Chapter 28 A Dangerous Sample

Chapter 28 A Dangerous Sample
VANESSA'S POV

The moment I opened my eyes at 6:17 AM, the very first thing that popped into my head was that stupid blood test. I just lay there in bed for a few seconds, staring blankly at the ceiling and wishing I could just disappear. I really, really didn't want to go.

The white notice was still sitting right on my desk, exactly where I left it yesterday afternoon. The bold letters seemed to be mocking me: MANDATORY STUDENT WELLNESS EVALUATION & CLINICAL SCREENING. And right underneath that, it said Full vital checks, physical assessment, and immediate bloodwork panels. I had stared at that paper so many times that I was honestly starting to hate the word bloodwork.

I knew exactly why my parents had spent my whole life warning me about things like this. They knew the truth about what was running through our veins, and they knew how fast our lives would ruin if the wrong person ever found out.

The main problem was that I didn't even know what a normal human blood test could actually show. Could they look at a simple tube of blood and immediately tell I was a werewolf? Or would they just see something weird that a regular doctor wouldn't even know how to explain? I had no idea, and I seriously wished my parents had given me a little more details before throwing me into a school full of rich kids.

I picked up my phone and saw it was 6:18 AM, so I just groaned and dropped it back onto the mattress. For about five seconds, I thought about pretending to have a massive fever so I could skip the whole thing. But then I remembered the school only ordered this screening because my name was flagged near the science building fire. If I suddenly refused to show up, it would just make people start asking a lot of dangerous questions, and I definitely couldn't afford any more of those.

I finally forced myself to get dressed and dragged my feet down to the cafeteria. By the time I walked in, Lena was already sitting at our usual table in the corner.

She looked up the second I approached and said, "You're late."

"I am literally only two minutes late," I muttered, sliding onto the chair across from her.

"Still late, V."

"Good morning to you too, Lena."

She didn't even say anything back, she just pushed a plate with a warm piece of toast toward me and said, "Eat."

"I'm really not hungry," I sighed, looking away.

"I don't care, you need to eat something."

"I'll eat later, I promise."

"Vanessa," she said, her voice dropping into that strict best-friend tone.

I looked at her, and she just stared right back at me until I finally gave up and picked up the toast. "Happy now?"

"Very," she grinned.

I took a bite just to make her shut up, and she watched me chew for a few seconds before leaning closer across the table. "You're thinking about the clinic, aren't you?"

I paused, looking at her in shock. "How do you always know what's going on in my head?"

"Because you always do that exact same thing where you stare through your food without actually swallowing it."

"I was swallowing," I argued, holding the toast up. "You just caught me between bites."

"Sure, V. You took one single bite and then went into outer space." She laughed, tapping her fingers against her cup.

I tried my best to smile back at her, but it only lasted for about two seconds before the weight in my stomach came rolling back. The thought of that needle made my chest feel super tight, and Lena noticed the change immediately.

"Hey, don't worry, you'll be totally fine," she said softly, trying to comfort me.

"Yeah, I know," I murmured, but even to me, my voice sounded small and completely fake.

"Wow, you really don't sound like you know at all."

"Well, I'm trying my best to believe it."

She took a slow sip of her juice, still watching my face. "Come on, it's just a basic blood test, V. Why are you sweating it so much?"

I gave her a long, quiet look because I couldn't exactly tell her the truth. I couldn't tell her that my family had been running from city to city because our blood wasn't completely human. I couldn't tell her that the terrifying man running the fire investigation was currently standing inside that clinic, waiting for the results.

So I just shrugged my shoulders and tried to sound like a normal, dramatic teenager. "I just really, really hate needles, okay? They creep me out."

Lena nodded, completely buying the excuse. "Okay, yeah, that's totally fair. Most people hate them."

"Thank you for your very deep and helpful medical advice," I sarcastically muttered.

"You are very welcome, Miss Vance," she teased, taking another bite of her breakfast. "Do you want me to walk down there with you?"

"No, definitely not."

"Why not?"

"Because I know you'll just sit there and laugh at me the second I flinch."

"I would never laugh at you while you're suffering!" She gasped, trying to look innocent.

"Oh, really? You literally laughed when I fell asleep in Biology last week."

"That was completely different! You fell asleep so hard you almost slid straight off your plastic chair and landed on the floor."

"I told you, I was exhausted that day."

"Vanessa, you were literally drooling on your notebook."

I just stared at her with a flat expression. "I honestly hate you sometimes."

"No, you don't. You love me." She chirped, and unfortunately, she was completely right.

I finished the piece of toast, wiped my hands, and stood up from the table. "Alright, I should probably go get this over with."

"Good luck," she waved.

"If I don't make it back by afternoon, please tell the school I died fighting bravely."

Lena rolled her eyes and pointed toward the doors. "Stop being dramatic and just go do the test, crazy girl."

"Fine, fine."

I left the cafeteria and walked down to the clinic, and the place was already packed by the time I walked through the main doors. Students were sitting all along the corridor walls, scrolling through their phones and waiting for their names to be called out. Some of them looked completely bored, some looked super annoyed about missing their morning sleep, and a few actually looked genuinely terrified.

I sat down near two boys, and one of them was loudly complaining to his friend about the whole situation. "I don't even see why the school needs my blood. Like, what does a fire have to do with my veins?"

"Bro, it's just a quick blood test, chill," his friend replied, not even looking up from his game.

"Yeah, but it's my blood, man. I don't like people touching my stuff."

I almost laughed out loud at that. It seemed like overnight, everyone at Cresthaven had suddenly become very protective of their bodily fluids. I checked in at the front desk with my ID card and found an empty chair near the corner.

A few minutes later, the heavy inner door swung open and a nurse stepped out with a clipboard. "Vanessa Vance?"

I stood up quickly, my heart doing a little jump. "Yes, that's me."

She checked something off on her paper and gestured down the hall. "Great, please come with me."

I followed her into a small, bright exam room that smelled strongly of alcohol wipes. She started with all the basic, boring checks first. She took my temperature, wrapped the tight black cuff around my arm to check my blood pressure, and then made me step onto the scale. After that, she clipped a little plastic device onto my finger to check my oxygen and pulse.

She frowned slightly at the screen, then looked up at me. "Your pulse is running a bit high, honey. Are you feeling nervous today?"

"A little bit, yeah," I admitted, keeping my hands hidden.

"Is it because of the blood draw?"

"Yes, exactly."

She gave me a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, it's super quick."

"That's what everybody keeps telling me," I muttered under my breath.

She just laughed and turned back to her computer screen, reading through the digital form. "Any recent injuries or cuts that we should know about?"

My mind immediately flashed back to the night of the science building fire. I remembered the burning smoke, the heavy metal door handle twisting like plastic in my grip, the deep scratches on my palms, and that terrifying pre-shift fever that made my skin feel like lava.

I swallowed hard and look her right in the eye. "No, nothing at all."

"Are you taking any daily medications?"

"No."

"Any known allergies?"

"No."

"Have you been feeling any dizziness or headaches lately?"

"No, I feel totally fine."

She typed everything into my file and then turned around to prepare the medical equipment on the steel tray. I stared at the plastic packages, feeling a cold sweat break out across the back of my neck.

"How many tubes are you actually taking from me?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

"Two today, dear," she said casually.

I frowned, my sarcasm slipping out because I was getting anxious. "With all due respect, 'two' is not an actual number."

She chuckled, shaking her head as she tore open the sterile packaging. "Don't worry about it, you're going to be perfectly fine. Just place your arm right here on the rest."

I leaned back and rested my arm on the cold plastic pad. She tied a rubber band around my upper arm and told me to make a fist. Then she wiped the inside of my elbow with a freezing alcohol swab, and I immediately looked away, focusing all my attention on a random poster on the far wall.

"Little pinch," she said.

The needle went in with a sharp pinch, and I felt the exact second the first tube started filling up with my blood. I kept my eyes glued to the wall, trying to breathe normally. Deep down, I could feel my wolf paying close attention to everything happening. It had been restless and twitching since the moment I woke up, but now, it had gone completely, strangely quiet. It was like the beast knew we were standing in an absolute danger zone, so it was playing dead to keep us safe.

I couldn't resist looking down, and when I glanced at the tray, the fluid in the tube looked completely normal. It was just dark, regular red blood. Nothing was changing, nothing was glowing, and no secret alarms were going off in the room.

I let out a tiny sigh, my shoulders dropping as I started to relax. But the moment of relief didn't even last five seconds. The nurse removed the first filled tube from the holder, placed it aside, and attached the second empty tube.

I stared at her in total confusion. "Wait, another one?"

"Yes, honey."

"Why do you need a second one? I thought you said it was just a quick check."

"We just need to run some different tests for the administrative records," she explained, not even looking up.

"What exact tests are you running?"

She checked the top of the paperwork sheet. "Just the routine panel ordered for the west wing students. Don't worry, it's standard procedure."

That answer did absolutely nothing to make me feel better. I watched the second tube start to fill up, and my wolf went even deeper into hiding, fading into a silent shadow in the back of my mind. I looked around the room, trying to distract myself, and that was when my eyes landed on the doorway.

One of Derek Thorne's personal security specialists was standing right outside the room, leaning against the wall near the main sample table. I recognized his heavy tactical boots and the radio clips on his vest immediately, he was one of the armed guards who had been patrolling the campus since the fire.

My eyes darted back to the tray on the counter. One of those glass tubes had a bright white barcode sticker with my name printed on it in bold letters: VANESSA VANCE.

Why on earth was an armed security guard watching over a bunch of high school blood samples?

Before I could even process the thought, the clinic door clicked open and Derek Thorne himself walked straight into the annex. I completely froze, my breath catching in my throat. He was holding a thick manila folder in his hands, walking with that heavy, authoritative stride that made everyone in the room look up. He marched right over to the head desk and started speaking to the chief clinical doctor in a low, serious whisper.

I looked at the tray of blood, and then I looked back at Derek's sharp profile. This was bad. This was incredibly bad.

He was the one investigating the fire. He was the one who had spent the last two days taking plaster molds of the twisted metal door handle and checking the missing sections of the security tapes. He knew a group of scholarship students had been on that path when the incident happened, and now, he was standing in the exact room where the school was collecting our biological data.

I didn't know what Derek Thorne was looking for, but a horrible feeling in my gut told me that whatever it was, my blood sample was about to give it to him.

The nurse finally removed the needle and pressed a cotton ball firmly against the spot. "Alright, press this cotton ball down tight for me, Vanessa."

I pressed my thumb against the spot, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I watched her label both tubes and place them into the wire tray alongside the others.

Suddenly, Derek turned his head around. His sharp, gray eyes scanned the small room and landed straight on my face. I looked away instantly, my skin crawling as I tried to act like a normal, boring student who was just ready to leave.

"Am I officially done now?" I asked the nurse, my voice sounding a little tighter than before.

She double-checked my digital chart on the tablet. "Yes, everything is cleared on my end. You're good to go."

I stood up from the chair so fast my head did a quick spin.

The nurse looked up, her brow furrowing. "Whoa, take it easy, sweetie. You should probably sit down for a minute before heading out. You look a little dizzy."

"No, really, I'm totally fine," I insisted, grabbing my bag with my good hand. "I just have a lecture starting in five minutes and I don't want to be late. Thank you!"

I didn't even wait for her to reply. I practically bolted out of the exam room, keeping my head down as I rushed past Derek Thorne and the tactical guard at the entrance. I didn't stop moving until I pushed through the heavy double doors and reached the quiet safety of the back hallway stairs.

I stopped near the railing, gasping for air as the adrenaline poured through my veins. I looked down at my left arm, staring at the little white piece of tape holding the cotton ball against my skin. It looked so basic. So harmless.

But somewhere inside that clinic, sitting in a wire basket just a few feet away from Derek Thorne, was a glass tube filled with my actual blood. My blood. With my name printed right on the side.

For a split second, a crazy thought popped into my head. I thought about turning around, marching back into that room, and somehow stealing the tray. I could throw it in the trash, or fake an accident and smash the glass on the floor, or try to convince the nurse that she had mixed up my barcode with someone else's.

I shook my head violently, forcing the stupid idea out of my brain. No way. That was an absolutely terrible plan. If I went back inside begging a doctor to give me my blood samples back, I might as well stand in the middle of the school courtyard with a microphone and announce that I was a supernatural freak who had something to hide. It would ruin everything instantly.

I adjusted my bag strap and started walking up the stairs toward my next class, but my mind was completely fried. I tried to tell myself that maybe the results would just be normal. Maybe whatever makes me a wolf stays hidden deep inside the cells where a basic high school test can't even see it. Maybe all this panic was just for nothing.

I desperately wanted to believe that, but deep down, I knew better. My parents hadn't spent years looking over their shoulders and moving across four different states just because they were paranoid. They knew exactly how dangerous the human world was for people like us. And right now, I had no idea what Derek Thorne's men were going to discover when they finally opened my sample in that security lab.

I reached the top of the staircase and paused, looking back down the empty hallway toward the clinic doors. One thing was completely certain: I wasn't going to just sit around in my room like a good little girl, waiting for the principal to call my name over the loudspeaker when the results came back.

I needed to know exactly what they were doing with those blood samples. And I needed to find out the truth before Derek Thorne did.