17. Class in session, or hell in session Part 2

“The gene inside her body has been changing. Maybe having her around us is affecting her instead of helping. I need to keep an eye on how things evolve. Some of her blood is being run for different tests. So don’t worry about her, Callisto. Trust me, I will find the best way to keep her safe. For our sakes.”

“Trusting you is what has me in doubt. This is not how things should be going. You saw what happened just now. How am I supposed to keep an eye on her when we have rebellions breaking through our defenses?”

I started to twist in bed to try to see both men.

“Callisto,” Darcy sighed. “You must stop acting like that. The more you get yourself angry and jealous, the worse it is for her. You need to let us be with her. Adonis may be a fucking bastard, but he won’t do anything to her. Not when he knows we all will kill him if he even tries.”

“What about the rest?” Callisto hissed. I sighed, listening intently.

“The rest won’t do anything to her. Hector looks head over heels with her. Seth, you know, is a possessive freak, quiet, but obsessive towards her. He just needs to let loose and stop acting like a pussy.”

“And you?” Callisto looked at Darcy, who had his hands inside his lab robe. A wicked smile framed his handsome face.

“Me? I like her. Won’t lie, I’m tempted to taste her before you, but I respect mate. So don’t worry about me. I will keep her safe, even from you,” Darcy grins.

Having Darcy speak of me like that gives me chills. He was the easiest going of all of them but there was something dangerous in him I couldn’t shake it off easily.

“Also, our Yophiel can’t be going on like this. We must move to phase two if we want her to become one of us,” Darcy commented.

“No!” Callisto snapped. His long fangs graced his chin. “We won’t move to that phase unless she wants to. And seeing how things are going, she won’t be able to last an hour. So, forget about that, for now. Our priority is to get her trust. I hate it she doesn’t trust me.”

I still for half a second. Callisto felt bothered that I wasn’t trusting him. I know he is aware of everything he did was wrong but he has never truly apologized.

If only he tried to be a bit more honest with himself, I might change my mind and give my trust to him again.

Darcy placed his hand on Callisto’s shoulder. There was a friendship no one would see if they didn’t know them like that.

“Give her time. Or…” Callisto looks at Darcy. “Just apologize? I don’t know do something. You’re so cold sometimes.”

“Cold? You meant heartless,” Callisto frowns. Darcy laughs.

“Yes, but you don’t have a heart. You’re dead.”

To that, Callisto looked back at the monitor. I swear the room dropped some degrees because of that comment.

Noticing they were not saying anything else, I finally spoke, “Can I get some water?”

Both Callisto and Darcy turn around. Surprised to hear me?

It was odd to see gestures on their stone faces, but when they did, they seemed so human that all vampire traits seemed gone.

“Phi,” Callisto was the first to speak. Darcy moves to the side to grab some water.

“Don’t get up still. You just had a Vasovagal syncope,” Darcy explains as he hands me a bottle of water with straw.

“A what?”

“Vasovagal syncope, you fainted, in other words, due to emotional stress. Blame it on him,” Darcy pointed over his shoulder at where Callisto stood.

He remained; arms crossed on the same spot as before. It was like he was afraid to get closer.

“Is it serious?” I asked, sitting up. Darcy pushed me back, but I pushed his hands away. “Care to explain what is happening to me?”

“Yophiel. Don’t start,” Callisto warns.

“Don’t start what?”

“You’re getting angry. You will just faint again,” Darcy blocks my view from Callisto. I groaned, annoyed with him.

The one I wanted to speak to wasn’t facing me, and the other stubborn vampire was being a pain in the ass if I can call it that.

“Then tell him to speak to me. All he did was keep me in the dark.”

“I haven’t,” Callisto hissed.

“Yes, all of you. I’m not that easy to break. I can handle myself!”

“Break,” Darcy laughed. “We can ask Hector to try that theory.”

I glared at Darcy. An emotion I can’t point to snaps inside me. “Quiet.”

Surprisingly, Darcy does shut up, but it takes us a moment to realize his mouth has closed completely, leaving him confused.

He backs away, touching his face in fear. Callisto blurs and grabs my face, turning me away from Darcy. “Look at me. Focus on me, Phi.”

The feeling that snapped inside me nearly dies down. My curled hands, I didn’t know I had around the bedsheets, loosened up. My breathing returns to normal and then I feel tired again.

I slump against Callisto.

“Bloody hell, no mate!” Darcy growls with his British accent. “She did not just do that.”

“Darcy,” Callisto warned over his shoulder.

“What? She just…” he shakes his head and grabs his tablet. “I’ll be back. Keep her here, don’t rattle her.”

Callisto stares me down. “We should really talk.”

“Finally,” I sighed.

He narrowed his eyes. “You need to keep your emotions in check for now, Yophiel. What just happened shouldn’t happen again.”

“You lost me on the emotional part.”

“You have no idea of what’s happening to you, do you?” he asked, making me frown. This back-and-forth shit was getting annoying.

He knew I had no idea of what was happening around me.

“Look the itch with Adonis and our mirroring emotions are the only connections we so far know about, but we have no idea what the rest of the connections with others are or will be.”

“So, our emotions are being reflected like a mirror?” I frowned. “We are connected through our emotions. Like I am with Adonis?”

Callisto frowns at that.

“Adonis?”

I nod.

“Adonis can feel my emotions when they stir because of a reaction. Be sadness, anger, happiness. That’s why he appears when he is not called or needed and acts that way with me. He hates me because I make him feel things he hasn’t felt in years.”

Callisto stops short.

I don’t know how I am supposed to handle this if it’s true. My connection thus far with Callisto is the strongest of all. It works both ways. But if my memory serves me right, it is because we carry the same gene. While Adonis’s connection is one way.

I can’t let this affect me. There must be a way to keep a balance.

“You’re quiet,” I whispered. He searches my expression, looking troubled.

“He told you that?”

I nodded and explained what we both know so far. Callisto briefly, let’s go and move to make a call.

Darcy is back before I can even get out of bed. “Oh no, you sit back down and start speaking.”

“About?” I looked confused.

“About what you just told Callisto. I need details, Yophiel, literally all the details possible.”

They had their eyes set on me. There was no way I was escaping this, so giving up, I started recounting the details of what I felt, what Adonis had told me, and strangely, I felt that with every word I spoke, the more this became real.

And the fact that I really hadn’t thought about it sickens me. Because with every day, this shit hole was growing deeper and deeper and I was sinking with it, first class to hell.

***

“Thank you Yophiel. Now that we know this, I get a better idea of what is happening. Now the best course is to keep her busy, keep her mind on tasks.” Darcy was pacing the room. “Teach her.”

“Teach me what?” I asked, looking around the room.

“How to control your emotions.”

“You’re asking her to be cold like us,” Callisto snarled across the room. After recounting what I experienced, he has been holed in the corner of the room looking anything but pleased.

“No, emotionless, it’s totally different.” Darcy snaps back. Then, with a smile that said shut the hell up Callisto, he faced me. “You will start basic training. Not only for your own health, but also to keep you distracted,” he grabs his tablet and starts typing away. “This will also help her interact with each of us. Maybe that can make Seth loosen up to her.”

“Plan and present it during breakfast tomorrow. Right now, we need to head down.”

“Why?” I asked, staring at Callisto, who was intently looking into his phone.

“Hector is back.”

The last thing I expected to hear was that. Didn’t they leave earlier in the morning?

“Did I pass out for long?” I asked Darcy, who looked up from his tablet with a frown.

“No, just ten minutes. Why?”

I looked down at my hands. “Nothing.”

We were standing in the entrance of the building, expecting to see an airplane like the one from before appearing from somewhere.

Yet there were no signs of one.

I looked around the place until my eyes stopped on the same hilltop as before. I spotted a figure standing. Callisto loops an arm around my waist and hauls me away from where I’m standing.

I’m not sure how I end up straddled on his hips, but it’s quick. Why do they have to be so fast?

I barely registered Hector laughing in the same spot I was a moment ago. “Puta, did you really need to do that, Cal?”

“Don’t call me that!” Callisto bared his fangs.

“Hector?” I said, surprised.

“Hi, Mi Princesa, I’m back.” He reaches for me but Callisto snarls back.

The smile Hector gives me sends a shiver down my spine. It should make me feel scared, oddly it was something else.

Hector chuckled, then sifted his hand through his messy hair.

He looked like a mess, full of something gruesome that wasn’t blood, it even smelled awful.

It was like a mix of fuel and chemicals.

Callisto says nothing for so long. No one moves for so long.

I begin to fear there’s something wrong despite the smiles and playfulness from earlier.

I have no idea how to read them.

“Where is Seth?” Callisto turns with me in his arms. I felt like a toddler being carried by her father. But knowing him, he wasn’t planning to let go of me soon, so I rested my chin on his shoulder as Hector followed behind.

“Seth is doing his thing. You know him and his craziness,” Hector chuckles.

We stopped at the elevators. I half expected Callisto to place me down, but he kept his arms around me.

“Did you miss me?” Hector leaned up as we got into the elevator. “I missed you.”

I hid on Callisto’s shoulder feeling shy of Hector. He gives me a small smile, but it lights his eyes. That’s unusual.

Hector comes closer. One step from being close to my face.

I looked at him with curiosity. His tan skin had black smudges and being inside this small space made the smell worse.

The second he leans to my face, I place my hands over his mouth, pushing his face away.

He laughs aloud, filling the entire place with a contagious laugh.

I can’t help the smile on my face. When I turned to look at Callisto, he was staring back. There’s a softening around his eyes as he watches silently.

The small sound of the bell tells us we have arrived at our destination.

I don’t have a chance to react when Callisto is placing me back down. For a moment, I’m sure he doesn’t want to let go, but he does. Not without his fingers caressing my own.

I blink.

“Come along, Mi Princesa,” Hector snatches my hand, pulling me behind him.

***

I made a face at the sound of my stomach grumbling loudly enough to make Callisto order food.

“Go on, Princesa,” Hector pushed the plate closer. My stomach chose that moment to growl, so I picked up the fork and started to eat.

“Start explaining,” Callisto ordered, taking a seat next to me.

We were back at the command center where new images of the situation were shown.

Hector takes a deep breath, crosses his arms and leans on the chair. “We were able to capture two humans from the rebel group. They are well armed; everything is first-class technology.”

“Like ours?” Callisto asked.

Hector nods, then leans on the table. “Yes, Seth will bring them back so Darcy can go over them. We also took control of the chaos. Don’t worry, we made sure our compounds were safe. Those bastards knew where to attack, but our lines of vampires did keep them holed in the center of the city, which was good. It gave us time to take control over things. Not to mention once they saw us, they retreated.”

“How did you get back?” I asked, mouth full. Both men spared me a glance.

“Fading.” They both answered at the same time.

I gulped down and leaned on my seat confused.

“Fading?” I tilted my head more confused than ever.

Hector quickly explains it’s a thing that allows them to move fast, very fast from one place to another.

It does sound quite interesting. I’ve seen them move like a blur, but if they can do it faster by taking them distances, then that means it’s like they vanish.

Callisto must have noticed my curiosity because he reached for my hand. “Want to try it out?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you want to fade?” he repeated.

“But I can’t do that.”

“You won’t do it alone,” he assures me. Pulling me, we got up and moved to the stairs.

Hector smiled from the table as he watched Callisto guide me to the top floor of the place.

The command center was made of different levels and we were on the highest one. Quite the distance from where Hector sat.

I stared down at the place. Everyone was ignoring us.

“What do we do now?” I cleared my throat. I rub my hands against my pants.

“Place your arms around my neck, and step on my shoes,” he said, closing the space between us. “And don’t let go until I tell you.”

He snaked his arms around me, pulling me until my entire body was flushed against his.

It’s been a while since we’ve been this close and don’t feel like wanting to argue with each other.

He places one of his hands on my lower back and presses me further into him.

“Don’t close your eyes,” he ordered.

I know what’s coming, and as much as I want to back out now, I know I can’t.

I should even close my eyes, but the smile on Callisto’s face makes it impossible. He knows I’m freaking out.

His eyes darkened and one second, we were on the highest floor, then next, we were across the room on the last floor.

The only signs we moved were of the small gust of wind on my hair and his.

I blinked a couple of times before I heard Hector laughing hard.

“She’s about to pass out,” he yells from the table. Callisto let’s go, laughing at himself.

“That’s fading.” He gives me another smile and walks back to the table.

I remain in the same spot, both elated and curious.

Now that is cool.