Free Vampires Rule by K.C. Blake Page B

school for Silver. He had stayed after to talk to
a teacher about making up the work he’d missed while running around
the country with his vampire friends. He’d expected to find Silver
standing outside the door when he got done, but the hallway was
empty.
    Jack wandered around for ten minutes before
deciding she must be waiting for him in the parking lot.
    His footsteps echoed in the long hallway.
Being in school without anyone else around was unsettling. But was
he alone? The hairs prickled the back of his neck, signaling
trouble. Curious eyes watched him. He didn’t know where they were,
but he could feel them burning a hole into his skull... or maybe it
was just his imagination. No one except for the English teacher had
shown any interest in the new kid, and Jersey had left for the
day.
    Still, the nagging feeling lingered. He
thought he heard metal scraping the floor as if something was being
dragged. Another sound caught his attention. He jerked his head to
the left and saw something tan move behind the row of lockers, out
of view. Maybe someone was spying on him. Even paranoid people had
enemies.
    Around the opposite corner, a door banged
against the wall. Loud voices struggled for dominion. The words
were unintelligible. It sounded like a group of geese chattering on
their way South for the winter. A piercing whistle cut through the
noise.
    “All right, everyone, calm down!” The female
voice held authority. Jack knew it belonged to a teacher before he
rounded the bend. The drama teacher Ms. Tomlin said, “I’ll call for
an ambulance. Give him room to breathe.”
    She sprinted down the hallway to the main
office.
    Students crowded around a prone figure on the
floor. The boy kicked and writhed like he was being electrocuted.
Students whispered concerned words to each other as they watched
his face grow redder by the minute. He cried out in pain and
twisted in agony. No one knew what to do for him.
    The boy’s eyes bulged, threatening to pop out
of his head. A cloud of visible steam burst off his face like a
boiling tea kettle releasing built-up pressure. Several gasps shot
into the air. One of the girls shrieked. The students
simultaneously jumped away from him, terrified. As if by mutual
consent they fell into a state of shocked silence.
    Jack went to the boy, knelt beside him,
instinctively knowing what was wrong. The kid had been infected by
a werewolf, and it was too late for anyone to save him. On the next
full moon he would go crazy, probably kill somebody. The only way
to stop that from happening was to kill the kid.
    A tall girl with short hair and freckles
raced to the boy’s side with a wet towel. She’d missed the weird
steam thing and didn’t know she shouldn’t go near him. She placed
the towel on his forehead before Jack could stop her. It was never
a good idea to get that close to a werewolf, even a newbie.
Confused, the boy reacted. He swiped at her. Light glinted off
metallic claws that only Jack could see.
    “Hey!” The girl cradled her injured hand
against her chest. “He scratched me.”
    Jack stood and took three steps
backwards.
    Silver appeared on the scene, out of breath
from running. She grabbed Jack’s arm and asked, “What
happened?”
    He gestured to the kid on the floor.
    The boy’s face had lost some of the redness,
and he wasn’t perspiring anymore.
    Jack took Silver by the arm and dragged her
away from the crowd. He quickly explained everything including how
the girl had been scratched. He ended with, “Now she’s infected
too.”
    “This has never happened before.” Silver
shook her head at him. “I realize we have a bit of a werewolf
population problem around here, but they tend to stay in the
wilderness. They rarely infect anyone. Mostly they just kill their
victims.”
    “What do we do about it?”
    Silver bit her lower lip for a second before
saying, “There’s nothing we can do at the moment.”
    “Will you suck their souls out?” He hadn’t
meant it