Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Damned ❯ Training ( Chapter 9 )

Chapter 9: Training

“You’re not trying! Concentrate!”
“Will you shut up!? I’ve been trying as hard as I can all morning, and all week, and this whole time! I had no idea these abilities existed until mom told me and I have no practice! You can’t push me this hard! I can’t do it!” I sat down on the ground huffing. I was exhausted, emotionally and physically and I had had enough of my sister yelling at me all day.
“You have to try harder. I can still repel the stake with a simple spell. If I can shield the dummy then you aren’t trying hard enough to penetrate the skin. A vampire does not have human skin; it takes a lot more than slight pressure to stab them. You have to try harder, that’s all I am saying. I just want you to be prepared. If you got hurt during the battle I’d… you just need to be prepared.” Mindy looked forlorn and I felt bad for yelling at her, but I couldn’t handle this much longer. I was ready to go back to living a normal life.
“You can never have a normal life again. Sure you can do normal things day-to-day but you will now always be apart of this circle. The coven always comes first.”
“I know, I know. And stop invading my mind –it’s creepy.” I looked down at the ground, I hated this responsibility.
No matter how much I reasoned that it was important to be a part of the family and have a purpose and to stop the evil terrors of vampires I could hardly bring myself to welcome the stress that came with it. I was never one to worry –all my life I was carefree and flighty even. I created drama so that I would be entertained – I never imagined I would ever have to deal with anything like this. I thought I’d go to a good college on merit scholarships, be a psychologist, sit in a fancy office and never worry about anything.
“Can we just practice throw-back spells again? I think I finally got it.” I stood up, focusing my energy at my sister, positioned in front of our soft landing pad.
She sighed, “Sure.”
I had a lot of practice, but I couldn’t quite get the spell right – it turned into more of a “pushback” spell than a “throwback”. I focused, aimed, threw. My sister went flying in to the barricade and landed on the cushions.
She jumped up, completely stunned that I had thrown her so far. “Holy butt! That was amazing!” she was excited for my progress. I however felt horrible. The better I was the more likely I would have to fight. I don’t know if I could bring myself to do that.
“Aren’t you excited? You don’t look happy that you just did the most impressive throwback spell I’ve ever seen.”
“Yea. No it was really good.” I was distracted.
“Kiddo, you can’t be attached to them. They aren’t humans.”
“Neither are dogs but we don’t go around annihilating the species.” I grumbled.
“This is different. They are worse than you can imagine. They kill humans for fun, for no reason-”
“So do mountain lions and sharks.” I reasoned.
“The vampire’s soul mission is to take over everything – to kill all humans, to drink from them and take their lifeblood.”
“If the vampires need lifeblood so bad, why would they want to kill all humans? Then they’d have no lifeblood left.” I reasoned. “Better yet, what if there was a good vampire, one who was kind and didn’t drink from humans. What if he survived on animals? Or only drank enough to be satiated, not to kill?”
“That doesn’t happen.” She stated quickly. “Vampires are evil.”
“Yea.” I sighed, it was hopeless. Unless I proved it (which I couldn’t), no one would believe that there were good vampires. I gave up.
“Well I would say you’ve mastered the throwback” my sister smiled, “so staking or binding?”
“I am so good at binding; it would be a waste of time to even do that anymore.”
“Staking it is.” She smiled and put up a shield against the dummy; I took out my stake and tried again. And again. And again…..
~~
I looked at my phone, perplexed. Connor had never texted me back. I hadn’t noticed all day because I was too busy training, but he usually always texted me back. I couldn’t figure out why this bothered me so much, but it did. My phone lit up in my hand and Jesse McCartney blared from the speaker. It was Sam calling.
“Hey,” I was glad she wasn’t mad at me anymore; although I did nothing to make it up to her.
“Hey Cassi, do you want to come over? We’re renting movies and pigging out.”
“That sounds perfect.” I smiled. I was exhausted, confused, maybe even tormented, but I had to keep my friends. “I’ll be over in like an hour; I just need to shower and change.
“Shower? It’s just me, and Danny.”
“I know, but I was working out and stuff, I’m really gross. It’ll be quick. Be there in like half an hour.”
“’kay.” We hung up and I hurried to get ready.
“Cassandra, where are you going?” my mother asked as I grabbed my keys off the hook.
“To Sam’s.”
“No you’re not.” She said.
“And why aren’t I?” I proceeded to grab my coat.
“You need to be up at seven, we have to meet with the family.”
My dad sat in his usual chair, not seeming to pay attention to anything we were saying.
“I’ll be up at seven.” I vowed. “I haven’t hung out with Danny or Sam in forever Mom. I’d like to.”
“Nope. To bed missy. You’ve had a long day, and you need sleep.” Now she starts caring about the strain I’ve had put on me…. Great.
“Mom. I’m fine. I’m going to Sam’s.”
“I won’t allow it.” She tried again.
“Come on now Trish, she won’t be seventeen forever, let her have fun with her friends. She knows when her body needs sleep and when it doesn’t. Besides, she was only shopping with her sister, how strenuous can that be?” my dad spoke up on my behalf and I smiled.
“See. Thanks dad! Bye!” I took off before she could rebuttal.
I had just driven out of my yard and on to the main street when I caught a glimpse of something my rearview mirror. I took a double look and started screaming as I slammed on my breaks.
“Shh,” the figure climbed in to the front seat.
“Jesus Christ Connor! You can’t do that to people!” I caught my breath and started driving again.
“Sorry, I thought you saw me.”
“Why would I have seen you? I don’t check the backseat.” My heart was still racing.
“Didn’t you sense me? Or feel me?” he seemed puzzled.
I thought about it – I hadn’t felt him. “Maybe I’ve been training too hard, my body’s just tired and can’t feel anything.”
“Maybe.” He got very quiet and pensive at this.
“Anyway, how was your day?”
“Boring. Yours?”
“Ugh, training.” I didn’t elaborate.
I felt a very unusual strain right now. It was different than being tired. I was highly bothered by the fact that I couldn’t feel Connor. And I had this instinct in my gut telling me not to say anything about how successful I had become. I had never really felt that I couldn’t trust Connor but something was telling me to keep quiet.
I turned up the radio, only to realize I couldn’t really hear it anyway. I had put up a mind-block unintentionally. Something very bizarre was going on inside me. Maybe I was too strained to hang out and I should go to bed.
“Where are you going?” Connor asked.
“Sam’s.”
“Oh.” He sounded upset.
“Why?”
“I just wanted to see you.”
“Oh. Well, you can come I guess.”
“No that’s okay. Sam would almost definitely tell your mom.” He reasoned.
“Yea. True.”
“I’ll just ride there with you. If you don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind?”
“I do not know.” He smiled at me and we rode on in silence.
Why was this situation so strained? Why couldn’t I feel the tug between us? Why was this so awkward? I must be too tired from training. I thought. That is why a mind block went up automatically. That is why my body was too tired to sense his aura. That is why the tug is gone.
“Well, here we are.” I shut off the car.
“Oh, I better go before she sees me. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He kissed my cheek.
“’kay.” I smiled as he dashed off into the woods.
“Hey, get your butt in here!” Sam called from the door.
“Coming.”