As expected, that little flick of finger did poke them in the wrong spot.
Immediately after the first ring of the bell, three ran out of their seats. Jane could see the startledness of all the people around them, and along with it, a small piece of memory surfaced.
It was during the first few days of their school year. Dinner should have ended at 6:30 pm, leaving them with 30 minutes to arrive in class. Jane forgot why they ended up with only 10 minutes, but it happened.
"Why're you running, Jane?" Amelia asked, her voice filled with a sense of humor that Jane didn't know how to react to. But she didn't question and stopped moving to wait for her friends. And once her feet were nailed to one place, she noticed how the people here moved.
They walked with poise and ease. Legs never pulled so far apart to become vulgar; feet touched the ground and lifted lightly to remain elegant. Of course, someone would break the rhythm, but no one seemed hurried.
Slowly, Amelia and the twins reached where Jane was standing. The scent of the familiar detergent flooded into her nose, the same one Jane's uniform was washed with, mixed with Amelia's perfume.
"It's embarrassing to run…" she said, the rhythm of her feet staying unchanged as she walked past Jane's shoulders.
From that day onward, Jane rarely ran. Even now, her legs seemed awkward spreading so wide. But it was about time she removed that funny idea from her head.
Jane sped up. The goal was never to fight all three of them; that would be suicidal, but to lure Emily to somewhere isolated.
Jane thought she would have to run a little longer to make this plan work, but it turned out the two male students were so slow she could save some time.
With the two boys successfully dropped behind, she ran straight to Emily and went behind her. She could feel a few strands of hair slip through Emily's fingers as she reached out to catch Jane.
Their eyes met for a millisecond; one widened in disbelief, the other filled with excitement. She should have been worried, as none of this was thought through, but there was a weird thrill in doing without planning.
Soon enough, she heard the sound of wind being torn open. A small shiver ran across her skin. Winning against Ryan was luck. He, according to Rose, was a disabled vampire. Emily, she wasn't so sure. All Jane could pray was that she herself had leaned closer to being a vampire than a human.
Seeing the dead end ahead, Jane stopped running. She leaned her back against the wall and counted.
5, 4, 3, 2— Emily arrived. The gap between them was only four seconds.
Emily immediately went for Jane's head and neck; her nails were painted in a dark blue color, and more importantly, they were still short.
Jane quickly moved out of the way. Then, before she even knew it, her hand had conveniently grabbed Emily's head and slammed it against the wall.
Bang!
Emily collapsed to the ground. She hugged her head and buried her face in her arm for so long that Jane actually started to wonder if she had hit her too hard.
"Are you okay…?" She asked, her voice filled with genuine concern, despite her feet moving further and further away from Emily.
Emily raised her head. Without even giving Jane time to take a look, she had already thrown herself in Jane's direction. "I'm gonna get you!" she screamed.
Ouch!
Pain spread across her skull as it hit the floor. Could this be considered karma? She thought to herself.
Emily's fangs were hovering above her skin. She would have succeeded, had both of them not choked each other with their hands.
For one second, Jane had the stupid idea of letting Emily's fangs sink in to test her own limit. But only for a stupid moment. Emily could go on for how long she didn't know, but her own lungs and muscles were starting to burn.
She wrapped her legs around her opponent and, with a violent twist, flipped their position. A skill she definitely learned from Ryan, the dead one. Then, also taking from that experience, she pressed her knee onto Emily's stomach and immediately started punching her in the face.
Her skin was that of a poisoned victim, with worm-like veins pumping underneath. It wasn't ugly, but it wasn't pretty either. Still, the more she punched, the more she got used to the sight of it.
The process wasn't easy. Emily fought back right after the first hit. She thrashed her legs and clawed at the closest things she could find: Jane's blazer, her blouse, and then her skin. The burning wounds weren't comfortable, and neither were Emily's kicks. But they eventually weakened, leaving behind only the smashing sound of Jane's fists.
"No, no… stop." Emily finally gave up. She covered her face, tears running from between her fingers to hide the pain. "Why do you have to be so violent? I only ruined your table a little bit."
"And lock me in the toilet," Jane added.
Emily glared at Jane, but her aching face stopped her mouth from saying anything spiteful.
"Fine. Can you let go of me now?" Emily said. She slowly lowered her hands, covering her face, revealing a pale skin that had already stopped swelling.
Jane removed her legs and sat beside Emily. She wasn't looking any better herself. If anything, she looked even worse. Her blazer was ruined, with one sleeve hanging on a single thread, and long scratches marking all the way from her arm to her hand.
"So why did you do all that?" Jane asked. She didn't think Emily really hated her. Emily had more than enough strength right now for another round, but she just gave up. In fact, thinking back on it, she mostly tried to pull her hair and shove her head, not anything that would actually hurt her.
"Because you sit next to him…"
"That's it? Are you kidding me?" Jane said, her voice raised a few decibels. "I don't even talk to him." Emily dodged Jane's eyes, even she knew it wasn't that serious.
Jane let out a long sigh. She thought about the first time she entered the classroom. Ryan's desk was the only empty seat where she wouldn't be surrounded by vampires. Who would have thought it was empty for a reason.
"But move out of that seat," Emily warned. "You might be able to fight me, but you can't fight all the others."
The others? There were that many who liked him, and his pin still hadn't been changed yet?
There was a well-known rule in this school: vampires weren't allowed to touch students wearing glass pins, since it marked them as clearly involuntary. This rule could protect him from lower-ranked vampires like Emily, but it definitely couldn't protect him from the higher. Jane wondered about this, and she didn't let her curiosity starve for too long.
"So how come he hasn't been claimed yet?" she asked.
"He is too strong," Emily said frustratedly. "Many of us like him, but he either escapes or beats us half to death." Then her eyes turned into the shape of hearts as she reminisced about the moment. "You have to see it. He was so handsomee!!!"
"Yeah, true…" Jane said. She, too, was thinking about how his hair was gonna be such a distraction in fights. "But I don't like being beaten," she quickly added.
She did want to learn how to do it, though.
"You'd better not." Emily gave her one last glare before standing up. From afar, her two servants had finally reached this place. Took them long enough.
"Wait."
"What?" Emily turned around. The male students immediately blocked her from Jane, fearing something might happen. They might be useless, but they weren't blind. The blood on Emily's face was too obvious.
"You ruined my blazer," Jane said. And the blouse, but this was more important right now. The school gave her 2 blazers and 4 blouses. They didn't say anything else about it, but she understood she had to take care of them. Because the price for ruining them would be 750$!
"You, give her your jacket," Emily ordered the boy on the left.
"His is too big for me," Jane said, smiling at Emily. What a coincidence, they had the same height. She wouldn't mind taking Emily's jacket.
"You're so poor," Emily said.
Well, she wasn't wrong.
Jane slowly stood up from the ground. Her thighs, arms, and even her stomach ached. She had wanted Emily to claim her, to use her as a steady source of venom. But seeing Emily's two personal blood vessels, Jane knew she wouldn't accept the offer. Besides, her only advantage would be that "S taste" thingy, but since she started taking the pills, it had dropped down to an A. At least, that was what Rose commented.
Sex and food went hand in hand. Some thought of this as an intimate activity, while others reduced it to nothing more than feeding themselves, like Rose. Jane couldn't help thinking about her future. Would anyone voluntarily be her vessel? But even as she wondered, her teeth were already tingling, imagining the feeling of biting through someone's skin.
It didn't really matter. What she needed right now was to improve her stamina, find a source of venom, and convince Ryan to teach her how to fight. Clearly, that had to be the priority. If she were strong enough and fast enough, their fangs might never even get the chance to touch her skin.
Thinking about this gave her another tingle, but it was one that came with a smile.