Cursed Blood |Lesbian Story| - Chapter 37: Chapter 37

I don't need much sleep, only a few hours before sunrise at most. I  think I have adapted to the human timezone pretty well. The next morning, Cammie knocked on the door of our suite. It was like a huge hummer banged on my skull the first time I heard it.
"Whoa...Cammie, I thought a bulldozer just crushed through the hall," I said.
"She wanted to make sure that you're still breathing,"Jacques's voice said from the inside. Cammie glared at her before she turned to me.
"Come and get down for breakfast," Cammie said, "Alyssa is waiting."
Then we went to the Lunch Hall and saw Alyssa there. She waved at us enthusiastically. Jacques also came along. She was about to go off to her usual table, but Cammie blocked her.
"Uh uh...where do you think you're going, mademoiselle? From now on,  you're sitting with us," Cammie said. "I don't want you to victimize any  of the Ultara students ever again."
Jacques just rolled her eyes, but she didn't protest. She walked back around and took a seat next to Alyssa, who slightly blushed at the mere closeness of her. I wasn't sure what would happen if my best friend found out that she was no longer a virgin.
Mom had packed my milk for me. I didn't need to worry about my growling stomach.
After a while, Alyssa started asking Jacques a million questions. I  didn't know if Jacques could absorb energy through that or not, but  Alyssa looked even more energetic than usual. I knew the two of them would get along without me being a pathetic peacemaker.
"Is it true that you can see an aura?" Alyssa said in awe. "Do you see all rainbows all the time?"
"No, it's not like that," Jacques said. "Everyone has their dominant aura, which reflects their personality. If I want to make out someone's  aura, I have to focus for a few minutes, and it will appear in a  mist-like form."
"How awesome!" Alyssa gasped. "And what else can you do?"
"Well, something like this," Jacques picked up a silver spoon and held it up in front of her. She looked at it for a minute and then the spoon started to bend backward like it was made of wax. I tried not to drop my jaw at that. Even Cammie's eyes went wide.
"Oh. My. God. That is ah-may-zing!" Alyssa cried out. "Can you teach me that psychokinetic stuff, too?"
"Why not?" Jacques said. "Everyone can learn kinesis abilities. It's in our nature."
Cammie and I exchanged a look. Obviously, we both didn't want our school to be the next Hogwarts.
"Do you have any baby-steps that I can start with?" Alyssa continued excitedly. Jacques seemed to think for a while before she pulled out a  coin from her skirt pocket. She put the coin on the table and then spun it.
"Try to keep the coin spinning with your mind," Jacques instructed and held a glass of orange juice to her lips casually. And for a very long moment, the rest of us were still waiting for the coin to stop spinning itself, but it never did. The silver metal kept going on and on until Cammie slammed her palm down on it.
"Show-off," she muttered to Jacques sternly.
"So," Alyssa decided to change the subject, (that didn't help brighten anything because she just chose to talk about the only thing we had tried to avoid) "If your plan to be a vegetarian doesn't work, what do we do?" she asked, looking eager and innocent.
Jacques's eyes darted out to me. I haven't thought of that either.
"We'll find another way out," this time, Cammie answered before I  could. I almost dropped my milk carton all over myself, because Cammie had never said anything about helping Jacques out, but now she was starting to count herself in. I tried to rack my brain thinking of what to say in support.
"Yeah," I said. "There's a lot of ways to be a vegetarian, or maybe  Jacques could be a part-vegetarian because the three of us will take turns to be her feeders...I meant donors. She doesn't need to take  energy from other people anymore, right?"
"So you all don't mind having sex with me then?" Jacques said, with a  slight smirk. We fell in silence, not knowing how to respond to that.  Then Jacques just went on, "Don't make your lives miserable because of me. I've heard some psychic vampires can draw life force from anything,  the places with a dynamic energy flow like waterfalls, ocean, and forest, or natural disasters like thunderstorms or lightning, even rains. Once I figure out how to do it, I could even convert my feeding to feed off sadness, depression and also some diseases, which are also energy,  just negative. But if I succeed, I'll be free from this curse."
I was certain that we all listened with a surge of respect toward  Jacques. She also has a fighting spirit deep down. I really started to see her true color despite this arrogant surface.
After a while, we finished breakfast and went to our classes as normal. I was still thinking about how I could get out of school.  Octavia and I had agreed to go on a search for Florentine, but things took a different turn when I was stuck in here.
Then I met Octavia in Biology. She was sitting on our table as usual,  but she didn't look up when I took a seat next to her. Something about her expression made my mouth turn dry.
"Hey," I said. Octavia turned and stared at me for a long moment as if she was trying to detect something in her mind.
"You're okay?" I asked. Then she inhaled and let out a sigh.
"Yeah, you?"
I looked back at her with a frown, and then I felt the guilt poked inside my gut again.
"Fine," I said. "I'm...er...fine."
I didn't know why we had to waste more than five minutes just to greet each other. The awkwardness seemed to raise its ugly head out of nowhere. And I had never experienced it before with Octavia. Sure, she had teased me numerous times, but never once I felt this uneasy around her. This was little off to me. Then I decided to brush it aside and asked her whether she had been investigating on her aunt.
"Do you get anything new from the outside?" I asked, sounding like I was a prisoner.
"Some vague trails and clues," she said, "But nothing leads to anything."
"You know where the true-bloods most likely meet?"
Octavia pursed her lips as if to think.
"Where there are preys, there are predators," she mused.
"Somewhere crowded with a lot of people?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Like nightclubs, casinos, and bars, right?"
Octavia nodded in response. I made a mental note right away. The first chance I get to sneak out, we would go to one of those places.  Searching for someone we don't know might be both challenging and dangerous, but we would rather see what that stupid prophecy had of us than living in fear. Now, the bad guys could be around the corner. I  still didn't know why my evil uncle did that to my father, and what he was up to. There were too many questions but not enough answers.
After class, Alyssa came running toward me, her two hands waving in the air.
"Vivienne...wait!" She called out. "I've got something to show you!"
And that's how she brought us to the gym. It was quiet at this hour.  No one was around. We moved into the supply room. Alyssa pressed the button and the door slid open. Then we went inside. And the fact that  Jacques and Cammie were also there and not strangling each other was a  rare sight. They just sat on the metal bench on either end, looking at us.
"Why do you bring us here, Alyssa?" I said. "Self-defense class is not today."
"I know," she said. "But I have something to show you."
Then she opened her backpack and pulled a box out. Alyssa opened the lid and took something that looked like a torch.
"Here you go," she said excitedly.
"Um...thanks," I said. "But why do you give me a torch?"
"It's not a torch! It's a sword!" Alyssa said, looking hurt.
"Oh," I frowned, staring at the object blankly. "Make me understand how a torch turns out to be a sword?"
"Gosh! You should read more sci-fi fictions," Alyssa scoffed. "I  practically modeled it after a lightsaber in Star War. I couldn't make it with a laser, so I settled on steel. But this one is still a deadly  hand-made weapon."
Then she took the torch-like sword from me. Alyssa held it and pointed down to the floor. She clicked on a tiny button and a black metal blade shot out instantly. The sword was slightly shorter than a  samurai's sword, and instead of having a flat razor-edged blade, it was rounded with a pointy tip like a giant needle. The sword somehow resembled an incredibly long black stake to me.
Then I recalled the pile of electric junks on Alyssa's table the day we went to the masquerade ball. I didn't realize she had been engineering this. When Alyssa was three, normal girls were chasing butterflies while she collected screwdrivers and mechanical parts. When  Alyssa was eight, normal girls discovered lipstick and hairsprays while she built robots from a cardboard box and actually made it work.
"Be careful when you open it," she warned, handing it back to me. "It burst out strong and the tip is really sharp."
"Wow, that's so cool," Cammie breathed like it was love at first sight. If I could see her aura, I think it would be bloody red now. By the look on her face, Cammie was dying to have a grip on anything that kills.
"Alyssa, I know you're a genius, but making weapons is illegal!" I said.
"If something as cheesy as a sword is illegal," Jacques said from the bench. "Why did people who made nukes get rewarded?"
"Good point," Cammie supported with a nod. Then she winced as if she just remembered she didn't like Jacques. I stared at them with opened mouth. Turning this cool thingamabob around in my hand, I guess I could protect myself from any marauder that wants to harm me.
"I can't have it," I said softly at last.
"Why not?" Alyssa asked, surprised. And I hate to see her face fell. I  looked over at Octavia. For a split second, we both knew why I couldn't accept this gift. Even the true-bloods want us gone, but we are still part of them.
"It just doesn't feel right to me," I said with an apologetic tone.  "But I think there's someone who deserves it more than I do."
"Who?" Alyssa said. I walked toward the bench and stopped in front of Cammie.
"Cammie," I smiled at her. "I feel like the sword chooses you."
"What?" she blinked back at me.
"I remember the undead thought you were a slayer," I told her. "And I guess maybe they were right. Maybe you were born to be a vampire slayer." Cammie's eyes sparkled when she heard that. Her skin glowed with pride. She reached out and took the sword, smiling gratefully at me.
"Well, I have picked up a little swordplay from Shakespeare, too," she said with a cool shrug.
"Except you can't slay any vampire like some bloody sushi," Alyssa added. "But if you twist the end of the hilt, the sword will release a  strong discharge of electricity. One touch of the blade, and you'll take  a very long, long nap."
Cammie twisted the hilt to check, and a blue electric shock went crackling and running through the steel blade insanely. I didn't need to touch it to know if it could cure my insomnia, though.
"Does everything you do always involve with lighting up people's hair, Alyssa?" Cammie said.
"Only when I'm bored," she shrugged. Cammie untwisted the sword and ticked the button to retract the blade back into its hilt. How Alyssa made such a long thing shrink back so easily I had no idea, but Cammie kept staring at it like it was her birthday present.
"Okay, that settles it then," Alyssa said. "But I still have another cool stuff to show you."
She went to stand next to a life-size dummy that I hadn't noticed was there. But I didn't want to offend Alyssa again, so I tried to say something smart. "Mmm...is it a new model robot?"
"No, it's a dummy," Alyssa said, looking at me like I had grown some fungus on my brain.
"So what is it doing here?"
"The dummy is designed with extra sensors to measure your physical strength," she said.
"And you want me to hit that thing?" I asked.
"Yes," Alyssa answered. "So that we will know how strong you are."
I had to admit that the stuff was pretty impressive. There were wires and devices attached from the inside of the dummy to Alyssa's laptop.  She checked the equipment twice before the experiment began. I glanced at Octavia, who stood watching like Cammie and Jacques. After a while, I  was asked to attack the dummy using all my force. I felt like a  laboratory rat, but I came to stand before the figure anyway.
After a few seconds of summoning the strength in my body, I lift my clenched fist and punched the dummy in the chest.
"Ouch!" I cried, shaking my hand in pain. "I think I have cracked my knuckles!"
"I forgot to tell you," Alyssa said sheepishly. "It's made from hard plastic. They use it to experiment with car accidents."
"Gosh...why didn't you tell me earlier?" I hissed.
"Ohmigosh!" Alyssa burst out, staring at her computer screen. "Viv,  you're not going to believe this. The force of your punch could have  killed a full-grown cow!"
"Really?" I asked then looked at Octavia again. She just smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. Suddenly, I wanted to know how strong Octavia was, too. It would be great to know our own strengths and weaknesses.
"Octavia, you're on," I said.
She blinked for a moment and then she shook her head 'no'.
"Oh come on, Octavia!" Alyssa said and walked up to pull her to the dummy. "Just a punch or two."
Octavia still hesitated. But I gave her an encouraging smile. She rolled her eyes and turned to face the figure at last. Octavia inhaled and repositioned her feet. Then she stole a glance at Jacques, who was also gazing back. I could have missed their eye contact if I wasn't looking at them from behind. Octavia raised her hand in a proper angle and finally let out a blow. The movement of her hand was like a lunge of a cobra. It was too fast that it came out in a blur. And after a smashing sound, we all realized that Octavia's entire fist was shoved right through the dummy's chest. She simply pulled her hand back without a scratch, leaving a big hole there.
"Well," Alyssa gulped. "I don't think we need to measure that."