“Dean. Nice to meet you…”
He was dangling for my name. Unfortunately, I couldn’t freaking remember what it was this time. Whoops. I ran through the list of names I rotated through, switching it up slightly with each new town and each new school.
Julie… Justine… Celeste… Sophie…
“Sophie.”
I hoped that was the freaking name on my documents this time anyway. ‘S’ names were the easiest to use since they were the closet to my real name. I was getting sloppy. I hadn’t bothered to check the paperwork Caleb had stuffed in my bag this morning.
“That’s pretty.”
“Uh huh.”
Jeez, could the guy not take a hint? I turned away, not caring if I seemed rude. Maybe I had glamoured him. I knew it could happen from our scent alone sometimes. It was meant to calm those around us.
It helped to make sure they didn’t freak out when we started drinking them like a glass of OJ.
This guy was not calm either though. Not exactly. He was sticking to me like glue. I jumped as he grabbed my shoulder. His smile only got wider when I glared at him. He jerked his head in the opposite direction.
“The admin office is that way.”
Then he strolled off, whistling.
Whistling! Almost like he’d known what I was thinking. I scowled at his broad back for a split second. He turned and caught me staring. And then he winked.
Ugh, don’t encourage him Sash.
I hastened down the rapidly emptying hallway towards the admin office. It went relatively quickly. My documents were fake, but they were forged by an eleven-hundred -year-old Vampire.
In other words, they were flawless.
Caleb was pretty much like Tesla and Einstein rolled into one. He’d been born with a big brain. Plus, he’d had a heck of a lot longer to learn and study.
The man read books so fast and so often it was astounding. And he never got bored. He just loved learning. It was a love he’d passed on to me, though I was nowhere near as fast.
Caleb was brilliant and could do just about anything.
Anything except make a joke. The man was utterly humorless. Thank goodness for Bernard. He was a lot younger, as far as my father’s inner circle went. About four hundred years old.
Bernard was… not the sharpest tool in the shed in comparison. Not a dummy by any means, but not a scholar either. Not that it made me love him any less.
He was the affectionate one in our trio. He was sweet and loved to laugh. And he was incredibly big and strong, even for a Vampire. I adored them both equally.
Of course, he wasn’t big on hugging his future queen either. Future queen IF I even survived to my eighteenth birthday and reached my full powers. And that was a pretty big ‘if.’ I had over a year to go.
And I still had a lot to learn in my training.
“Homeroom is down this way. And here is the combination for your locker.”
I glanced at the paper for a split second before crumpling it up. Yeah, a photographic memory was one of the many unfair advantages I had over my human classmates. Never growing old being the main one, of course.
At least, I thought I wouldn’t grow old. I was aging somewhat normally for a human, but that had begun to slow down. Caleb had a theory that once I finished puberty, I’d stop changing and become like them.
Frozen in time.
The administrator opened the door and waved the teacher over. Mr. Jones was a quiet, thoughtful seeming man. He looked a bit overwhelmed and waved me to a seat without any fuss.
I tried to ignore the stares from my classmates, tugging my hair over my eyes. It was my first day and I was determined to make it here for a couple of months at least. We’d moved in over the weekend and I liked the new house.
It was… homey.
My guardians had provided for me over the years. They gave me everything I could possibly need to grow and survive. But the one thing we’d never had in all these years was a real home.
We were running too much for that.
“Class this is Sophie Wallace. Make her welcome.”
I felt every single person in the room look at me and then away. Good. I was doing my best to repel them, which worked most of the time. Sort of an anti —glamour. I could push people away as well as attract them.
Most of the time anyway.
It helped me attract as little attention as possible. The fact that I was wearing the blandest clothes ever and no makeup didn’t hurt either. Most teenage girls made at least a token attempt at being stylish. I did… not. I sighed.
I would have loved to go shopping, believe me.
Half the kids were yawning, clearly wishing they were still in bed. I sat and did my best to look bored. It wasn’t much of a stretch.
There were several announcements over the loudspeaker and then a bell rang. Everyone jumped up and left except the girl sitting next to me. She had light brown hair and glasses over her intelligent blue eyes.
“Hi.”
She smiled shyly and waited for me to grab my bag. I hid my surprise. Kids here were… friendlier than many of the ones I’d encountered.
“Hey.”
“I’m Karen. Do you need help finding your way to first period?”
I nodded. I had no clue which way next period was. Being rude was pointless and anyway, the girl seemed nice. It was too bad Caleb had forbidden me from making friends.
I wasn’t allowed human friends anyway.
He might be okay if I found a damn wood sprite to chill with. Or a vamp or two. I’d only met a handful of other supernaturals, and those were the ones Caleb had known for centuries.
“Can I see your schedule?”
I made a show of pulling it out to show to her. I’d memorized it instantly of course, but there was no way she could know that.
“Yeah, here.”
“Oh, we have two classes together! English lit and bio!”
I nodded, slipping my sunglasses back into place for the stroll through the hallways. I knew it made me conspicuous but it was worth it to keep people from falling at my feet.
Caleb said it gave me a big head.
Personally, I did not enjoy the whole mindless worship routine, but it did come in handy when we were on the run or needed to disappear from a human’s memory. I definitely didn’t need to use it on an unsuspecting high school kid.
“You have advanced Calc 2 first. Wow, that’s a senior AP class.”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to brag. Besides even the AP classes were going to be dull for me. Caleb had been feeding me all kinds of academic books for years. And since I didn’t need to sleep much, well, I read all night. Pretty much every night.
It’s not like I had anything else to do. Train. Read. Blend. Read some more.
I even lugged around piles of books when we were on the run. Hopefully that wouldn’t happen again for a while. I craved stability at this point. And I was tired. Not physically of course. But mentally, I was tapped out.
We all were.
“Come on, slowpoke.”
Karen hurried down the hall, not waiting for me to catch up. Good. I didn’t need to be coddled. I allowed myself a small smile.
I liked this chick already.
I glanced over my shoulder and frowned. I turned back to the front of the classroom, biting my lip in worry.
Yep. He was still staring. Mr. Blue Eyes was in my first class.
Fantastic.
I sighed heavily, feeling his eyes on my back. The next time I looked back though, he was talking to the guy sitting next to him under his breath.
Good. Weird, but good. If I had glamoured him accidentally he would be focused on me almost exclusively. So he wasn’t glamoured.
He was just… I risked a peek back. Yeah. He was looking at me again. He caught my eye and smiled. I exhaled through my teeth, packing up my books. Not surprisingly, pre —calc was going to be a waste of time for me.
Just like the rest of the classes. I imagined college would be a little more interesting, but maybe not by much.