Catrina Billowson by K. Weikel
Chapter 7
People were staring.
Still.
Especially when Harvey and I were walking down the hallway together. The two nerdiest kids in school turned out to be the two hottest icons in the halls within a few days. No one was expecting that. Not even me.
Puberty doesn’t work that way.
Harvey said he loved me. Or, said he thought he did. I never understood why or how, and I felt nothing but anger toward him and a connection only we would know, something apparently burrowed deep within my body that’s uncontrollable and animalistic. It’s like I couldn’t stand being away from him, even when that’s all I wanted.
But I’d never tell him either of those things.
The homeroom bell rang, and Harvey walked me to my classroom. He said, “Don’t get too thirsty,” and chuckled. He squeezed my arm lightly, caringly, and walked off to his class.
I took a breath before stepping into my classroom, Koby nowhere in sight. I started to freak out. The project was due tomorrow and he was missing.
Everyone turned around and whispers began to circle the room. Apparently I looked way different to everyone else. Even Mrs. Callaway was staring.
“Hi.” I said to them. “Uh, Mrs. Callaway, umm... is Koby here today?”
She snapped out of her trance and stuttered, “Uh, um... it doesn’t look like it, Catrina. But I’m sure you will finish the project in time.” She gave me an awkward smile.
I smiled back, painfully, as coals burned in the back of my throat, and walked to my seat in the back. I could hear people talk about me, eyes darting to me as if I were a mystery. Some guessed puberty, while others were clueless and way off track.
Halfway into the course of homeroom, they were still talking about it, and it was starting to bug me. So were their pulses and the blood rushing through their veins. Why me? I stood up and went over to Mrs. Callaway’s desk, prying pupils watching my every movement.
“Can I get some water from the water fountain?” I asked her.
She nodded and said “Just sign out. Did you do something to your face? Not that it isn’t bad—it just took me by surprise—”
I cleared my throat and gave a small, timid smile. “It’s okay, Mrs. Callaway. Took me by surprise too.”
I signed out on the piece of paper by the doorway, and headed down the hall. My hunger for the blood of my classmates was fading.
What was once a quiet hallway suddenly erupted with noise. No one was out there, but it was so loud. Like everyone in the school was talking. I jumped at the sounds. I don’t know where they came from, but I could hear them. I froze where I was standing. Was I hearing ghosts? I couldn’t be... That was impossible...
But so are Vampires.
I looked in the classroom by where I was standing. Regan Andrew turned around.
Is that Catrina? What did she do to herself? She looks so different, I heard. It sounded like Regan, but her mouth wasn’t moving.
Why is she staring at me? Regan turned around. Creep.
I zoned back in, and I heard all the voices again. I started walking, shaking my head. I could hear thoughts? I could read people’s minds?
“Whoa,” I said aloud.
My thirst for blood disappeared. I took a sip from the water fountain, and turned back around.
Koby was standing there, sopping wet.
The voices disappeared. I jumped back, surprised. “Koby?”
He nodded, and raised a finger to his lips, telling me to be quiet. I nodded.
Can you hear me?
“Koby? Was that you?” I whispered to him, terrified I’d be wrong and that I looked like an idiot.
He nodded.
I’m talking to you through my thoughts.
“How?” I whispered.
I’ll tell you later. Just try. Just think, I’ll hear you, he told me mysteriously through his thoughts. I made a face.
This was all too weird.
“Okay, I’ll… try,” I said. I closed my eyes tight, and thought really hard, wondering if maybe I willed him to hear me speak, he’d hear me. Can you hear me?
He smiled. Yes. I can.
Why are you here? I thought you weren’t coming today.
Well, you thought wrong, he smiled. I came here to show you that you could do this. And I have to tell you something. Like really soon. And no one can know I was here. Not even Harvey.
I didn’t know y’all knew each other, I thought.
Better than you could ever know him yourself, he sneered.
“Why aren’t you actually speaking to me?” I asked.
He’ll hear my voice. Come to my house after school. I’ll meet you at the front of the school so I can take you. I have something to explain… and to admit to you.
I nodded.
He started to leave, and I called out to him with my thoughts one more time. Wait! How can you speak like this? And how can I speak like this? And why are we--
I’ll tell you everything after school. He smiled a beautiful smile. It made my heart melt and my head spin, even through all the strangeness and the crescendo of voices that aren’t really there. And, yet, Harvey’s face seemed to press through it all, that sickening feeling returning for a brief moment.
“Okay,” I said, bearing a strangled smile.
He chuckled, concern lacing his eyes, slipping through the doors of the school.
I went back to homeroom, my stomach twisted around itself, hearing all of these voices once again. I was actually glad that it wasn’t ghosts I was hearing, but actual people. Then this would be a completely different story.
When the bell rang, I headed to history class, Mr. Sought still subbing. His yellow eyes watched me as I walked in the door. They followed me as I sat down at my desk. The fire of the thirst of a Vampire flared in the back of my throat as the smells of high school all hit me at once. The tardy bell rang and Mr. Sought began to take role of the class, seeming to know all of our names and the faces that matched.
Regan came over to talk to me.
“What did you do to get your face to get that clear?” she asked, wondrous.
“Uh, I don’t know really. I guess not wearing makeup paid off,” I chuckled.
“Oh,” she said simply, disappointed.
“Why do you have to worry anyway? Your face is flawless.”
“Oh, I know it is. Just I would’ve never guessed that would happen to you, especaily with what you looked like before.”
She laughed.
I froze.
Smiled softly.
Ouch.
And buried my face in my arms on the desk.
Mr. Sought did the roll call, and when he got to my name, I said here, and he asked if he could see me outside when he was done with attendance.
“Uh, okay...?” I said, unsure.
He finally got to the last name.
“Zachery Webber?”
“He’s not here,” a guy named Henry told him.
“That’s it for attendance. Catrina?” Mr. Sought said, and motioned toward the door. I sighed, got up, and walked out the doorway and into the cold hallway. What did I do?
Mr. Sought walked out and stood in front of me. My throat sent off little ‘clicks’ that felt like warnings not only to me, but to him too. I swallowed to stop them, a burst of pain shooting though my throat and nose as if I’d held in a burp caused by Sprite.
Strange... It was the same type of clicks the Werewolf made...
“Something’s different about you today that wasn’t the same yesterday. Or even the day you were born.”
Red flags wave like crazy in the back of my mind as my eyes widened and took in the man before me.
“What?” I croaked. “What are you talking about?”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, so many questions, Catrina.” He started to pace in front of me. “Catrina, you are one of the children that were born with a certain ability. A special ability.”
“You’re crazy...” I said, flustered as I starte
“No, I’m not,” he said evenly, his chin up.
I tried listening to his thoughts like I did with Koby. Nothing. Maybe it turned on and off? Or maybe I needed to learn how to use it and hone its abilities.
“Uh-uh-uh,” he said, much like I was a child and I was doing something wrong. “You can try and listen to my thoughts, but it won’t work.” He stopped pacing directly in front of me. “No matter how hard you try.”
Suddenly, I wasn’t at the school anymore. I was in a large, dark forest, a golden gleam to everything, slowly ebbing away.
Standing alone.
“Where am I?” I whispered in awe. Nearly stumbling o.
I heard virulent laughter echo throughout the trees.
“Who’s there?” I yelled. “Mr. Sought?!”
“Hello, Catrina.”
I spun around to where the velvet voice was coming from.
“Harvey?” I asked, shaky. I felt my guards go up, my teeth sharpen in my mouth. This wasn’t a game. This was... my dream. The dream I’d had. A place where Harvey doesn’t have this strange power over my emotions and I know more than I think I do. A place I could get into a lot of trouble.
He came to my side in a flash and started to circle me like a cat reading his prey. His eyes were a dark red. He was thirsty. He would put up a fight.
“Welcome to dinner,” he hissed, licking his venom-dripping teeth with his tongue.
“You can’t beat me. I’m stronger,” I stepped up to him and put my face in his. My heart pounding in my fingers. It wasn’t me saying these things. It’s the dream-like state I was in. I was in it, right? “And faster.”
“Oh really?” he smirked as he stepped back and crouched.
I started to run, aware my threats came across as a challenge to him. Why hadn’t I just punched him in the gut? I was strong now, right? Like how Vampires were in movies? Who knows? It’d been a day and I hardly knew anything about this species I’d become, and all I was going off was movies and books. I hadn’t even read Dracula.
I groaned.
This was what happened in my dream.
Only, this time, I was a mythical creature spurted from legend.
All of a sudden, Harvey was sitting on top of me, licking the venom from his lips. He leaned down as I struggled, obviously the weaker of the two, and he hissed, as if to taunt me, “Now who’s stronger?” His eyes were saturated with a thirst that I wished wasn’t there.
I heard someone shout “Help!” in the distance, and I cocked my head toward the sound. Instinct. Bad idea.
Harvey sneered, and sat upright. I pushed him off and pinned him to a tree. “Me.” I whispered, and delivered a blow so hard to his skull, his head got stuck in the trunk. I had the blood of a newborn Vampire running slowly through my veins, and that’s probably what was making me crazy and say things I never would have said, and the person who had yelled… I could smell him, and I could practically taste the blood pumping through his system. It made my mouth swell with venom, which I spat out because it tasted absolutely disgusting.
I shoved away from Harvey and darted through the trees, picking up the human’s trail. I oculd hear his breath, and his fear snuck under my skin and made me giddy. This was a side I’d never seen before of myself, of anyone, and for good reason too.
And then I found him, a ginormous wolf clamping onto his arm.
Werewolf, I heard. It was Harvey’s voice, and I could feel his presence just over my shoulder, a sudden tingling wasing through me.
Dinner, Harvey smirked, his eyes trained on the human.
The wolf moved a slight inch to the left, and I caught a glimpse of the boy’s face.
Koby.
I had heard Koby call for help. The story he told me about the lichen was real—it happened to him.
He was the Werewolf.
I snarled sprinted toward the beast, our bodies colliding and tumbling into the dirt and debris, coating me with soil and leaves. The Werewolf whimpered in pain, and the glowing yellow eyes glared at me, standing upright as I found my own feet.
“Catrina. Why did you do that?” I heard the wolf say. It transformed into Mr. Sought, his yellow eyes glowing as bright with hunger as Harvey’s did, and maybe even more than that. An unexplainable hunger and thirst to not just kill for the sake of living, but to kill and destroy.
“Mr. Sought?” I asked, shocked. A moment later, I figured I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was more confused.
This had to be a dream… right?
“Please, call me Von,” he smiled.
“You could have killed him!” I shouted.
Koby stood and ran rather quickly from the forest. He was safe. For now.
“You could have killed him just as well,” he said, chuckling in pleasure, the sound like a purr from a cat. “Not all of us have abilities, Catrina, like you and me. You hear the thoughts of others, while the past is mine to manipulate—for a price.”
“What’s that price?” I exhale, not absolutely certain this was real, or even that a dream could be this believable. He had to be bluffing.
Right?
He lunged towards me.