Into The Void (Vampire Hunter Book 4) (6 page)

On Monday morning I was a bundle of nerves. Even though I had told Lucas
I would rather be helping him than going to school, thinking about my fucked up
situation 24/7 was mentally exhausting. It would be nice to get back to
something normal, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous as hell about it.

Henry was picking me up. I was glad; I wouldn’t have to walk in by myself
with everyone staring at me. Although, considering the entire senior class (and
then some) had been at Bunny’s party on Saturday, maybe they had gotten the
stares and whispers out of their system.

I was having an impossible time picking out what to wear. I must have
tried on ten different outfits before deciding on a black wrap-around skirt and
a blue t-shirt.

When I walked into the kitchen, Henry was sitting at the table, eating a
huge waffle. “I didn’t realize you were here!” I exclaimed. “You should have
called me. I must have lost track of time.”

Henry glanced up. “No worries. I knocked when you didn’t come out right
away and your mom invited me in for breakfast.”

Mom, who was standing at the sink loading dishes into the dishwasher,
turned around. “Kayla wouldn’t eat breakfast and you don’t eat so there were
tons of leftovers,” she said. “It’s nice to see someone enjoying my breakfast.”

“This is the life, Audrey,” Henry said to my mom. “My mom has never been
that great of a cook, and she doesn’t really have time, anyway. Breakfast is
usually Pop Tarts or cereal for me.”

“You know you’re welcome to eat breakfast or dinner with us anytime,” my
mom offered.

 
“Thanks.” Henry stood up from the
table. “I guess we’d better get going. You ready?”

I shrugged, trying not to let on how nervous I was feeling. But I knew
Henry would see right through it. He always did.

When we got into the car, Henry turned to me. “Come on, Aurora, I know
first day jitters are normal – I’ve got ‘
em
, too, but
you look like you’re going to a funeral, not school. It can’t be that bad,
right?”

“It just feels strange,” I said honestly. “I’m not the same person I used
to be. I – I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t have to. Not to me; not to anyone.”

I smiled gratefully at Henry. He knew what to say to make me feel better.

When we pulled up to the school, there were already a ton of kids milling
around outside, laughing, chatting.

Homeroom assignments were always posted in the hall by the principal’s
office, so we headed there first. Henry was high fiving guys and greeting
everyone we passed.

Geez. I could tell he was popular
at Bunny’s party, but does he know the entire school?

And then it hit me.
I’m not the
same person and neither is Henry.

I pushed away the wave of sadness I felt at the realization.

“Looks like you’ve got Mr. Ramsey for homeroom,” Henry said, scanning the
list. “Ugh! I’ve got Ms. Draper.” He scrunched his face into a sour expression.
“
There will be no talking, children. You
will spend your homeroom time reading and present a book report each month
,”
Henry said in a perfect impersonation of Ms. Draper.

I laughed. “How’d you get so lucky to have the only homeroom teacher who
actually
gives
you assignments?”

“Ah, it’s cool,” Henry said. “I need to beef up my reading list, anyway.
You know, so I can look smart for the college applications.”

I didn’t answer. My parents had been super understanding since I got back,
but they were starting to give me university brochures and mention how I should
“really start thinking about college options.”

It actually made me want to laugh. Sure, I was worried about my future,
but college was the last thing on my mind.

Henry and I parted ways to go to homeroom. As soon as I was alone in the
hallway, my anxiety went through the roof. A few kids said hi to me, but for
the most part everyone was busy chatting with their friends. A whole year gone
from school and I didn’t seem to
have
any
friends any more.

You didn’t return anyone’s phone
calls over the summer,
I reminded myself. Of course my old friends had
given up on me.

I slid into a seat in the back of Mr. Ramsey’s classroom. Homeroom was
only half an hour. I actually wished I had gotten assigned to Ms. Draper. Then
I wouldn’t have to worry about socializing.

I knew almost everyone coming into the room. Jennifer, a girl I’d been
friendly with my sophomore year, took the seat next to me. “It’s nice to have
you back!” she said cheerily.

“Thanks! It’s great to be back. Did you have a good summer?” I started to
relax a little as Jennifer told me about her family vacation in Canada. She was
really cool and didn’t ask one question about my supposed coma.

The final warning bell sounded which meant that the students had one more
minute to get to homeroom; otherwise you had to go to the principal’s office
for a tardy. After three
tardies
it was a mandatory
meeting with the principal and your parents.

Just a mere second before the final bell sounded, who should slide into
the room but my absolute favorite person. NOT. I stifled a groan as Bunny
plopped down in a seat in the front row. She didn’t have another choice;
everyone who had gotten to the room early (like me) had chosen a seat in the
back.

“You’ve met her?” Jennifer asked, seeing my annoyed expression.

“Unfortunately,” I replied.

Jennifer snorted. “She’s…something all right.”

“Please don’t tell me all the boys are fooled by her? She’s so fake!”

“I’ve found the best thing to do is fight fire with fire. Whenever she
starts flirting with my boyfriend, Jack, I act super-duper sweet to her. Like
over the top. And Jack just thinks we’re best friends.” She rolled her eyes.

I giggled. “Guys can be really clueless sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Jennifer raised an eyebrow comically.

I laughed. This wasn’t going so badly. If I could just talk to Jennifer
every morning then I could ignore Bunny and homeroom might actually be bearable.

Mr. Ramsey cleared his throat for everyone to be quiet. “Welcome back,
students. I hope you all had a wonderful summer vacation.”

There were a few mumbled responses.

“This year,” he continued, “we’ll have assigned seats for homeroom based
on alphabetical order of your last name.”

Everyone groaned.
So
much for getting to sit with Jennifer.

Mr. Ramsey instructed us to get our backpacks and come stand at the front
of the classroom. Then he started reading the names from a list and pointing at
desks.

By the time he got to the last names beginning with S, he was filling the
back of the room. If he called me soon I’d get a prime spot on the last row.
This might not be so bad.

No such luck. When Mr. Ramsey read
Aurora
Stone
from his paper, he was pointing to the first seat of the third row.
Which was also dead center in front of his desk.
Wonderful.

Just when I didn’t think it could get any worse, Mr. Ramsey read the name
Bunny Sutter
and motioned towards the
desk behind mine. For the second time, I stifled a groan.

“Hey doll?” Bunny said with her big fake grin. “You’ll have to tell me
your name again? I keep wanting to say Allison but I just know that’s not
right?” Bunny giggled.

I remembered what Jennifer had said. Fight fire with fire. “No, worries,
doll,” I said in a sugary sweet voice. “My name’s Aurora. And I just have to
say your hair looks amazing today.” It didn’t. She was wearing a big poufy bun
with strands hanging down. It looked like she was getting ready to go to prom
with that hair.

Bunny’s face briefly registered surprise but she didn’t miss a beat. “You
just look so
cute
is that adorable
little outfit of yours? Were you going for the
boho
chic
look.
”

I just smiled demurely. “Thank you, Bunny. You’re so sweet.” I didn’t
even know what the
boho
chic look was. Then I turned
around to face the front of the room. Mr. Ramsey was passing out our schedules,
and I couldn’t wait to see mine. This was always the only exciting part of the
first day, finding out your teachers, and if your friends (which for me, meant
Henry) were in the same classes.

After homeroom ended, I was going to meet Henry so that we could compare
schedules. We were taking a lot of the same courses, so hopefully we’d luck out
and get them together.

Henry was already sitting on a bench in the courtyard when I got outside.
“The moment of truth,” I said nervously. We huddled together, trying to see
what classes we shared.

“Okay, we have first period English, then third period Advanced Calculus,
then fourth period World History, and finally sixth period Study Hall. And do
you see who it’s with?” Henry and I looked at each other and grinned. “Dr.
Duncan,” we said in unison.

Dr. Duncan was a complete nut. No one knew if he was a real doctor, but
all of the students referred to him as “doc” anyway. He was obviously biding
his time for retirement, and he was quite possibly senile. Dr. Duncan would
basically let you do anything you wanted to do.

I’d had him for an actual class – geography – a couple of years ago. I
don’t know how I got an A because I don’t remember ever doing any work. He
would just ‘decide’ that we’d all had a long day and should play board games or
have a social hour instead of study geography. I didn’t learn a damn thing, but
it was my favorite class, hands down.

“You know what this means?” Henry asked me.

“Yeah, he’s probably going to just let us talk through study hall and
leave early, if he even monitors us to begin with.” I grinned. “This is a nice
little present for our senior year.”

“Definitely,” Henry agreed. “And I’m stoked we have four out of six
classes together. I was hoping for two or three!”

We got up and headed towards our first period class, English. The more I
walked around the school and slowly started talking to people I used to know,
the less surreal the experience was becoming.

The day dragged, as all first days tend to do. Teachers going over the
semester lesson plan, giving us supply lists of things to buy for the class; it
was so tedious. By the time Dr. Duncan’s class rolled around, I was mentally
drained and ready to go home.

As was my habit, I grabbed a seat in the back. Henry wasn’t there yet.
Dr. Duncan wasn’t either. But I saw a stack of board games along one wall and
smiled to myself.
Some things never
change.
It was a comforting thought, considering that just about
everything
in my life was constantly
changing.

Students started trickling in, and finally Dr. Duncan, but where was Henry?
I pulled my phone out of my purse to check for texts, to see if something had
happened and he had to leave school early, but there was nothing.
It’s not like him to be late.

The final warning bell rang, signaling one minute to get to class or face
a tardy. I looked at the door nervously.
Still no sign of
Henry.

At least half a minute must have
gone by since the warning bell
.
Where
is he?

And then, as the final bell started ringing, Henry came running through
the door. He was breathing heavily. Spying me in the back row, Henry made his
way over to sit down in the seat next to me that I’d saved for him.

Some teachers might try and count that as a tardy. Technically you’re
supposed to be
in
your seat when the
bell rings, not careening through the door. But Dr. Duncan didn’t seem like he
was even paying attention. He was wearing headphones and listening to something
through the computer on his desk.

“What happened?” I hissed.
 
Henry’s
right hand was wrapped in gauze and I could see red soaking through the
bandages. “Your hand! Jesus Christ, is it bleeding?”

“Not anymore, but it hurts like hell,” Henry said grimly.

“Did someone attack you?” I demanded.

“More like the other way around,” he replied, not looking me in the eye.

“Henry! You’ve never been in a fight before. What’s gotten into you? And
you don’t want to fuck up your hand; aren’t tryouts for basketball soon?”

“It’ll be fine. The nurse overreacted. It’s only a little swollen. It
looks worse than it is because she wrapped my hand up like a boxing mitt. ” Henry
started to unravel the layers of gauze, but I reached forward to stop him.

“You’re not a doctor,” I said in what I hoped was a whisper. “Leave the
bandages alone.” I felt panicked. How in the world had Henry managed to get in
a fight on the first day of our senior year? I don’t think he’d ever been in a
fight before in his entire life.

Dr. Duncan seemed oblivious to the fact that sixth period had officially
started. He was still listening to his headphones, totally ignoring his
students.

“So who did you get in a fight with?” I hissed. “And why?”

“
Benji
Bloomer,” Henry replied.

“How could you let that creep push your buttons?”
Benji
Bloomer was this hulking, idiot football player who
should
have graduated the year before us, but he got held back his
sophomore year.

He was eighteen already, and my guess is that the only reason he hadn’t
dropped out of school was because he was holding on to a pipe dream of getting
a football scholarship for college, playing there one year, then going pro. I
personally didn’t think he was good enough to get the scholarship in the first
place, much less go pro.

And he really was an ass.
Pompous, confident, a new
girl on his arm every week.
After each of his brief relationships ended,
he would go around telling everyone how he had “another notch” on his belt. I
couldn’t stand the guy.