by C. G Leigh
The Problem
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Copyright © 2020 THE PROBLEM by C.G. Leigh
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book only. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior permission from C.G. Leigh, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This ebook is a work of fiction.
ONE
At three in the morning, any normal teenage girl would be sleeping or at least trying to sneak back into her house after spending the whole night partying. Yet, here I am standing in a bog, deep within the freezing cold waters of Maine at the peak of Fall holding a canoe made of pure oak above my head. I just had to join Professor Dayton's weekly study group.
"You think you have what it takes to be a hunter? You think that you have what it takes to fight vampires and live to tell the tale? First you must prove that you can take the pain.” Professor Dayton, a massively tall woman with near white hair, cut short at her shoulders is as close to Satan as you can get around here.
She kneels down to my level getting close to my face, “Do you want to give up Gemma? It would be so easy to just release the canoe, give your arms a break . ”
Not yet.
Straightening my back, I lift the canoe a bit higher. My arms scream in agony, straining from holding it up for so long. My feet, I can hardly feel, covered in ooze, and muck. The bog we're standing in is deep, the water going above my waist. The chill in the air makes it even harder to stand in place. Several of the other students have already called it quits, only five of us remain holding it steady.
My fellow classmates sit, shivering, wrapped in towels and blankets off to the side waiting to see who will be the last ones standing.
"No Professor, I enjoy a good workout,” I whisper in pain.
Savanna, Quincy, Dmitri, Hudson and I, the remaining five. Savanna is the school's over achiever or as Quincy likes to refer to her the school’s biggest bitch. She’s tall with blond hair and blue eyes, basically your typical barbie.
Quincy's my best friend and won't give up until I do out of our bond of friendship. Quincy is a few inches shorter than Savana with beautiful mocha skin and curly black hair.
Dmitri's a prodigy and head boy so he won't stop until he passes out, he’s tall and slim with black hair.
While Hudson is the strongest of all of us and likely faring better than the rest of us, he is large and very muscular.
"What's that Gemma,” Dayton asks, her voice rising. "I can keep going,” I shout, not willing to give up yet.
She smiles, her tone calming, "Miss Knightly you've just saved your classmates from another hour of this, set my boat down and join the rest of the class that's the resilience I was looking for.”
The five of us don't waste any time setting it down, my arms aching as they fall at my sides. My feet squish in the quick stand beneath me as I try to get to the edge.
"You five go back to the academy and get cleaned up. The rest of you degenerates are going on a five mile run, maybe that will give you some fire next time we test your resolve, just pitiful the whole lot of you. You'll all have to do better than that if you want to pass your Survivalist Class,” Dayton shouts grinning evilly and blowing her whistle, hurrying the students along.
Dragging myself to the shore, I climb onto the bank, my arms and legs feeling like jelly every step of the way. Dmitri climbs onto the bank, beside me, we both turn to help the others out of the water. I hold my arm out to Quincy as she reaches for me and I pull her out. We both fall to the embankment in exhaustion. Breathing heavily, trying to catch our breaths.
"You still think we should have showed up to Professor Dayton's study group?" Quincy wheezes.
I laugh, "A little pain will make us better hunters.”
She rolls her eyes, "You say that now, but we're supposed to be up for classes in three hours,” she barks looking at her watch.
"I feel completely fine," Savanna huffs as she stands up brushing herself off, clearly trying to shield the exhaustion and show us all up. She grins, before limping off towards the Academy.
I despise you.
Quincy grimaces, "Alright I'm just going to say what we're all thinking, I hate her.”
I laugh, "You hate everyone.”
"True but her just a bit more than the rest,” she shakes her head watching Savanna as she disappears ahead.
Mustering the drive I pull myself up to stand and reach down to help her up, "Come on let's get back to the Academy and try and make the best of our limited time to rest before class.”
She puts up no fight as I help her stand and drag her towards the academy where our comfy beds are calling.
I can feel him chasing me, following me as I run through the woods. Leaves crunch under my bare feet as I fight to get away from the predator wanting to make me its prey. Armed with a single silver stake, the sun has long set and a chill has set in. The chill in the air, a remnant of winter, Ice coats leaves long dead, the grass frozen up like the spikes of a porcupine.
The cold is familiar, yet the dark feels different. He appears before me, red eyes, pale in complexion and fangs, both sets bared at me. My eyes meet his, challenging, ready for a fight. He hisses, charging me, almost like a blur. When two white doves appear overhead and attack the creature. Protecting me, they claw and ravage the beast.
"You miserable little maggots, are you still sleeping?” My blanket is yanked off of me in one foul swoop. I bolt upright, to be met with Professor Dayton glaring down at me.
"No mam,” I move to stand up straight beside my bed at attention.
Quincy does the same, and Dayton examines us both. "Get dressed and get down to chow or else you'll go without. A pack of hungry hyenas has already begun while you two have been catching your beauty sleep, pathetic,” she spits out the last word before walking out of our room.
Well aren’t you pleasant this morning, someone eat all the whole grain oats again?
As soon as she is out of sight I fall into my bed arms spread out, still exhausted from our study session.
"Hurry up Gemma or we're going to be late,” Quincy hurries trying to wrestle her way into her uniform.
Quincy and I met on move-in day Freshman year, we're both children born beyond the wall of protection that most humans keep up so they don't have to face the truth, the truth that vampires exist, and that they're slowly killing us off, one by one.
My parents both came to Huntington, but that was before, before they were murdered. My parents had accepted a calling from the Creed along with a few other hunters. They were supposed to clear out a nest full of vampires, but they never came home. None of them did, well no one that is, except for Uncle Jonas.
Now, he's living in Whiteshore Psychiatric Hospital, he won't talk about what happened. He's so locked in his mind that there is no getting through to him. Memere, Pepere and I visit him once a month, we're the only family he has left.
They raised me until I turned thirteen when I was then sent to Huntington, I still go home every weekend. Our family has been hunting vampires since as early as the legend of Dracula and Van Helsing. Meaning my path was chosen for me hundreds of years before I was even born.
Sighing, I throw my blankets to the side and stand up from the bed stretching my muscles, yawning, and resisting the urge to look in the mirror at the mangled mess of hair atop my head. If not for having class today I would surely be snoring a good portion of the day away.
"Come on Gemma, we have seven minutes to get to breakfast or all the good food is gonna be gone and you know how hangry I get if I don't have my morning pancakes."
Quincy is always hungry. I don't think she can go an hour without having a snack.
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Needless to say, five minutes later I am fully dressed in my navy blue and maroon uniform. Which consists of stretchy blue pants, a maroon shirt, blue blazer and a maroon and blue striped tie.
"Alright I'm ready to go," I sigh pulling my disaster of hair into a ponytail.
"Finally," she practically runs from the room as I slip my bag onto my shoulder.
Our room isn't much, just two beds, two desks, two closets and two windows. Wow, it kind of sounds like prison when I put it like that. Quincy's side is mostly an explosion of pinks and sparkles and mine is a more neutral scene.
As we arrive at the cafeteria Quincy glares at me as she takes in the masses. At least sixty of our hungry peers have arrived here before us.
Giving her a guilty look, I follow her towards the long line of similarly dressed students.
The food is well picked over, with scraps of egg mixed in with yogurt and only remnants of bacon left where the crunchy delicious breakfast meat should be. Deciding not to take my chances with the now cold oatmeal I go for a more traditional bowl of cereal.
Following Quincy she sits at the far corner table away from prying ears and nosy busy bodies. Going to such a small school everyone knows everyone and gossip spreads like wildfire so if anyone ever wants to keep a secret it's best to keep a distance from the hoards.
Quincy looks down at her cold waffle, as she stabs it with her fork and the fork nearly breaks at the density of it, "I hate these waffles."
"Well that's too bad I know how much you love waffles," Dmitri Fuller declares as he nods towards his minion who takes Quincy's waffles away only to replace them with a hot plate of fresh ones. Dmitri moves to sit on the opposite side of our table.
Quincy sets down her fork, "Go away Fuller we don't want any of what you're selling," she looks at him disgusted.
Dmitri always has two or three loyal followers trailing after him. Around here he's the "it" guy, since his parents are both members of the Creed, leaders of the hunting community.
He laughs sarcastically, "That's funny, you know what isn't funny? I heard that Professor Maycomb has a visitor coming in today and that he plans to call an assembly. I also heard that the visitor just happens to be one E.R. Fletcher."
Quincy and I both inhale sharply, "Are you kidding E.R. Fletcher, as in the E.R. Fletcher. The best young hunter to graduate from here like ever?” Quincy gushes excitedly.
Dmitri smirks, "The one and only, and I hear he's supposed to make some big speech."
My mind races, "Why would here come here? Doesn't the Creed keep him too busy with assignments."
Edward Reece Fletcher also known as my worst nightmare. Before he graduated we kind of went on a few dates. He was a senior at the time, I was a freshman. It all ended on our third date when he tried to kiss me, I kind of panicked and kneed him in the balls.
This is going to be a very embarrassing time for me if what Dmitri says is true.
"Apparently they're giving him a few weeks off since his last case ended bad so he decided to venture back to his good old roots," Dmitri smiles happily informing us of everything he knows.
Quincy must have taken notice of the disgusted look on my face at hearing about him, "Don't worry G I'm sure he barely remembers."
"Remember what, oh you mean when Knightly over here kneed him in the family jewels yeah I'm sure he has long forgotten that," Dmitri sarcastically remarks.
"Okay you're no longer needed here go away, don't you have someone to blackmail or rumors to spread?" Quincy ushers for him to leave the table shooing him away.
He stands up backing away from the table, "Fine be like that, but next time the information is not coming cheap. You know what I want," he winks at Quincy before sauntering away.
She blushes, "Fine I'll be sure to bring a bag of pesos for next time we see each other," she shouts after him.
He simply throws his hand back in goodbye.
Quincy turns to me, her face morphing into that expression of hers, the one that tells me she's trying to be reassuring and gentle towards me, but doesn't know what to say.
"Let's just hope he has a short memory," I do my best to smile reassuringly back.
Beep, beep, beep, the warning bells ring signaling the end of breakfast and alerting us that only five minutes remain till roll call.
We pick up our trash and dump our trays before heading to class, "Hey look on the bright side if Macomb calls an assembly that means less time having to spend in class," Quincy cheers making me grin.
Arriving at our first class, Quincy and I split moving to our assigned seats. She has to sit all the way to the left in the front row while I get the far right last row. Professor Harvey has had us for both his Vampire History, Huntington History and now Weapons and Wars class.
Professor Harvey proceeds with a roll call and then moves on with today's lesson. "Alright everyone today we're going to cover some past cases that have been assigned to Huntington graduates, both the successes and the failures so that we can assess them and see if we could have approached the situations differently," pulling out a large stack of files he hands a different folder to each of us.
Looking over my file, I learn that three elderly women had been found dead in their homes, each drained of blood. The human police wrote them off as accidental deaths, while the Creed knew that wasn't the case. So they sent two trained hunters to investigate and take action if they found the culprit.
Savanna raises her hand, breaking my attention away from my own case.
Harvey approaches her desk, "What seems to be the problem Miss Blake?"
She holds up her file. Catching the name on the file, he quickly snatches it away, "I'm sorry I was supposed to take this one out. Why don't you take this one?" He replaces the file with one of the extras on his desk.
"Alright everyone why don't you each write your responses to the case I gave you and turn it in on Friday," he takes a seat at his desk.
Savanna looks at me very carefully for a moment analyzing me. She looks almost like she wants to tell me something, but she and I have never been close. The opposite in fact, I'm the only one in our grade that can keep up with and even beat her when it comes to life at Huntington.
She looks away quickly and moves to focus on her new case. Quincy gives me a look questioning Savanna's behavior? I shrug my shoulders not having a clue and go back to my case.
Two boys a few rows up begin whispering to each other drawing the attention of Professor Harvey, "Maxwell, Jamison you both know the punishment for disrupting class. Come to the front.”
I wince and hold my breath knowing what's to come.
Jamison, a Senior boy with bright red hair and a goofy face nervously approaches the front. While Maxwell, the other Senior pastes a fake look of confidence on his face. His blond hair and baby face isn't what makes him stand out, but the scar above his eyebrow stopping just above his eye. Rumor has it that a vampire broke into his house and attacked his family. They took it down, but not before it almost killed Maxwell.
Professor Harvey gestures towards his desk, "You boys know what to do".
Hesitantly Jamison and Maxwell each place a hand on his desk. I turn away for a moment agonizing, knowing what is to come.
Yet, I find myself standing up, "Professor perhaps since we do have an assembly today you should let the interruption go. I'm sure they meant no disrespect, the whole school has been buzzing with news of our visitor," I gulp knowing that chiming in may not be enough.
"Did I call on you Miss Knightly?" Professor Harvey asks, gliding towards me. His steps quietly, like he's walking on silk.
"No Sir," I answer knowing that any other reply may get me in even worse trouble.
He stands in front of me, and before I know it my cheek stings. Burning from the slap he administered to my face. The noise of it is scarier than the actual pain of it.
Though, I can still feel it, the intention, the snap of my head to the side as he makes contact. I breath out a small yelp, before compo
sing myself and standing up straight once again. "Never speak out of turn," his face moves in close only an inch from mine, "Do I make myself clear, Knightly?"
"Yes Sir," I hiss glaring up at him defiantly. He gives me one last menacing look before moving back to the front of the class. "Maxwell, Jamison it seems Miss Knightly has saved you today from your punishment. If it happens again you won't be so lucky," he seethes trying to regain his calm composure.
Quincy and I have been at the hands of Professor Harvey's "punishments" plenty of times. I always wished someone would step in for me, now that I'm a senior it's my job to lead by example. Even if that example doesn't coincide with the professors at Huntington.
A few moments later the beep, beep, beep, of the intercom sounds forcing everyone's attention away from their work and lightening up the atmosphere. I quickly take my seat, Maxwell and Jamison hurry to do the same.