Forbidden - The Vampire Hunter

Chapter Eight

Eight

I was up at half-ten the next morning, finding the post at the door. It held bills for my father and a small brown package labeled for me. Still in the old sweats I’d slept in, I opened it up, letting the contents slide onto the table. There was a key-fob-identical to the one Clinton had used-and a note. I opened it up and it said that it was for the building door, from Smith. I went back to bed.

          “Jade! You’re going to be late!” My Dad shouted from the bottom of the stairs. I shot out of my bed and checked my phone. I had five minutes to get to school before the bell. I got dressed and raced downstairs, texting Beth to go without me. I heard Henry leave without me as I grabbed a doughnut out of the fridge and grabbed my bag. I fumbled with my keys, locking the door behind me and started to sprint to school when I stopped on the spot. I my driveway sat the familiar Jaguar. It blinked and there, meters in front of me, stood Clinton with the driver’s door open. He smiled at me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him stupidly. Give me a break; I had only woken up two minutes ago.

“Thought you could do with a ride.” He said and opened the passenger’s door for me. I got in, seeing as I only had minutes till the bell rang. We drove to the school in silence but what I didn’t expect is when he parked right outside school, in full view of everyone.

          We got out and walked together, everyone looking and whispering. I felt like running and hiding but I gave them all a lazy grin. Beth and Matt were walking up the steps in front of us and turned to see what everyone was pointing at. She saw me and started to roll her eyes when her gaze moved on to Clinton. We caught up with the both of them.

“Sorry, I woke up late.” I explained to her.

“Of course you did.” She breathed sarcastically but I ignored her. Matt met Clinton with a huge smile on his face.

“You’re in. The best striker we’ve seen. Training starts tonight.” He told him. It took me a few seconds to understand what they were talking about and when I did, I smacked myself on the head. That was quite stupid actually because I hit my cut, forcing me to grind my teeth to stop crying out in pain.

“Dammit! I missed football tryouts!” I exclaimed. Matt gave me a knowing smile.

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you a private try-out at lunch time and if you are good enough, you’re on the girl’s team.”

Matt was captain of the boy’s team but had a vote in some of the girl’s team players. I felt like hugging him but I settled for a high-five.

“You rock.” I told him as we shuffled to lesson.

          “Ready Ajax?” Matt asked me from the goals. We were in the football court, both wearing our P.E kit. Beth and Mark stood on the side-lines cheering me on along with some other friends.

“Let’s do this.” I shouted to him. Two girls that had already got onto the team jogged towards me, defending. Someone from the side rolled the ball to me and blew the whistle. I had to score four out of five goals to get in. I dribbled forward to one defender and faked going left and went right. The other started to close in on me but I saw a small gap between her and Matt. I kicked the ball, spiraling over her shoulder and past Matt’s hands, into the goal. It was a good shot seeing as I was not even in the box yet. I shot my fist in the air and went again, passing the defenders with sprints or tricks every time. Matt missed every goal as well and I scored every one in. I got a huge cheer after my last one and splashed my water on my face.

“You’re in.” Matt told me with a grin as I went to get changed back into my jeans.

          I left the changing rooms, ten minutes for class so the yard was empty. I pulled my hair into a pony-tail, trying to smooth it down.