Hybrid Academy Box Set

by L. C. Mortimer

  “Ah,” Alicia said after a long moment. “How sweet. Your friends have come to save you, Erin. Too bad they’re too late.”

  That was it.

  Our time was up.

  Patricia and I started running immediately, forgetting all about trying to be quiet. “Quiet” didn’t matter anymore. The only thing that mattered was moving as fast as we could. We might not be able to get out of this mess alive. We might not be able to escape. We might not be able to get very far, but for dragon’s sake, we were going to try.

  “Get the wolf,” Alicia yelled. “That’s the one we want.”

  I heard them following me, but I ignored them and tried to focus just on running ahead. The tunnels in the walls were narrow, but wide enough that an adult could easily stand and move. In fact, I was surprised at just how wide they were. Somehow, during my time at the academy, I had never noticed just how strangely-shaped the castle was.

  I jumped over a piece of wood and turned left when the passageway split. I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew that I needed to get out as soon as I could. I could hear the vampires hot on my tail and I didn’t know how they were managing to make it through the tunnels as swiftly as they were. I was in my wolf form, so I could run easily. I was practically flying down the halls.

  I didn’t dare look back, but I thought they were, too.

  Alexander let out some sort of weird roar. It sounded like a cross between a scream and a lion’s yell.

  And then it happened.

  The vampires came.

  They were nowhere, and then they were everywhere all at once, throwing their bodies through the walls of the school. They poured into the secret passageway, but I kept running. Somehow, I managed to stay one step ahead of me. The walls were falling down as they threw themselves into the space, but I kept going and going and going.

  And suddenly, one of them burst through the walls ahead of me.

  And then another.

  And another.

  I was surrounded, and I was forced to stop running.

  I held perfectly still: my heart sinking. This was it.

  They’d caught me.

  Chapter 7

  Patricia kept running.

  She heard the sounds: the walls breaking, the boards falling into the secret passageway. She knew what was happening. She also knew there was no choice. She had to keep going. She couldn’t stop now. Not for Max: not for anything. She knew it was too late for her friend, but not really.

  She would save her.

  Patricia might have been a bad person before. She had grown up with absent parents and an overbearing guardian who was happier to see the inside of a bottle than to admire Patricia’s accomplishments. Life hadn’t been kind to her, but she’d learned at Hybrid Academy that your heart could change things.

  You could make a difference if you were willing to try, and you didn’t have to be the reason that someone else had a hard time.

  She didn’t have to be the reason that someone else had a hard time.

  Now, she ran. She moved through the passageways until she was out of breath, but she didn’t slow down. She kept going. It was dark, and her lungs burned, but she made her way to the end of the tunnel she was in. Patricia had been at Hybrid Academy for three years, but she’d never been in the secret passageways that filled the school. In fact, she hadn’t even known these things existed.

  She was pretty sure no one did.

  If they did, the boys would have started using them long ago to cause mischief and stir up trouble. There were rumors that Hybrid Academy was haunted, and she could only imagine just how the boys would pretend that there were ghouls inside the walls.

  When the tunnel ended, Patricia looked around. There was nothing. There was no door she could exit through. There was no convenient sign that said, “People in the tunnel – look here to escape!” She felt around the walls, trying to figure out how she’d get out. Surely, there were exits throughout the tunnel. They were just carefully disguised.

  She’d never noticed before just how strange the walls of Hybrid Academy were. Somehow, she’d been at the school for three years and hadn’t seemed to discover that the classrooms and hallways were just a little smaller than they should be.

  Well, she was paying the price for that now, wasn’t she?

  “Come on,” Patricia ran her hands up and down the wood. She was careful to move slowly because she didn’t want a splinter. That was probably the only thing that could make this day even worse. Not only was her third year at Hybrid essentially off the books, but the entire school had gone off its rockers.

  Alicia Gregory was a vampire?

  And she was married to a vampire king?

  Yeah, Max hadn’t needed to explain any of that to her. She’d spent all of last year reading Max’s journal and listening to her roommate’s strange ramblings. Patricia knew exactly what was going on.

  And it scared the hell out of her.

  She ran her hands up along one of the boards that lined the hallway. Maybe there would be a button or a lever. There must be something. Right? Anything would do. She pushed and pulled and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she found a little piece of wood that felt different from the rest of the tunnel. She pulled, and part of the wall popped open like a little door.

  “Yes!” She practically screeched, eager to get out of the space. She’d never considered herself to be claustrophobic, but enough was enough. She jumped out of the secret passageway and found that she was in one of the main hallways of the school. The halls themselves were empty: totally devoid of any creatures, either dead or alive.

  Good, she thought. And she started walking toward one of the doors that would allow her to leave the building. She made her way to the exit without any trouble at all. She stopped every so often to listen. She didn’t dare run because if there were vamps nearby, she didn’t think she’d be lucky enough to escape twice.

  Yeah, she could create some fire, but that wouldn’t kill the vampires.

  Oh, it would displease them greatly, but it wouldn’t kill them.

  She kept looking over her shoulder, certain that one of them would find her, but she didn’t see any. Finally, she reached the door, pushed it open, and stepped outside of the school. Instantly, she smelled something strange in the air.

  Fear.

  As a demon, fear was a scent she had been born to love. She kind of hated that about herself, but there was nothing she could do about it. She couldn’t change the fact that she was a monster at heart. She couldn’t stop the things she was attracted to or the things that she craved.

  There was no one outside, though, and she wondered where the scent was coming from. Was it coming from the school itself? The vampires had come in and taken over everything, and they’d done it so sneakily that no one had even noticed.

  No one had suspected a thing, and that was the problem.

  She hurried around a corner, anxious to get to the clearing where she’d regroup with Kiera and Henry. Kiera still had some time to go before she turned back into a sweet and beautiful fae, but maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Patricia could just put Kiera right in her pocket and keep her safe. She could protect her for a little while. They still had to decide what their next move was going to be.

  Patricia was so set on running over to the clearing that she didn’t see the creature ahead of her until it was too late. She bumped into the vampire and the creature turned around and grabbed her arm.

  “Where are you headed?” He hissed. He smelled bad and his fingernails were long and sharp. They dug into her skin, hurting her.

  She had to decide quickly how she was going to play this. Patricia quickly decided that innocent and sweet was the way to go. Maybe the vampire would underestimate her and then she’d have a better shot at getting away from him. Yes, that was definitely what she should do.

  She had practically perfected acting dumb and brainless. She’d learned long ago that if people had low expectations of you, that
you could pretty much do what you wanted.

  “Ouch!” She screeched, pulling her arm back. The vampire seemed surprised by her outburst and released her. Patricia rubbed her arm dramatically, cradling it, and looked up at the vampire with tears in her eyes. “Why did you do that?” She said, and then she started to cry.

  “Woah, hey, uh,” the vampire looked around, as though he didn’t want anyone else to see that he had made a little student cry. He motioned to her. “Stop crying. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” she wailed, and opened her mouth. Her sobs were more visually dramatic than actually loud. She didn’t want to attract anyone’s attention, anyway. She wanted to get to her friends so they could rescue Maxine and Erin together.

  She didn’t want to bring down the whole vampire army on herself.

  “I didn’t mean to…” The vampire started to say, but he mostly looked confused because he had meant to. He had meant to hurt her. That was his job, his mission. As a vampire, he wanted to hurt the humans and the shifters and the magic users of the world.

  He wanted to hurt people like Patricia who had, quite honestly, just been minding their own business.

  Before he could say another word, Patricia snapped her fingers and a flame appeared in her hand. She shoved her hand at the vampire’s chest, but didn’t touch him. He leapt backwards, falling onto the floor, and stared at the flame. This was a younger vampire, she realized. He had probably only recently been turned. An older, more experienced vampire definitely would have killed her for even attempting this much disrespect.

  This one hadn’t, though. Instead he just stared up at her in shock.

  “What’s your name?” She asked him, and she wondered why she was wasting her time.

  “F-F-Franklin,” the vampire stuttered, obviously caught off-guard at such a personal question.

  “Franklin, what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Well, I’m walking around the school,” he said. “I’m keeping watch.”

  She sighed.

  Okay, maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as she thought. Patricia steeled herself. She’d been dealing with bad guys her entire life. Hell, for a long time, she was a bad guy herself. So she understood how to talk to them, how to reason with them, and how to manipulate them in ways that some of the other students might not get.

  Maxine was great, but she had a tender heart. In some ways, that made her totally valuable and special. In other ways, it made her naïve. Maxine always hoped for the best. Kiera, as a fae, was also a dreamer.

  Patricia?

  Well, Patricia knew that the world was a dark and dangerous place and sometimes, it wasn’t always as straightforward as she wanted it to be.

  “Franklin, what are you keeping watch over?” She made her voice a little deeper, a little more intense. Franklin wasn’t necessarily going to be easy to manipulate, but she knew that he was the kind of person who responded to people in authority. There was a phrase that Patricia had learned long ago to live by: fake it ‘til you make it.

  Right now, she was faking it.

  Completely.

  She was scared. The truth was that she was more frightened than she’d ever been, in fact. She had to keep pushing and moving and making choices because if she stopped, even for a moment, than Patricia feared that it would all be over. She didn’t want to let the sad, scared little girl deep inside of her out. She wasn’t that girl anymore. She didn’t have to be. No, today, she was going to be brave.

  She was going to be a total badass.

  Today, she would be strong.

  “The school.”

  “What about the school?”

  “Well, the students, of course.”

  “Why?”

  Franklin cocked his head, but stayed on the ground. His hands were in the dirt and Patricia felt just a little bit bad. His outfit, which was actually pretty cool and gothic looking, was definitely going to be ruined. Even the best drycleaner in the country wasn’t going to be able to get that much dirt out of such a beautiful outfit.

  “Why, Franklin?”

  “Because I was told to.”

  “By whom?”

  “By the Queen.”

  Alicia.

  So, it was true.

  All of it.

  She was the queen of the vampires and she was ready to take over the world. That’s what this was all about, at its core: a power play.

  They just didn’t know why.

  “Why does the queen want the students?”

  “Well, she just wants the one student,” Franklin scrunched up his nose, as though none of it really made sense to him, but he was still trying his best.

  “Which student?” But Patricia already knew.

  “The redhead. The one with the little cat,” Franklin made a kitty-cat motion, as though he was a cat. He moves his hands in front of him, as though he was pawing at something.

  “Stop that,” Patricia told him. “Don’t be weird.”

  “Sorry,” Franklin dropped his head.

  Again, she felt a little sorry for him, which didn’t really make any sense. Why was she feeling sorry for a vampire? Why was she feeling sad for this guy who, quite frankly, wasn’t really her problem? She should kill him so she could keep going, but something about him seemed to call to her. She didn’t want to kill him just yet.

  “Why does she want the redhead?”

  “There’s a spell,” Franklin started, but Patricia cut him off.

  “The one that turns people into animals? Yeah. Heard all about that one. I’m a bit tired of it, to be honest.”

  “Right?” Franklin said. He shook his head, as though he couldn’t believe he had finally found someone who understood where he was coming from. “I wanted to be a vampire because I wanted to live forever. I mean, how cool is that? But I didn’t know we were going to have to do all this boring stuff, like try to turn people into monsters.”

  “How did you get turned?” Patricia said.

  He just shrugged.

  “Franklin?”

  “Betrayed by a friend, you know.” He sighed. “Isn’t it always the same old story?”

  “Yeah,” she said, trying not to think about how much that sort of betrayal really hurt. “Yeah, I know.” She dropped her hand, put out her own flame, and reached for Franklin. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it, and he let her pull him to his feet.

  “Uh, thanks.”

  “Yeah.”

  She shoved her hands in her pockets and just looked at the ground for a minute. Suddenly, there was nothing as interesting as all of that.

  “So,” Franklin said. “You’re a student here, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Well, I don’t know if I am anymore. I don’t know if there’s going to be much of a school after this, you know.”

  “I know.”

  But as much as Patricia wanted to sit and talk to Franklin, who was suddenly very interesting to her, she was on a time crunch.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  She started to walk past him, and she’d made it a few feet when she felt his hand on her arm again. This time, his nails didn’t dig into her.

  This time, his touch was gentle.

  “What is it, Franklin?”

  “Be careful,” he said. “You don’t know what’s out there.”

  “That’s the problem. I do know.”

  Chapter 8

  Cara watched the children gather in the clearing near the school. There was the boy-cat and the hamster, whom she thought might be the dark-haired fairy her daughter was always hanging out with. Cara hadn’t realized she was able to shift, too. Remarkable. She stood by the trees the same way she always did, and she watched over the children.

  They weren’t really children anymore, though, were they?

  They hadn’t been for a long time.

  It had taken Cara far too long to find her way home after the accident all those years ago. Well, she thought of it as an accident, but
she knew that what had happened between her, Alicia, and Falcon had been anything but.

  Alicia had known what they were getting into.

  She just hadn’t cared.

  And Falcon, more than anyone else, had paid the price.

  Cara regretted that she’d never gotten to say goodbye to her husband. She’d just lost him. He’d been with her one minute, happy and excited to have discovered a new potion. The next minute, he was dead. Gone. Destroyed. It hadn’t taken much, and his fragile body had perished into nothingness, and although Cara blamed Alicia, she also blamed herself.

  She had been too excited about going on an adventure with her husband and friend that she hadn’t really thought things through. Not as much as she should have. Now she was banished to this. She was stuck in this body that wasn’t hers and she was living in a place she was unfamiliar with. She’d spent years looking for her daughter, but the blood wards had been strong. They’d kept everyone away, even her, and Cara had been biding her time.

  Now she spent her time lurking just out of sight and silently watching over her daughter. She’d killed three vampires during the summer who had almost gotten close to Maxine and her friends. Three. That was far too many. What would have happened if Cara hadn’t been around to fight them? What would have happened if they hadn’t been able to trap them? She’d gotten good at that: making vampire traps. A wooden stake through the heart sounded like a hard thing to accomplish in a wolf’s body, but Cara had figured out how to create traps she could simply push the vampires onto.

  Then they would be caught, dead, and gone.

  And her daughter would be safe for one more day.

  The two shifters gathered in the center of the clearing and they waited. Cara sat down, nervously watching. Something was wrong at Hybrid Academy. Why else would the children be out of the school? She had overheard conversations about today being their first day on campus, and she’d been excited to see Maxine ready in her witching robes and school uniforms, but she hadn’t seen her daughter yet.