Crossed Worlds

Chapter 27: Revelations

  The rest of the morning Jade spent doing teambuilding activities, which she did not enjoy. She was good at working in a team – she always pulled her weight and was friendly – but tug of war, three-legged races and general team sport activities she despised. It made her feel like she was a fish trying to climb a tree; physical activity wasn't her strong point.

By the time lunch came around, she couldn't wait for everyone to unite and report back. She hadn't really found anything juicy yet herself, but she'd be interested to hear if anyone else had the foundations of a conspiracy yet.

Luke called her name from a long table where most of the gang were sat down already, and she was happy to see Martha had taken a seat, too. She decided to sit next to her.

Slowly but surely everyone else arrived, and James lent in to kiss Jade's cheek but stopped himself, cautious of whether or not that was a suspicious thing to do. Jade understood, but she was still frustrated, craving the trace of his lips on her skin.

"Well, nothing out of the blue yet, I guess," Jack announced, biting into an apple.

"We'll just have to dig deeper. I mean, it's the second day of the first week. They won't do anything suspicious yet," Martha shrugged.

Jade took a quick look around and was happy to see neither the Queen nor the Head Being were around. They both made her skin crawl and added an edge to the air, so it was nice to feel at least a little bit free.

"One of the leaders said we all did the same activities in rotation. What did you guys think of the image thing?" Isaac asked.

"It was strange. Some of the images seemed pointless to test, but then others were kind of disturbing. I didn't get that," Jade felt the weirdness Hunter had mentioned after they'd sat through it return to her. She shook it off.

At that moment, Alyssa appeared, and stood beside where Hunter was sat, looking down at him expectantly.

"I think she wants you to move up," Anna whispered, and he did so as quickly as he could, leaving her a small space that her narrow frame fit into with ease.

She introduced herself, dripping with confidence, and explained that she was now also a part of whatever they all were, as confirmed by Hunter and Jade. All Jade seemed to notice as a response was all the boys, as well as Zoe and Lily, staring at her and almost drooling. It made sense; she was beautiful, and also a little bit scary, which Jade reckoned some boys liked.

"She's also a vampire," Hunter added.

"Surely not," Lily broke out of the Alyssa admiration spell.

Alyssa narrowed her eyes and parted her lips, revealing pincer-like fangs. This did not deter anyone from looking at her with heart eyes, it in fact seemed to encourage them further.

"That's insane..." Zoe stared in shock.

"I can hear every single one of your heartbeats," Alyssa said. "Hunter, yours seems a little fast."

He blushed and flicked his hair out of his face whilst the other boys smirked and giggled.

"Well, it's not everyday you see an actual vampire," he defended himself.

"Right. Well now that we know Alyssa is a smoking hot vampire. Can we get back to discussing a game plan or something?" Martha appeared to be entirely unimpressed.

James scratched his head and sighed.

"I just don't know what we can plan when we don't have any evidence of anything yet. All we've done is sit through some pictures and play school games we usually did when we were five," he said.