R E C K L E S S . . .

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

“I can’t believe this,” my mum said for what seemed like the millionth time. “I can’t decide whether I’m madder at you or that school of yours.”

I sighed and closed my eyes, leaning back in the car seat and trying to block her words out.

“I mean, expelling you is a bit too far – especially with your exams coming up in less than a week,” she continued. She had her ranting voice on, which was a clear indication that nothing could stop her from getting her point across as vehemently and dramatically as possible. I was only thankful that her anger wasn’t wholly directed at me; otherwise I would’ve literally been cowering away from her words. “It’s a wonder that they’re even letting you back for exams after everything that’s happened, though!” she said, disproving my thoughts that she wasn’t mad at me. She was in a roundabout conversation with herself, building my defence up one second and barging it down the next.

“Mum, I-“ I started, but to no avail.

“What were you thinking?” she interrupted me, clenching the steering wheel hard. “Sneaking out like that when there’s a murderer on the loose? That teacher of yours was killed last week, not to mention that boy who went missing. Dan, wasn’t it?”

Flashbacks of that night came back. Dan in his half man, half beast state… Blake stabbing him… his dead body lying on the floor, shifted back into human.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said firmly.

“What do you mean you don’t want to talk about it? You’ve been connected to every murder and attack that’s happened this year. I want to believe that this is a coincidence but you’re making it really hard for me to have faith in that right now.”

“I’m not a murderer,” I growled.

“Then you know something about them,” she immediately insisted. “Tell me what’s happening, Anne. You can’t keep all of this bottled up. Has anything strange been happening recently? Is there anything you know that might lead to solving these attacks?”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Don’t be scared… if you tell them who the murderer is then the police will do everything possible to protect you, all the suspicion against your name will be cleared. Nothing good is going to come out of you keeping quiet about things that could speed up this investigation-”

“I said I don’t know anything,” I snapped, cutting her off. I squeezed my eyes shut, took a deep breath, and then turned to face her again. “I’ve told you, mum: I don’t want to talk about it.”

She sighed. “Well I do. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, Anne.”

Too late, I thought.

We stayed silent for a few minutes, each absorbed in our own thoughts.

“When’s your first exam?” my mum finally asked, grasping onto the first normal subject that she could think of in order to get the conversation going again. “I’m going to have to drop you off and pick you up every day, you know, and the journey isn’t exactly short,” she added as an afterthought, her eyes narrowing.

“I have Ethics on Tuesday,” I said. A feeling of dread was filling me at the thought of the exams. Not only had I not paid attention to anything happening in my subjects since Chris had come along, but he was also going to be in the exam hall with me. How was I going to be able to focus on an exam paper when, somewhere in that room, Chris would be there?

 “Your dad can drive you to that one. I’m at work then.”

“Okay.”

Another long silence.

“Are you revising?”

“I’ll start when I get home.”

“Well you better start revising soon,” she said. “The one thing you can’t do now is fail all of your exams. Your record looks bad enough, being expelled from two schools. And if anyone gets wind of the murders you’ve been involved with.”

“I haven’t been involved with any murders,” I snapped.

“The police think you know something. It’s a wonder they’ve let you out of their sight. They made it clear to me over the phone that they’re going to be making regular visits as it is; they want to ask more questions.”

“Of course they do,” I murmured. I itched for my phone so I could text Blake for some reassurance or Sam and Claire to tell them how sorry I was about the whole thing.

It wasn’t like they were in any trouble, though. When the body was found, too late for the hunters to cover up the damage, they were both sat in their room like good little girls, while I was obviously and suspiciously out gallivanting with the hunters. I’d been the one immediately taken aside when I turned up the next day with Blake after spending the night camped on the floor in one of the hotel rooms.

My mum seemed to notice my lack of phone as well. “Where’s your phone? I would’ve thought you’d had it out by now. Why haven’t you been replying to my messages, anyway? I’ve been texting and calling you for days and you haven’t replied.”

I tried to think of an excuse, quickly grew tired of the lies that spun through my head, and decided on the truth. “I dropped it in a puddle and now it doesn’t work,” I told her.

She sighed heavily. “So you have no phone now?” she asked. “And now I’m going to have to buy you a new one? On top of everything else that I have to do?”

“Look I didn’t ask for this to happen-“

“But it did happen, Anne. I’m just tired of you messing up all the time. I know that it might not be your fault that these things are happening, but they’re happening none the less and I just can’t take it right now.”

“I’m no exactly happy about this whole thing either, mum!” I snapped back. “If you think it’s messing up your life you sure as hell haven’t seen mine. I’m the one with the police on my back, I’m the one who keeps on stumbling into these things, I’m the one who found Mrs Court’s dead body and Sam when she was attacked – not you. Me. And I’m sick of you acting like all these problems are laden on your shoulders when actually they have nothing to do with you spare the fact that they’re happening to your daughter!”

She stayed silent, mulling my words over. There was a look of shock on her usually composed face, as if she couldn’t quite believe what I was saying. Her eyes stayed fixed on the road and her hands clenched at the wheel. She turned the car down the small road that led to our house, focussing on the action as if it was the most difficult thing she would ever have to perform – not like she’d made that same turn nearly every day.

The only sound was the bumping of the car against the uneven terrain, clunky and irregular.

“Well,” I said awkwardly after the silence had gone on for too long, crossing my arms. “That’s just what I think.”

“If you want me to pretend that nothing’s happened then I will…” she said slowly. “But I’m your mum, Anne. I worry about these things. I worry if you’re okay after all you’ve been through. I worry about the police. I worry every day while you’re at school that something else might happen. It’s completely irrational, but after your English teacher died I see that I was right to worry.” She paused again, considering her words. “It’s just… you’ve been so close to these attacks and I can’t help thinking… thinking that you might be next.”

The car drew up next to our house. I took in the familiar white walls and cluttered front garden, but I didn’t feel like smiling this time.

I stayed in the car. “I didn’t know that was how you felt,” I said stiffly.

“Well it is,” she sighed. “So maybe consider that I’m only saying these horrible things because I care about you.”

I nodded slowly, and then climbed out of the car. I met my mum at the boot and she put her arms around me, pulling me close to her and hugging me. I relaxed in her arms, trying not to think about all the problems that were crowding my mind for just one moment.

After a second she pulled back and took me in, holding me by the shoulders so I couldn’t get away. “What have you done to your neck?” she asked suddenly.

My hand subconsciously flitted up to my neck, right at the spot where Alexis had bit me and torn the flesh away. Blake had bandaged it up for me, covering it with a piece of gauze after he’d done his best to fix the damage that the vampire’s teeth had done. I’d normally kept my hair straight over it, covering the obvious wound, but my mind had been on other things in the car.

“What happened?” she asked again.

I put my hair back over it, but the damage was done. “It’s just a cut, nothing to worry about. The school nurse patched it up for me and now it’s fine,” I said in an overly cheery voice.

A look of concern creased her face. “At least let me have a look at it later to see how it’s doing. How did you manage to cut it like that?”

“No, it’s fine,” I said quickly. I didn’t want her seeing the two punctures that the vampire’s teeth had made and the raw, unhealed flesh around it. The bleeding still hadn’t completely stopped by the time that the wound had been covered and there was sure to be some congealed blood crusted on the bandage as well, a lot more than would be normal for a small ‘cut’ like I was claiming. “I cut it… on a tree. This branch was in the way and I accidently, uhm, stumbled and it scratched my neck. It’s no big deal.” I shrugged at her and in the process ducked out from under her arms.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” my mum said. “That’s not how it happened. I know when you’re lying to me, Anne.”

I let out a nervous laugh. “Lying? Why would I ever lie to you, mum? I’m telling you the truth!”

She narrowed her eyes but said no more, instead taking some of my bags out of the car.

I helped her, all too eager to join the rest of my family and avoid any further awkward, inquisitive conversation alone with my mum. Since I’d left school for good I had much more bags than I usually had visiting home. I had bags and bags of clothes, books and rubbish that I’d had to pack from my dorm. Sam and Claire had helped me silently, slowly clearing out all of my possessions from what was now only their dorm. It had looked empty without my things, almost unnatural.

My mum paused at the gate. “You coming?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, picking up the rest of my bags and slamming the boot closed. I walked over to her, swaying a bit under the weight of all the bags.

Yet again, she couldn’t get the gate to open.

“Let me guess,” I said dryly. “You lost the key again?”

“I never found the key. I’ve been forcing it open for months.”

“Which is exactly why the idea of a tiny, half meter tall gate with a key was completely irrational and useless in the first place,” I pointed out, dropping my handful of bags over the fence before leaping over it. “As I keep saying, anybody could get in if they really wanted to – I’d recommend a ten foot brick wall with a security system if you’re that eager to keep out intruders.”

She rolled her eyes and with a final shove of the gate it opened. The lock was broken and it was only the rusty hinges that kept it from swinging fully open.

“We’ll have to get it fixed,” she said to herself.

“Or you could do something much more productive with your money,” I told her. “Like get a gate that actually does its purpose… or one that doesn’t need a key to save you the trouble.”

“Okay, okay. I get it – you think the gate is ridiculous.”

“I think that it’s completely and utterly ridiculous,” I clarified, picking up the bags that I’d dropped on the floor and following her to the front door.

With some complication and dropping of bags she managed to manoeuvre the front door key from her pocket and open the door.

Almost immediately after the door was opened I was bombarded by a screaming Evan who barrelled into me in what he must’ve believed was an affectionate hug.

“Anne!” he screeched.

The bags dropped from my arms at the impact and made clunking sounds as they hit the floor. “Whoa, Evan,” I said, awkwardly wrapping my arms around him and returning the hug. “You could’ve waited for me to put my bags down instead of making me drop them.”

“But I haven’t seen you for ages,” he protested, frowning. “Kate and Marcus aren’t here and it’s been so boring on my own.”

My mum sighed and began to gather up the bags that I had dropped into her already overcrowded arms.

I detached myself from Evan, straightening back up awkwardly. “No, mum. I’ll do that – they’re my bags after all.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I can handle a few bags.”

“Even you can’t carry that many bags,” I told her, gesturing to the pile that crowded the doorway. “Let me take a few at least.”

Suddenly my dad skidded through the doorway that led to the lounge and slid to a halt in the middle of the hallway in front of us.

My mum rolled her eyes. “Finally. Maybe you can help our daughter carry some of her bags upstairs?”

He grinned, his chocolate brown eyes sparkling. “Do you have any idea it is to slide along the floors with your socks on? Remind me never to get carpet.”

Laughing, my mum tossed a bag at him. “You’re like a kid.”

He caught it without any trouble and turned to me. “Hello, Anne, by the way.”

“Hey, dad,” I said, taking some of my bags from my mum’s arms. “Having fun?”

“Tonnes,” he replied smugly, turning away and heading up the stairs.

My mum followed him, smiling. “He’s only had a week off work and he’s gone completely mad. You’d think that he was a five year old again.”

“I heard that!” he yelled down the stairs.

“Good!” she called back.

Rolling my eyes, I started up the stairs with my arms laden with bags. Evan tagged along behind me, chattering on excitedly about everything that entered his mind and never pausing for even one second as we climbed up the stairs and into my room.

My mum and dad were already out of my room when we got there. She’d pulled him to one side and was talking to him in a hushed whisper. The excited expression on my dad’s face seemed to lessen as she talked. I had a feeling that the topic was me and my expulsion.

I walked past them and put the last of my bags down on the pile that now dominated my room. Evan laughed and began to climb up onto them, acting as if they were a colossal mountain to scale even though the pile was actually shorter than him.

With some difficulty I maneuvered myself onto my bed and sat, watching Evan and occasionally replying to his incessant chatter.

Once again I itched for my phone. I felt cut off from the real world, like the time I was spending with my family was some kind of cleverly orchestrated alternate reality. I felt like something was going to come along at some point and destroy it all, shattering the fragile peace.

I thirsted for news about what was happening with the supernaturals. The last time that I had talked to one of the hunters was the night before I’d left. It seemed like an age ago that I had talked to Blake. He’d reassured me about my expulsion and promised that the hunters would keep everything under control, that they wouldn’t let Chris near me.

I wondered if Ant, Kyle and Alex were still in their ‘headquarters’ in London with Jev like they had been the day before. I hoped he wasn’t giving them any trouble. Would all three of them be enough to contain the fire elemental or were there more hunters at hand to help now that they were at the headquarters? What did that even mean – the headquarters? How many vampire hunters actually existed in the world?

“Anne?” Evan complained.

I shook myself out of my thoughts. “Uh, yeah?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“About what?”

He frowned. “About Margaret’s birthday party.”

“Margaret’s birthday party?”

The six year old threw his hands up in apparent exasperation, something he must’ve learned from the many times that my mum had done the exact same thing when me or one of my other siblings had frustrated her. “Haven’t you been listening?”

“I’m listening now,” I said solemnly. I shifted on my bed so that I was fully facing my little brother where he was now sat on the floor next to the pile of bags.

“Well Ben says that I shouldn’t go to Margaret’s birthday party because it’s princess themed,” Evan said. “He says it’s not cool to go to girly parties like that.”

I raised an eyebrow. “It sounds to me like Ben is a bit stupid.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I told him, nodding sombrely. “If he can’t go to a party because it’s too girly then he has no hope in life. What do you think Margaret would think about what he’s said?”

Evan bit his lip. “She wouldn’t like it, I guess.”

“Well I know I wouldn’t like it if my friends didn’t want to go to my princess themed birthday party because it was too girly.”

He chuckled. “You wouldn’t have a princess themed birthday party, Anne!”

I narrowed my eyes at him playfully. “Well what’s to stop me from having one? Maybe I’ll have a seventeenth birthday party and it will be princess themed.”

“Am I invited?”

“Only if you want to go. It might be too girly for you.”

He grinned again, reassured by my words. “I’m going to go to Margaret’s party,” he said resolutely. “Even if Ben doesn’t want to. I’m sure that he’ll want to go if he sees I’m going – and Margaret says that there’s going to be this massive cake there, as well.”

“With pink icing?”

“I don’t know I haven’t asked yet,” he said, but his eyes were excited.

At that moment my mum popped her head through the door. “Anne, could me and your dad talk to you for a second?”

I paused, cautious about her words. “Sure,” I said guardedly. “About what?”

“Evan, dear, could you leave Anne’s room for just a second? We need to have some grown up talk.”

At the words ‘grown up talk’ my little brother had bolted out the door and into his own room. Traitor. I wished that I could run away after him and avoid talking to my parents, but my mum had already walked into my room and my dad was stood blocking the doorway.

I felt the mattress sink down as my mum sat on the corner of my bed. I shifted where I sat, by back straightening and my comfortable, relaxed position turning tense. “Anne…” she started. “I know you don’t want to talk about this but I really think that we should.”

“I told you what I thought in the car,” I said stiffly. “I don’t want to talk about what happened. I’ve told you and the police everything that you need to know.”

“What you think we need to know may be different to how much we actually need to know. You shouldn’t be keeping anything from the police if it might help the investigation,” she said. “If they don’t catch whoever’s doing this soon then you might be next.”

“She’s well away from the school now, Alison,” my dad said patiently, walking slowly into the room and closing the door with a click. “If she only goes back for the exams like she’s supposed to then there’s no chance that she’ll get caught up in this.”

My mum twisted round to look at him, her expression clearly telling him that he had said the wrong thing – she’d obviously expected him to support her no matter what she said, not reason on my behalf.

“Yeah,” I said, jumping on my dad’s words. “I’m not going to be there at night, or for any long period of time except for when I’m cooped up in the hall taking exams – there’s no way that I could stray into trouble. If a murderer is out there