The Legend of the Eight: The Hunted (Book 5)

9: Vigil

NINE: VIGIL
FEBRUARY 12
NICOLE BRADLEY

IT WAS DURING LUNCH WHEN he made the announcement. His voice projected over the loudspeaker and he called for volunteers to donate blood. No other details were given. No explanation. Just a call for volunteers.

Almost immediately after the announcement, Nicole met with the others in her dorm to discuss the inevitable panic they all faced.

"You know what's coming next, don't you?" said Drew, pacing the room so hard he practically had the building shaking. "People aren't going to volunteer and then he'll start grabbing them. Lots of them."

"How is that any different from what he's doing now?" asked Nicole because she was just as anxious about the Doctor's call.

"Time's up," said Drew. "We have to do something."

"What can we do?" asked Kate. "Anything we do could either risk our lives, expose us, or risk the lives of everyone he's already taken."

"We don't even know if they're still alive," said Phoebe, flicking her fingers while she attempted some spell. She'd been doing that a lot lately—not that anyone knew what spells she was working on.

"So that's it?" asked Nicole, throwing her arms up in the air. "We just give up? He bombed the Veil! He sicced a Beast on the Appler family! He's kidnapping people left and right. We can't just give up!"

"We don't have a choice," Liam said, helplessness in his aquamarine eyes. "There's nothing we can do. Not without making it worse."

"We need to fly under the radar," Kate said as Liam took to massaging her very tense shoulders. "If the Doctor doesn't get the volunteers he's looking for, he's going to do something else. And we need to make sure whatever he does, it's not to us."

AFTER LUNCH, NICOLE CONSIDERED SKIPPING Botany and Premonitions on account of she just didn't feel like going but Kate's words were ringing in her ear. They needed to fly under the radar—and skipping class was not the way to do it. So she sat and suffered and when the day was over, she walked back to her dorm alone.

On her way, her phone rang and when she looked down, she saw Alex's name there.

"Hello?"

"Where are you?" he asked and it sounded like he was outside. She could hear the wind whipping against the phone's speaker and it nearly drowned out his voice.

"Walking back to the North Hall. Where are you?"

"Meet me by the East Courtyard. It's important."

SHE WASN'T SURE WHAT TO expect but when she met Alex in the courtyard, he had his hands stuffed in his pockets and he looked downcast at the snowy ground. It was only after she said his name that he realized she'd joined him and he walked over to her, pecking a kiss against her cheek.

"What's going on?" she asked and there was no disguising the worry in her voice. "What happened?"

"My mom called," he said, kicking a chunk of snow with his sneaker. "Marcus's mom called her after she heard about what happened at lunch."

Nicole's heart sunk in her chest. She remembered the day her parents go the call about Mare. She remembered the gut-wrenching cry her mom let out just before the phone slipped from her hand and broke against the floor. She remembered her father's face turning cold as a stone and how it never did soften. The only thing worse than that call was the King and Queen's visit the next day.