A World of New (A Shade of Vampire, #26)

“Then I suggest you return now and get some rest. It could be a long day tomorrow.”


We bade each other farewell. I headed to the washrooms and, after disinfecting my hands, left the hospital. I was practically skipping through the sunflower meadow as I made my way back to the Residences. It was cool to have a reason to skip school, but I was also genuinely excited about the challenge Shayla had given me. It felt like I was finally doing something truly of value, of impact, rather than always following in the shadows of others and being a perpetual learner.

This was a responsibility that I planned to take very seriously and give all that I had.





Grace





Before returning to my family’s treehouse, I decided to pay a visit to my aunts and grandmother on my mother’s side. Aunt Dafne was almost thirty years old in human years; she had been turned into a vampire at twenty-one. Aunt Lalia, in her mid-twenties in human years, had turned into a vampire only a couple of years ago. And my grandmother Nadia was frozen at forty-eight years old. She always joked that she would never reveal her real human age to me, although my mother had already told me her date of birth.

All three single ladies shared a penthouse, a few trees away from mine. Then there was Jamil, my vampire uncle, who lived a little further away with his human wife and five-year-old son. Nadia, Lalia, Dafne and Jamil had all been turned by my mother at their request.

My aunts and grandmother rushed to greet me as I arrived at their front door.

“How are you, Grace?” my grandmother asked, planting a big wet kiss on my cheek.

“How long have you been back?” Dafne asked.

“Fine, thanks,” I replied, stepping inside. “Just got back earlier today.”

“How’s it going with the others?”

I thought back to the bombing. God knew how many lives we’d taken, of both hunters and mutants. The destruction we’d caused. “It was going, uh, well, I guess.” I went on to explain what had happened as the three led me into the dining room. The table had already been laid with glasses of deep red liquid; they’d started their meal. My grandmother always kept her fridge stocked with human food for when she had visitors—specifically me as a visitor. She prepared some falafel before planting it down in front of me. Mmm. How I loved my grandma’s cooking.

“Do you know when they’ll return?” Lalia asked.

“No idea,” I muttered.

We talked almost exclusively about the trip over dinner, until eight o’clock struck and I decided to leave. I didn’t usually fall asleep until around 10 PM at night, but I had some preparation to do for tomorrow. So I bade them good night and left, returning to my treehouse.

I took a shower and washed my hair before slipping into my nightie and heading to my bedroom. I sat down at my desk and retrieved my brand-new, pink polka-dot journal from a drawer. Picking up a pen, I turned to the first page. This notebook had been a gift from my cousin Hazel on my sixteenth birthday, and I had just been waiting for the opportunity to use it. This new project I was about to undertake felt like the perfect excuse.

The witches’ training had been thorough and extensive when it came to caring for sick patients and sufferers of trauma. I turned my mind back to those lessons now. They had taught us to approach each patient individually and methodically. We would always start by taking a piece of paper and listing down everything and anything we knew about the patient—basically a character profile.

As I placed the tip of my pen against the paper, I realized what a difficult exercise this was in this man’s case. Usually I would write the name of the patient at the top of the page. Here, I could only think to write, British Guy.

Still, I wrote down what little I knew of him. His physical symptoms, like his coldness and inability to move his legs. Shayla’s statement that he was a half-blood. His general physical appearance. And then some notes on his demeanor, what little I had gleaned of that. I hadn’t had much of a chance to observe his personality yet. I also noted his inability to hold down food today. And that was about all I could fill the page with.

Well, that was quick.

But it was a start nonetheless. Hopefully, in the coming days, Shayla and I would be able to learn a lot more about him, and I would fill up more pages of my notebook. For now, I placed it into my backpack along with my pen, which I planned to take with me to the hospital tomorrow. Then I sank into bed.

Although I had gotten to bed earlier than usual, it wasn’t until about midnight that I finally dropped off to sleep. My mind was too filled with recollections of everything I had witnessed in The Woodlands, and I also worried about how my parents and family were faring now on the mission. Then I began mulling over what the day might be like tomorrow with the nameless half-blood stranger.

If there was anything that I could complain about in my life—which, if I was honest with myself, there really wasn’t—it certainly wasn’t that it was boring.





Vivienne