Apprentices: First Quarter

Out Of Control

Katie stares at me, all the blood drained from her face. She looks paler than the wall right now. I force myself to tear my eyes away from her and look around the boys. I realize Jake has moved his hand away from my knee, making me worry. At least one person is angry with me right now, I can feel it in the air.

“That’s the dude that I saw in that hallway?” Jake asks with a hard look in his eyes. I watch him carefully, slowly nodding in confirmation. Seriously, this is what he hears out of everything I just said? Kir’s at least seventy, for f**k’s sake! He can’t be jealous of every man that breathes too close to me.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Katie breathes out next to me, making me turn my gaze towards her. I breathe in, staring at her in an apologetic way. I know that anything I say won’t help my situation right now, but at least I spoke up, didn’t I?

“I wasn’t allowed to. My very existence means trouble. Do you know why my dominant element is blood? How it’s even possible?” I ask, hoping that she doesn’t shake her head and storm out of the room. If she does that … It will break my heart into pieces I won’t be able to pick up. Her friendship means everything to me.

She stares at me for a long moment, her jaw clenched. “You have exactly three sentences to explain it,” she finally says, making me slump my shoulders. She’s not just angry with me, she’s furious. And she has every right to be. Okay, let’s just get this out of my system.

“My mother is a mind witch, and my father is a vampire. It’s all supposed to be in the genetics. That’s why my dominant element couldn’t be anything else but blood,” I reveal, hearing loud gasps all around me. I want to curl up into myself to escape the horror on everyone’s faces.

Werewolves and vampires don’t mix. They don’t go together, I’ve already repeated this numerous times. They hate each other and stay out of each other’s way. Most of my company consists of werewolves and I just told them I’m half-vampire. Get where I’m going with this?

“s**t, don’t tell me you drink blood, too,” Tim suddenly remarks, scrunching his face in disgust. His words make me feel even more ashamed. And it’s not a pleasant feeling. I’ve never been ashamed of who I am before. I don’t want to feel like that now.

I turn back to Katie with a desperate look on my face, like she’s the only one who can fix this. The only one, who can step on my side now. I don’t even dare look at Jake. I’m afraid of what I’ll see on his face. I could deal with hate and disappointment. But there’s one thing I fear seeing in his eyes way more. Disgust.

My best friend keeps staring at me, suddenly tearing her gaze away from me and shaking her head. “It wasn’t right to keep this from us,” she speaks up, making me lower my head in shame. I know that if I look at anyone now, I’ll start crying. And I can’t let them all see me like this. I never cried in front of them all. I’m not about to start now.

“Evy, look at me,” I suddenly hear Jake’s voice plead with me. I clench my jaw, knowing that the tears will spill from my eyes if I lift my head now. Suddenly, I feel his hand on my chin, making me turn my head towards him. I meet his stern gaze, feeling relief as I don’t see a trace of hate in his eyes.

“Don’t you hate me?” I whisper, barely preventing myself from crying anymore. f**k. Why am I being so emotional? I’m never like this. What’s happening to me?

He cups my face with both his hands, shaking his head in a serious way. “I could never hate you. It’s not your fault. None of this is. You didn’t pick your parents and you didn’t decide to dominate in blood either. It sounds like you’re dealing with dangerous stuff here. I don’t see any reason to turn my back to you. I get why you couldn’t say anything,” he tells me so softly, that he breaks me.

I let out a sob, covering my mouth with my hand as tears spill from my eyes. f**k, I didn’t mean to do that. But before I’m able to escape into the bathroom to pull myself together, Jake already pulls me towards him, holding me tightly against his body.

“Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay. We’re not going anywhere. We know you Evelyn, this doesn’t change who you are,” he consoles me, running his hand up and down my back as he comforts me. I sob into his chest, trying to force myself to stop, but it only results in making me cry even more.

But as this happens, I can feel myself losing control. No. I can’t let this happen. Not here, not now. I can’t hurt my friends, especially not Jake. I push myself away from him, getting up and running out of the room as fast as my feet can carry me.

I have no idea where I’m going, but I only stop once I can’t even breathe anymore. When I finally see through the fog in my eyes, I realize I’m standing on the hallway that leads to Kir’s office. I know it’s late and I know I don’t have much time left before magic bursts out of me. But I can’t go to him either. I could hurt him. On the other hand, he’s the only one who can help me.

I rush towards the door, knocking on it in an urgent way. I soon hear movement on the other side, the key turning and soon, Kir is standing in front of me, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Evelyn? What’s going on?”

“Help me, please,” I beg him, letting out another sob. He seems to wake up in a blink of an eye, all trace of tiredness leaving his face. He steps aside, motioning for me to get inside.

I stumble forward, my hands trembling as I try my best to keep myself in control. He kneels next to me as I sit down, grabbing my shaking fists. He sends me a stern gaze, while I can barely look at him.

“Look at me. Breathe in, breathe out. With every breath, push the magic towards the tips of your fingers, then out of your blood into mine. You know how,” he instructs me calmly, gently rubbing the skin on the back of my hand with his thumbs. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t seem weird at all. It seems to have a soothing effect on my nerves.

I close my eyes, trying my best to concentrate. I know that if I don’t succeed now, I could seriously injure Kir. I can’t let that happen. I gather the dangerous, swirling darkness from my blood, pushing it to my fingers. I know exactly how it goes now. But when I try to push the magic to Kir, nothing happens.

I open my eyes in panic, trying to figure out why it’s not working now. Kir stares right back at me, a determined expression covering his face. “Come on, Evelyn. You can do this,” he tries to encourage me, but I feel like I’m already leaning over the edge.

He squeezes my hands tightly, almost making them hurt. But it seems to be working because it grounds me. I gather all the will I have left to push the magic out of myself, letting out a soft groan as I feel the pulsing energy jump from me to Kir. We both get thrown backwards, just like the first time we did this.

I hit the back of the armchair, while my mentor falls straight to the ground. I jump up immediately, offering him my hand to help him up. I knew I shouldn’t come here. I only hurt him. And if his eyes are glowing red again, I swear I’m just jumping through the window and save everyone a lot of trouble.

But as Kir looks at me, his dark eyes reveal that he’s exhausted. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what else to do,” I apologize, leaning down so he can put an arm around my shoulders as I lift him off the ground. He seems even weaker than the first time this happened, making me worry that I overstrained him.

“It’s nothing. That’s why I’m here. Would you be so kind and help me get to the bed?” he murmurs, unable to speak properly anymore. I feel so bad that I nod, willing to do anything to help him now.

As we reach the bed, I lower him towards it slowly and carefully, realizing I’m sweating. He might be an old, lean man, but he’s heavier than he appears. He must have had some muscle in his younger days, or else he wouldn’t give me so much trouble now. “I’m so sorry Kir, I shouldn’t have come here,” I apologize again, feeling bad as I see him like this.

I mean to let go of him, but he holds my hand a moment longer and squeezes it. “Thank you. Don’t apologize anymore. I’m just glad I helped you,” he reassures me, but I don’t feel much better. “Can you go to bed now, please? I need to rest,” he mumbles.

Before he even properly finishes the sentence, he’s already sleeping. I stand there, still holding onto his hand for dear life. I don’t know how much longer I stay, but I’m afraid to leave. I have to make sure that I didn’t push him over the limit and kill him. If I did that … No, I can’t think like that. Kir’s alive and breathing. Isn’t he?

I reach out towards his nose with my other hand, trying to stop it from trembling. Once I feel his hot breath on my fingers, I’m finally able to relax. I slowly lower his hand, finally daring to let go of it. Kir will be fine. I’ll be fine. I didn’t kill my mentor. And I didn’t hurt my friends.

Leaving the room, I lock it from outside, then push the key under the door. I hope he’ll get some rest. And that my friends will forgive me for storming out like that. I couldn’t help it, it was either that or stay and hurt them. I could never live with myself if I did that.