watching the canteen, sitting with Sam and Claire in a stony silence after our fight on Saturday, and the busy corridors. I’d even spent some time outside Chris’s dorm, hoping she’d stop by there, but so far nothing.

Clementine’s warnings of the pending exams had been brought to the front of my mind as well because by Monday every teacher was telling me about the importance of revising for my GCSEs like it was something I actually cared about.

So it was only on Wednesday evening, as I was stomping furiously back from Maths – to which my teacher still hadn’t turned up to - after being told I’d have to attend extra sessions if my grades didn’t improve, that I encountered Brittany Blackman.

Her slim, tall figure wasn’t hard to spot amongst the crowd of students heading towards the dorms and as soon as I’d identified her I quickly walked towards it, calling “Brittany!” as loudly as I dared.

She stopped as soon as she heard her name and spun around with an incredible grace, making a few people in the crowd falter as they tried to walk around her. “Anne?” she asked, taken aback. “What do you want?”

“I know you don’t want to talk to me but this is important.”

“Is this something to do with that party on Friday night?” An unspoken ‘the one where Chris attacked you’ hung in the air between us.

I nodded almost imperceptibly.

She shot out her hand in a freakishly fast movement that only a vampire could accomplish and pulled me away from the people in the corridor, who had no doubt been trying to eavesdrop.

“Chris’s bite marks have already faded,” she observed curtly, glancing at my neck while she dragged me along down the corridor. “You really must’ve ingested some of his blood.”

My hand flitted up to my neck. The marks had already gone, much to my relief. It had only taken two days for them to disappear from my neck, so I hadn’t had any curious questions about them since Sam and Claire had had our fight.

“So?” she demanded, dropping my arm once we’d found an empty corridor. “What do you want to tell me?”

“Okay, I know that you’re mad that I was with Chris at that party-“ I started.

“Mad? That doesn’t even begin to explain what I’ve been feeling. Do you know what you’re doing to yourself by talking to Chris this often? How much danger you’re putting yourself in every moment you’re with one of the supernatural? Do you know how lucky you were to get out of that house alive?”

 “Look: I’ve already had the whole talk about how stupid I was to get into that situation from various people, I don’t need it again.”

She sighed. “Then what do you need, Anne? What could you possibly want to know that you don’t already?”

“What’s Chris planning to do to me?”

“Haven’t you already guessed?”

I met her gaze and took a deep breath. “I have a theory,” I said in a steady voice. “I’m just looking for a way to confirm it.”