Chapter 18

Lucas

I quickly took cover by the large table that was in the room and I yelled for the rest to hide somewhere. It was disappointing enough that the professor got killed when he was just about to say something important, I couldn't afford to lose more men to this.

How did they even get here? I tried to scout the area and determine where the arrow had come from. I looked at the dead professor's body sitting lifeless on the chair. I instantly picked up an angle from the roof, saw an opening, and went after it. That was where the arrow came from.

Except the attacker was a vampire, I knew I would be able to catch up with them. As I ran faster, I heard footsteps retreating away quickly. I followed the sound until I found a hooded figure a few yards away from me. I chased after the figure as they tried to run. It wasn't a vampire. A vampire would be way faster than this. When it was clear that I would catch up, the figure gave up and stopped.

It was a woman, I found out, as she turned to look at me. She gave a devilish smile before she pushed something into her mouth. It was too late before I realized what it was. By the time I grabbed her, she'd already entered into a seizure and in the next couple of seconds, she died.

I carried her body with me back to the house for examination. I couldn't help but be bothered by the fact that these guys were willing to die for the sake of what they believed they were doing. It made me realize that this was even bigger than I thought.

They must have felt unsafe with the fact that the professor was with us and could tell us something that would compromise their operations, because it was a considerably big risk to send someone deep down into vampire territory just to take out a captive. It showed how important the professor was. Or rather, the information that he had with him. I couldn't believe I allowed such a huge opportunity to slip away from us.

I remembered the professor mentioned the name Jason Hemming before he was killed. I knew the name. He was the heir of the wolf family I was looking into. The brother of my main suspect. I ordered some of them to look deeper into the identity of the professor and also find things out about the dead woman I brought back. Though the professor's death was a setback, this wasn't over just yet. I wouldn't back down until I got to the root of it, I vowed to myself.

The professor had claimed that the virus would spread and eventually kill us all. I wasn't going to allow that to happen. I couldn't. I was now under more pressure than ever, to quickly find the origin of the virus and put an end to it. One thing was now certain to me, whomever the mastermind was wanted to wipe out our kind with this virus. Many vampires had already lost their lives to this and we needed to act quickly before it was too late.

I left the house with a new assignment. I was going to find out what Derek Hemming, the wolf family's second son, really knew about all this.

Roxanne

The last encounter with Derek had thrown me further off the ladder of hope. Every aspect of my life has been upside down, including my studies. Happiness seemed like a distant thing and all I ever did recently was brood with sadness, thinking about all the negative things that were happening in my life, which was a lot.

I sat by the park near the school library, listening to sad songs as I thought about my miserable life once again.

"Hey," Rose came to where I was seated alone on the wooden bench.

"Hi," I said slowly.

"How're you?" She asked.

I showed her the bad results of the last set of tests that I did.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It will get better. Just try to hold yourself together through everything."

I thanked her and forced a smile. That seemed like what I had been trying to do for a while—holding myself together. Rose moved closer to me and comforted me by hugging me sideways. It felt good to have someone who still cared about me amidst the unsettling situation that was going on in my life.

"I have news. Something bad has happened again." Rose announced.

"What now?"

"Professor Richard’s body was found dead in his home apartment."

"How? What happened?" I knew the professor. He taught one of the classes I was taking. He was a very interesting man and his death couldn't have come at a crazier period.

It was getting really late in the afternoon so we got up from the bench and began to walk back to the dormitory. On the way, Rose complained about the country's law and how people just show up dead so randomly.

We got to the entrance gate of the dormitory and I saw a very familiar car. It was Derek! I could see him sitting comfortably inside the car. I unconsciously grabbed the knife I had tried to kill him with from where I kept it on my body. He brought the car forward and blocked our path.

Rose's face was clouded with confusion. She didn't understand why someone she didn't know was acting like this toward her. I looked at her face and turned to look at Derek in the car. He was staring ferociously at Rose and the idea of touching a hair on Rose's body scared me. So I quickly did as he wanted. I told Rose to proceed without me and that I'll join her later.

"Do you know him?" She asked with concern.

"Very well," I replied. "Don't worry, I can handle it."

I got into Derek's car and he moved it off the road so that Rose could continue on her way. He drove to a quiet place and put the car to a stop. I turned to look at him. What was he up to this time?

As I looked into his eyes, I realized they had become softened and warm. Pictures of the last time making love filled up my head. All I could think about at that moment was Derek fucking me passionately till I climaxed. I let go of the knife that I had held so firmly in my hand as he started the ignition on the car and drove away.

I wondered why he had come this time. I discovered a pattern in our meetings. It was always when something happened to him and he needed to vent his emotions. Just like the time when he had whiplashes on his back and he invited me over to transfer the anger on me.

As we went away in the car, I began to see another part of him. One that was struggling with life the same way the rest of us did. Even though he was a werewolf, he still had issues in his life that he had to handle. For the first time ever, I felt closer to him and I saw something I had not noticed before now. Just like me, Derek Hemming was having a hard time living in this complex world.