Obliterate

twenty

SOPHIE AND ELI awoke the next day to two urgent emails from Aelia. One was sent to both the staff and the students, announcing the cancellation of classes. Students were also now essentially on lock-down, confined to the their dorms with several teachers assigned to monitor and guard them. The other email was exclusive to the staff, detailing another meeting that was to be held at noon.

"I wonder what she is going to say," Eli said around his toothbrush. He leaned against their bathroom counter, watching Sophie wrestle with a pair of leggings.

"We lost another student," Sophie grumbled. "I'm sure that she's super panicked right now. She will probably put school on hold until we can figure out exactly what is going on. I checked the email addresses attached to the email. I noticed that she called in some old friends."

Eli squinted at her. "Who?"

She did a semi-squat to make sure that her leggings were comfortably in place. Then she stood straight, her hands on her hips, and beamed proudly at Eli. "Well, my old friends. They were actually in the Day class before the last Mating Games, so you may not know them as well. Do you remember my friend Tabatha?"

His eyes lit up and his cheerful "Oh!" came out gurgled, distorted from the frothy toothpaste in his mouth. He nodded and leaned over the sink to rinse his mouth out. Sophie chuckled and grabbed her hairbrush. "I noticed her email was attached to the list of recipients. Kitty's too. I didn't see the twins, however."

"It's been a while since we've heard from them," Eli said. "Those are the ones that went back home, right? Or to the recovery center?"

Sophie nodded. "Something like that."

When all the chaos with the Headmaster transpired, the entire human population at Redstone Academy were transformed. The Headmaster used them as a mini-army of brainwashed vampires against Aelia. Once everything had calmed down, Aelia created a rehabilitation center of sorts. It was located several miles away and was mostly run by former students from the Night Class, who had experience being a vampire and would be able to aid the newly turned. Tabatha, Kitty, and the twins were among the hundreds sent there.

Last Sophie had heard, however, Tabatha and Kitty had both been released. Kitty managed to convince her incredibly rich parents to fund several trips around the world, and wound up turning her adventures into a very lucrative social media presence. Tabatha went back home to spend time with her grandmother, who managed to beat her cancer about a month or so ago.

Both girls had been busy, and Sophie was stoked to see them again.

"Let's go," she told Eli as she walked toward the door. "We need to hustle. We are about to be late to this meeting."

"I know, I know," Eli hummed. He pulled a t-shirt over his head and then followed her out the door.

The moment the door shut behind them, his fingers curled around hers and squeezed tight. She couldn't help it. The action, despite being so small, still made her lips tug back into a smile. It was not only super sweet, but extremely comforting as well.