Reckless

Reckless - Chapter Forty-One

R E C K L E S S . . .

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

“Are you sure it was him?”

“Of course I’m sure it was him,” I said, my impatience showing in my tone. I was on my last nerve. “He was right in front of me along with all his friends.”

My mouth stretched open in a yawn, an infuriating result of only two hours of fitful sleep. I’d spent the whole night anxiously sitting awake, waiting for the supernaturals to come back as I was sure they were going to. I hadn’t been able to even shut my eyes in fear that they would burst through the door while I was off my guard. I couldn’t let them get to my family without a fight.

Yet the vampire and his friends never showed up. Nothing had happened all night. The one thought in my mind as I’d crawled out my bed the next morning was that I needed to call the vampire hunters – but how could I when I didn’t even have their number? Calling Sam and Claire seemed to have been the next best action to take, so that was what I did instead.

Claire paused for a second. “Darren?”

“Yes. Darren was there,” I snapped at her. I was in no mood to comfort her over him, especially since he’d let three vampires into my house the night before. It was his fault if the vampires broke into my house again. “He’s always there, Claire. You don’t need to ask.”

“Okay,” she said stiffly. “I’m going to find Sam.”

I listened to the faint creak of the sofa as she stood up and the soft thump of her footsteps. The door creaked open as she headed out into the corridor.

“Seriously, Claire, as much as I would like to talk to Sam I’d rather you just find Blake for me.”

“We haven’t seen Blake around for days,” she said. “I’m not sure where he’s gone. We tried to find him earlier but he wasn’t anywhere – not in his dorm or the canteen. I don’t think anyone’s seen him in class either. Maybe he stopped boarding when you left or when Chris vanished?”

I sighed heavily. “He’s probably gone off vampire hunting. I really need to talk to him.”

“Don’t you still have his number?”

“My phone broke, remember? And I’m terrible at memorising numbers so that’s not even an option.” I paused, thinking hard. “Hang on; didn’t I give you his number a while ago?”

“It didn’t work,” she said apologetically. “I tried calling him that day Alexis attacked you to tell him what’d happened but it was disconnected. Maybe you gave me the wrong number?”

“Or maybe he just doesn’t want anyone to contact him,” I murmured. “I haven’t seen him for ages. I’ve talked to Mort on the phone, but the subject of Blake didn’t crop up.” Then again, in our last conversation Mort had been too busy telling me that they’d lost track of Chris and he was probably heading towards me, so there wasn’t much time for casual chitchat.

The memory of the phone call evoked a thought in me. Why hadn’t the hunters been watching the house if they were so sure that Chris would turn up? What had happened to dissuade them from that theory? Or had something stopped them from coming?

My annoyance at them was instantly replaced by fear. Were they all okay?

“How did you talk to Mort?”

“He phoned the house – and no, before you ask, he didn’t leave a number.”

“Idiot. Didn’t he think you might need to contact him? There is an insane vampire chasing after you, after all.”