“Do you think?” I asked.
“Well, she does work out a lot and has been training...but I don’t think what she’s doing now is normal for Ruby!” Frank said.
I rolled my eyes and pointed at Bear. “Take Bear down please!” I said.
“Right!” Frank said. He charged at Bear.
Bear growled and rushed at Frank. The two crashed head-on. They locked arms and started wrestling.
Meanwhile, Ruby had engaged Ms. Anna, Principal Peters, and the dancing cheerleaders. She had already downed two cheerleaders with nerve pinches. Ms. Anna stared at her, trying to use her telekinetic power to stop her. She slowed Ruby down but Ruby kept pushing forward. Principal Peters lunged at Ruby. She quickly ducked under his grasping arms. She kneed him in the spot that had to really hurt.
Principal Peter’s lowered his hands, his face turned red. He doubled over, groaning in a high-pitched tone, “Oh, that hurts so much!”
“You don’t want to fight me!” Sasha ordered in my brain. I could hear her thoughts in my head.
“I don’t want to fight you!” I said. I didn’t want to say it, but the words still came out of my mouth.
"You want to give up. You know you can't beat me. I can't lose. You can't win. I can't be beaten. In fact, your friends know they can't win either. They are just going to give up, too," Sasha's voice echoed in my mind.
I slowed down. Turning towards my friends, I saw that they too had slowed down. Frank was taking punches from Bear. Ruby had downed the cheerleaders but Ms. Anna had her in a headlock. I had to turn this around and fast. The thing was...I didn't want to. Sasha was right, I couldn't beat her. Why even try?
“You may have a point,” I told Sasha.
Sasha smiled from ear to ear. “Of course, I have a point. You may be a vampire but this just proves we normal humans are superior!”
Shaking my head, I forced her words out of my mind. “You are only superior because my grandma improved you. She gave some of her power to you!”
Sasha dropped back a couple of steps. She patted her chest. “No, that can’t be possible.”
Pointing at Ruby, I said. “Of course it is. Ruby is tough but not normally tough enough to take out four cheerleaders and a huge principal, but I increased her power.”
Sasha looked at Ruby who was going toe to toe with Ms. Anna. Sasha’s eyelids lowered and her bottom lip quivered. She had doubt in her mind. By transferring doubt into her head I had slowed down her mental assault on my own mind. I needed to take advantage of this.
Reaching for Sasha, I decided to try one of Ruby’s nerve pinches on her. Sasha blocked my hand to the side. She dropped down in a karate stance.
“I don’t go down that easily!” Sasha said.
I shot forward at super vampire speed. Sasha easily dodged me, stepping to the side. She laughed. “You have to do better than that!”
Ah, it looked like my Grandma Jasmine had done more than just upgrade Sasha’s hypnotic ability, she had made her faster and stronger as well. Sasha reached for me and grabbed me by my throat. She lifted me off the ground like I weighed nothing. She threw me across the hallway. Hitting the floor, I bounced back to my feet. I let my fangs and my claws out.
“I see you want to play tough!” I told Sasha.
“I play to win!” Sasha said. “I’m going to cage you, kitty cat!”
Her mind bombarded me with thoughts. “Give-up! Give-up! Quit…”
“I thought your mommy told you to play nice, or at the very least to leave me alone?” I told her, blocking her mental attack.
Sasha laughed. "My mom is all about the results. She will be happy and pleased when I bring you in as part of our team. Well, my team. You will be my minion." She paused. "I think your role will be clipping my toenails and cleaning my toilet!"
“Oh gross!” I said.
Sasha shrugged her shoulders. “Minions do what they are told!” She looked at Bear and Frank going toe to toe. “For instance…Bear, get really mad!”
Bear growled, bent over and flipped Frank to his back. Bear leaped up and came crashing down, dropping his elbow into Frank's chest.
Sasha laughed. “Oh, nice wrestling move!” she told Bear. Turning her attention to Ms. Anna she said. “Stop holding back! Turn Ruby into a puppy!”
Ms. Anna pointed at Ruby, freezing her in place. She turned to Sasha. “I don’t like to use my powers that way…” Ms. Anna said.
“What you like or don’t like isn’t a concern to me!” Sasha told her.
Ms. Anna took a deep breath. She rose off the ground. She pointed at Ruby and engulfed her with energy.
“Uh oh…” Ruby cried.
Sasha wasn’t done. She turned to Jimmy who had been standing quietly behind her. “Jimmy, I want you to ask me to go steady with you. I want you to do it right in front of silly little Nina.”
Jimmy raced forward and dropped to one knee. He smiled.
NO! NO!! NO!!!! This was NOT going to happen!! Sasha’s minions would not be pounding on my bro and turning my best friend into man’s best friend. And I certainly would NOT allow Sasha to control Jimmy so he asked her to go steady!! No way! I had to stop Sasha now! I thought about how I had transferred the power in the trolls building into myself. I wondered if I could do that with Sasha’s power. I had to be smart about this; not let Sasha know what I planned to do. I smiled at her and said, “You are so pretty!” Stepping in front of Jimmy, I grabbed Sasha by the hand. “I’m honored just to hold your hand!”
“Oh, how sweet,” Sasha said, snickering. “My mom always thought you’d be hard to bring down.” Glancing down at a smiling Jimmy, she added. “And this one’s fool mother thinks you are dangerous. Ha! You’re a little kitten. You know what, I’m going to make you think you are a little kitten!”
I squeezed Sasha’s hand harder and bowed to her. “Oh, thank you for the honor of making me think I’m a kitten,” I told her.
Sasha laughed. “Believe me, fool, the pleasure is all mine!”
I squeezed her hand harder. I straightened my back. Locking eyes with her I said, “I wouldn’t bet on that if I were you!”
"What!" Sasha said. "Stop your grip! It's hurting my hand!"
I nodded. “Good!” I told her.
Sasha pointed at Jimmy. “Football boy, get this girl off me!”
“Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,” I thought in my head. “Come on, don’t let Sasha do this to you! You are strong!”
Jimmy stood up. He reached for my hand. He stopped. “No!” he told her.
I heard Sasha in my mind, “You want to let me go, you must let me go.”
“No, no, no,” I thought back.
“Let me go!” Sasha ordered both in my mind and aloud.
I shook my head. I could feel the energy flowing from Sasha into myself. “Nope, not going to happen!”
“Bear! Anna! Get over here!” Sasha yelled. “Take her out!”
Bear stood up. He looked over at us and simply said. "Ah, no. Bear does what Bear wants." He reached down and helped Frank to his feet. "And Bear doesn't want to fight anymore. I'm actually more of a teddy bear than a grizzly!" he said.
Ms. Anna stopped pointing at Ruby. Ruby’s ears had grown long and she now had a tail. “Sorry about that, honey,” Ms. Anna told her. Ruby’s ears went back to normal size. Her tail fell off.
“This cannot be happening!” Sasha shouted.
“Oh, it is so happening!” I said, not letting go of her hand. I felt more and more energy flowing into me. I really liked the surge of power. All the hair on my head started to tingle and rise. I knew that I had to be careful. I just wanted to drain Sasha of the extra power Jasmine had given her. I didn’t want to hurt Sasha. Okay, let’s go back a step or two on that. Yes, a part of me, wanted to hurt her. Not sure if it was the vampire or the tiger. (I’m guessing it was the vampire part.) But another part of me, the human part, just wanted to teach Sasha a lesson; to bring her back to normal. I guess that’s why all my grandmas on my mom’s side would al
ways have children with humans. They wanted their children to be more human.
I let go of Sasha. She fell to the ground, sobbing. “How could you do that?” she demanded.
“I just made you, you again,” I told her.
“But now, I won’t be good enough!” she told me.
“Honey, that’s ridiculous,” a voice said from down the hall. I saw Elena coming towards us. Jimmy’s mom was right beside her.
“I thought reinforcements couldn’t come for hours,” I told them.
"We're here as moms, not reinforcements," Jimmy’s mom said.
Elena helped Sasha to her feet. “Honey, I didn’t want any of this for you. I wanted you to be a nice normal top-secret government agent. You don’t need any super mind control.”
“But it was fun!” Sasha said.
Elena held out a hand to me. “Thanks for handling that, Miss Thorn. You will always have a job in our organization if you want one.”
“I don’t want one,” I said, shaking her hand.
Mrs. Chaser looked at me. “Thanks for freeing my son.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
Mrs. Chaser crossed her arms. “I still don’t like you. I still don’t trust you. In fact, I should trust you less now.”
"Good to know," I told her. "But you have to believe me, I don't want to harm or hurt anybody."
“She doesn’t, Mom,” Jimmy insisted. “Nina is kind and sweet.”
“And really strong!” Frank added, joining our group.
“And she smells good, too!” Ruby said.
“And she’s a fairly good dancer,” Ms. Anna said. We all looked at her. “Well, I wanted to add something,” she said.
“Do we need to send a cleaning squad to the school?” Elena asked me. “I can get one here in about five hours.”
“Nah,” Ms. Anna said. “Nobody will remember any of this.”
Elena looked at me. “Once again, thank you!” She turned to Sasha, “Let’s go back to HQ. You have some new protocols to study.”
“Mom!” Sasha said.
“Come on, James, let’s go home now,” she told Jimmy. “You must have had a terrible day.”
Jimmy smiled. “Actually, it was an interesting experience. But I am glad Nina saved us. Who knows what would have happened if Sasha wasn’t stopped. Maybe she would have taken over the town or even the world?”
Mrs. Chaser laughed. “No way! My boy, there’s no way we’d let that happen.” Pointing down the hall, she said. “Now come on, let’s go home.”
Jimmy looked me in the eyes. He smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I look forward to it,” I said.
Jimmy’s mom dragged him away.
"I look forward to it?" I repeated to myself. "That was such a lame response!"
Frank nodded. “Yep, that is exactly what you said. But it is true, even if it isn’t that deep.”
Ruby patted me on the back. “You’ve had a long day!”
Nina Note: It felt good shutting Sasha down. I’m not sure if Jimmy was right. If I hadn’t stopped her...would that have led to her taking over the town? I’d like to think I saved the school for sure. Perhaps I saved even more than that.
Yeah, I did say something dumb to Jimmy but I could make that up to him with actions instead of words. Thank goodness I saved him from Sasha. Okay, sure she’s beautiful and smart and stuff...but she was still forcing him to like her as much as he did (I hope). I’m sure he knew I’d had a long day so he wasn’t expecting poetry from me.
The weird thing was that after absorbing Sasha’s added power, I felt stronger than ever. I could have made Jimmy’s mom like me. I could have made her insist that Jimmy and I begin dating. But I didn’t. I didn’t think that would be right. Wow, that human side of me really kicks in now and then.
Chapter 14: Jasmine
That night I stayed in my room waiting to Skype with Mom and Dad. I didn’t know what I’d tell them about the day’s events. I just knew it would be nice to see them.
“You’re welcome,” Grandma Jasmine said, hovering above me.
“Can’t you ever knock and then enter a room like a normal person?” I asked.
Grandma Jasmine lowered herself to the ground. "I'm not a normal person, honey. And neither are you. Normal people are way overrated."
“Yet, you married one and your mom married one and her mom and so on,” I said.
Grandma Jasmine smiled. “Yes, we did. My great-great-great-grandma Lauren saw that her nieces and nephews didn't fit in at all with society and she didn't want that for her child. So she wed a human." Grandma put a hand on my shoulder. "All her daughters and granddaughters did also. Mixing our original vampire genes with human genes. That way we thought we’d get the best of both worlds.”
“Did you?” I asked.
Grandma lifted me to a standing position. "Well, your mom altered things when she added wereblood to our line. But look at you, honey, you are amazing!”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Well about time you thanked me.” Grandma Jasmine smiled.
“Grandma, why you did send trolls after my best friend?” I asked.
“To force you to track them down and discover that you could absorb lots and lots of energy. And, you saved your best friend. I knew that would make you feel stronger.”
“But Grandma, you turned my rival into a superhuman!”
Grandma Jasmine nodded. “Yeah, I’m proud of that. I showed you that you can improve other people and that you can also pull power from people. My dear, you are amazing...you just didn't know it. I had to show you."
“Wait, so you did do this to make me a better me?” I asked.
“Of course! That’s what grandmas do. We help our grandkids!” Grandma Jasmine sat down on my desk. “Do you think your mom will let you date that Jimmy boy?”
Before I could answer, Mumford knocked at my door. “Ms. Nina, I am sorry to bother you. But there are like a hundred mummies outside the door and they all want to see you. Now!”
To be continued…
Extra Chapter: Nina’s family history
Note: all the Sangre women in the new world married normal human males in order to help their children fit in and become more human. This lowered a lot of the non-desirable vampire traits. This is the reason that Nina appears totally normal.
Nina Thorn: Born July 20th, 2003.
First of the line to have weretiger blood.
Liza Sangre: Born July 20th, 1903 in Boston Mass.
Married May 19th, 2000 to Doctor Franklin Thorn.
First of her line to marry a non-human.
Attended night school and achieved a Ph.D. in Psychology.
Really wants to lead a normal life.
First in her line to have more than one child.
Jasmine Sangre: Born July 20th, 1803 in Toledo Ohio.
Worked as one of the first female fashion models in France. Learned to tolerate regular humans.
Has a gift for magic.
Jasmine is very confident.
Currently tours the world doing whatever she wants.
Jamie Sangre: Born July 20th, 1703 in New York, NY.
Despite being born at a very male-dominated time, Jamie used her strength and persuasiveness to became the first woman in the United States to enter politics.
Dominated in sports. (She still does….)
She currently models.
Maggie Sangre: Born July 20th, 1603 in Salem Mass.
First being with the vampire mutation born in the new country.
Studied biology and other sciences.
Always wore dark robes to protect herself from sunlight.
Realized having a child with a human would be beneficial to her bloodline.
Left Salem during the first witches’ trial.
Is currently a yoga master.
Marianna: Born July 20th, 1503 somewhere in Romania.
Ventured to the new world in search of a different life.
Had t
hree other children who stayed behind in the old country: Vlad, Valaria, and Vincent.
NOTE: Other “special” families would come to the new world at later dates.
Another Extra Chapter: Wisdom from Jasmine
These are quotes my Grandma Jasmine has actually made:
Remember, humans can make great tools. They love helping us without knowing it.
Being different is great. Normal is boring.
When in doubt, follow your first instinct.
Instinct is better than logic.
I’m shallow but honest.
Of course, I like your dad, he’s rich.
You can be whatever you want to be unless whatever you want to be is silly.
I came, I saw, I conquered. (Nina note: I don’t think she made that one up.)
Never doubt yourself. Doubt stinks. (Nina note: I’m not sure I agree with this.)
Our kind is so superior even to other Vamps. We have nothing to prove.
Yes, our line mixed with regular humans but that added diversity and made us better.
Dear, there is always time to shop.
Dear, our powers make every shopping day a sale day. (Nina Note: my mom and dad do NOT agree with this.)
Extra Chapter: More Bad Dad Jokes from Doctor Franklin
What do you feed a duck?
Quackers.
What laws can you never ever break?
The laws of physics.
What’s a lab rat’s favorite food?
Cheese, they are rats.
What’s the best field of science?
They are all great!
Knock knock!
Who’s there?
You must need glasses cause I am standing right in front of you!
When is M >
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