Chapter 10

 Tikaye was a refreshing change from Chelsea.

She and I were sitting in Vampire Tactics, listening to the teacher partly and I was drawing my triangles again. After a boring hour of vampires and what they did, it was time for my second most favourite class - Strategy.

Walking happily up the stairs, Tikaye and I were jamming to our favourite song - of course, our voices were not doing the song justice and we abruptly stopped when we got to the door. We saw Anton frowning and then he filled our class in.

“Today, we have to share classes with strategy three,” he waited for us to groan and boy, did we groan. We sounded like Mufusa from The Lion King; our roar was mighty. I groaned probably the third loudest because I had just recently learned that Chelsea was in that class, so I would unbearably have go through another hour with her. Fun times. Not. Anton organised us all in order of our last names and I was right beside Chelsea who was whispering comments about how Charlie and I were in denial and that we had trouble exposing our relationship to other people.

“You’re just a couple of misunderstood Lessies looking for your place in the world.” That was when I lost it. I turned around and decked her clean in the face, making her have a black eye. She shrieked in pain and it deafened half of the class but let’s look at the positives; it sure as hell made me feel a lot better. Anton almost looked impressed, but tried very hard to hide it.

“Mavra! You will come to the detention room straight after your next class no exceptions.” He told me sternly, despite his discreet amusement at my actions. Stacey was beside herself and she was saying ridiculous, melodramatic things like, ‘oh my gosh, call an ambulance right away!’ and ‘she’s a psycho!’ I’d been called a psycho twice since I’d been here. I wondered if I could go for seven by the end of it. I smiled and gladly accepted my punishment. It would definitely teach Chelsea that nobody messes with me or they’ll get a punch. The sooner she knew that, the better.

I never thought I’d say it but the gymnasium was now my second favourite place; y’know, aside from my bed and all. When I got into the gym, I looked around for Chase, my combat comrade, I called him. When I couldn’t see him, my mood was instantly taken down a notch because I had to take my anger out on someone and he just happened to be my assigned personal punching bag. Suddenly, Adam walked in and that made me feel a tad better. Now, his a*s I could kick.

The German Beauty walked in and paired us up; luckily for me, I was paired with Adam. Unluckily for Adam, he was paired with me. Today, we were learning weapon combat. We were not allowed to use our fists; instead we had to use stakes and all that jazz, which was fine with me. Okay, so maybe I needed a little extra practice with my combat skills, but I knew enough to beat up Adam and that was good enough for me. I had been looking forward to the time when I was allowed to beat up Adam. I clasped a ‘stake’ - it was actually just a longer foam stick than yesterday - in my hand and he clasped his and the battle commenced. Plunging at Adam with great rage, I nearly got him but he was quick at staggering awkwardly and dodging my stab. For some reason, I asked myself, how did he get in the same class as me? Maybe he had friends in holy spaces or something. He tried to stab me, but I snuck up behind him and got him first, but I think I may have stabbed him a little too hard. He shrieked and then I realised I missed his heart and the battle pressed on.

“You are definitely a psycho,” he decided, still rubbing his chest. That was three. Four to go! Whoever said dogs can’t count? Smiling to myself, I waited for him to regain his composure and then I got distracted by the door opening. Chase had walked in. My savoir! I thought. I was getting bored of Adam drama queen and Chase would give me some competition. He was placed with Tikaye and Rakai and that made me slightly disheartened, but I went on kicking Adam’s a*s... but then, it was fair to say he almost kicked mine. Behind me, he stabbed me in the back, the foam thing - had it been a real stake - went right through my back and was almost precisely where my heart was. Now, I was a hypocrite; I really ought to follow my own advice, ‘don’t get distracted.’ Dramatically, I feel to my knees slowly and then Von Teacher came up to me and told me that the battle had ended, but I was so not going to let Adam win! “Miss. Mavra, since you have lost the battle, you can be partnered with Mr. Ross instead.” On second thoughts... Adam was fighting go... No, I can’t even pretend to think that. It was definitely a biased fight on his side because she didn’t see me kick his a*s prior to him kicking mine. Smiling, I graciously accepted my defeat and Chase picked up Adam’s stick.

“So, you got your butt kicked by pretty boy, huh?” He asked, pointing over his shoulder at Adam, who was leaning smugly in the corner. I just wanted to wipe it off, but I refrained. I was allowed to beat Chase up. Luckily, I knew not to hold back today because he was as equal to me, so it would be a speedy recovery. I got my stake and plunged it at him, but he caught it and flung it back smiling, “try again.”

I didn’t want it to end, but just like all good things - it had to.

I just remembered I had to go to Anton’s detention rather than go to dinner, so I walked on - merged into the traffic of outgoing students - and was suddenly on my lonesome back into the strategy classroom. Anton was standing at his whiteboard, the clusters of desks set back up into table format of seven rows and seven columns. Smiling at me, he spoke after writing what he had to on the board.

“Take a seat,” he friendlily gestured to the seat at the front of the classroom. Walking slowly and hesitantly to the desk, I shot him a warm, grateful smile. He was always surprisingly casual and nice as opposed to all of the other teachers. “What was it you actually did wrong?” Here it came; the lecture. I readied myself for it.

“I punched Chelsea-B***h in the face,” I told him, not giving him any further explanation because he saw exactly what happened. It was instant to call her Chelsea-B***h. The teacher, luckily, didn’t seem fazed by the nickname. I was pretty sure to him it looked like I just punched her for no reason. “She was insulting me,” I added, the fury building up in me all over again. A smile played across his lips and he looked at me,

“If anything, that b***h probably deserved it,” I stared at him, impressed but a little concerned that he spoke about students behind their backs. For some reason, I wondered whether he spoke about his students to his little teacher friends back in the staffroom and that was the tangent my mind had ventured off on. “I’m not going to punish you, but let’s not tell anybody that.” I smiled. This guy was so my favourite teacher. He looked at the spelling of my last name on the class register and blinked and then he reached into his desk and pulled out a book and then put it away after staring at it for a few moments. He then looked at me and slowly walked over to my desk. Lowering his voice, he murmured to me, “You are a Mavra. You can’t survive at your level of strategy or combat,” I didn’t know where he was going with this, but I was certainly intrigued to find out. “You have to take extra lessons, but only if you want to, that is. It would be very beneficial to you and reduce your chance of being devoured by the parasites.” He spoke that last word venomously and then pulled up a chair beside me, “surely you know that if we break the curse first, then we can turn back into humans and continue our lives as normal human beings until we die, but if they break it, then they do.” I thought that was the case, but I just needed somewhat confirmation of it. I looked around the room and thought to myself. If I was to kill a Valeska vampire, then all of the lycans would be free. Tegan would be able to grow up like a normal kid and Charlie, when she was older, wouldn’t have to worry about having to turn into a wolf at night when her children would be so close to her because when we were wolves, we pretty much turned everything we saw into shreds if they were too close. It was unfortunate, but it was the truth. He wrote a scenario up on the board and then he told me to devise a strategy for it. The strategy read:

I am in a forest on a rainy day. There is a group of vampires, coming at me with silver knives and I am surrounded by them and with lightning speed, they plunge at me from all directions. What must I do?

I looked at the board and then took the pen of him and wrote underneath it.

I jump and climb the tree with dexterity and that will distract them and then whilst some vampires remain earthbound, I jump from my branch, breaking a stick or branch off. I then stab the earthbound vampires in the heart and then the vampires from the tree will attack and I shall hold my stake according to the angle that they attack from in order to plunge my stake into their un-beating hearts.

I was confused about this scenario because I was alone and this was a group of vamps and so how was I supposed to fend them off? I told Anton my concerns and then he told me that it was wrong and that I needed to write a new solution. He wrote up the consequence to that faulty strategy.

I had one stake and the other vampires were able to attack me, while I was stabbing one of them. It was brief but definitely true. I bit my lip and thought hard and then when an idea had finally hit me, the pen had run out. I murmured a few profanities under my breath but then Anton got a new one from his desk. Quickly, I erased the old solution and began writing a new one:

I run out of the forest, giving off a fake trail, with heavily scented clothing i.e. a sweater. Once this has fazed them, find multiple stakes or even wood that can stab them in the heart and then when they finally figure out they have the wrong path, when they attack I shall be ready for them. Now, that was a flawless plan. A forest? When would I be alone in a forest? Whenever I was fighting parasites, I had my family with me because we were tight lycans and no-one could kick vampire a*s like we could when our forces collided. Anton looked at the board, impressed, but also puzzled. Whispering what I’d written under his breath, he struggled with a few words.

“Excellent, Avril. You may go. Come back here at lunch tomorrow if you wish to.”