The Vampire Hunter's Daughter The Complete Collection (21 page)

“Have you come into your abilities, yet?” he
asked while he cut into the tender pot roast Alice had served
us.

I shook my head. “No, I’m not yet sixteen, so
I haven’t noticed anything different.” I didn’t want him to know I
was developing my gifts on both sides. Not yet. The weaker he
thought I was the better off I would be.

“When you begin to sense these abilities are
present, make sure to tell me. I cannot help you much with your
hunter heritage, but I can help when your vampire half
develops.”

I took a long swig from my water glass and
then stabbed a piece of lettuce in my salad.

“I’ll let you know.”

I chewed and swallowed the lettuce.

“Hey, is there any literature or anything I
can read up on about coming of age for my vampire side? I’d like to
know about this stuff.”

He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture.
“There are likely plenty of books on the subject in the library. I
will have some brought up to your room.”

“That would be great, thank you.” I paused
and chewed the last bite of my roast. When I finished, I asked him,
“Do you have a computer here, or something I could use for
researching on the internet?”

His eyes narrowed and flashed a bit. “I would
prefer that you use only the books. Under the circumstances, I
would rather you not have access to communicate with the outside
world.” He took a dainty sip of his wine. “Which reminds me: I’ll
need your cell phone, please.”

He wanted my phone, the very last connection
I had to the ones I cared about. I could not believe this.

“If I can keep it, I promise not to make any
calls.”

He shook his head. “I am sorry, Chloe. I also
need you to bring me the gun you brought with you.”

This time I couldn’t keep the anger from
boiling over. I was pissed. I slammed my fork onto my plate and
shoved my chair away from the table. I marched to his side of the
table, reached into my pocket, grabbed my cell phone and threw on
the table in front of him.

“Happy now?” I asked and stalked out of the
dining room.

“You’ll see this is all for the best,” he
called after I was already out of the room.

Back in my room, I grabbed my gun and removed
the clip, then tossed them both out into the hallway. After
slamming my door, which was quite unimpressive and not really what
I was going for, I threw myself on my bed and pouted. I curled up
with my clothes still on and pulled the covers over me. I let the
faces of the people back home lull me to sleep.

Before I knew it, months had passed. The snow
slowly melted and spring settled in. It was nice to finally see the
forests around us turn green again. When the snow melted off the
grounds, the large expanses of green lawn could be seen along with
the new pretty flowers that popped up all over the place.

Trevor had a doctor come to the house and
take my cast off in early March. Words simply cannot express how
happy I was to have that thing off, to finally have full
functionality of my hand.

Every single day I did the same things, and
it became a monotonous schedule. The one thing I absolutely refused
to do was become a night owl to suit Trevor. I woke at six a.m.
Then it was shower, workout, another shower, breakfast, take a
walk, read for a few hours, and then lunch. After lunch, I would
repeat the same thing until dinner, minus the first shower.

I was getting strong, really strong. I was
training double what I had been doing with Drew. I tried to use all
the weight machines exactly the way Drew had shown me. I did the
same with the other exercises where I didn’t use a machine. It was
crazy, seeing my body build muscle mass and tone up. One day, I was
totally shocked when I looked in the mirror after my post workout
shower and saw definition in my abs. I smiled at myself in the
mirror because I knew Drew would be proud of me.

When I was out for my walks, I used that time
to play around a little bit with my fire power ability. I was
probably being watched by guards or cameras the entire time, but I
just didn’t have anywhere else to practice. I didn’t want to do it
inside, just to avoid setting the house on fire and it was getting
to the point where I really didn’t care if anyone saw it
anyway.

I was getting better. With a lot of practice,
I discovered I could make fire whenever I wanted, not just when I
was angry. This process was like pulling energy from all around me
and centering it inside of me, then pushing it out again. I think
it was the same way it happened when I got angry, it just happened
without me thinking about it.

I only saw Trevor at dinner and for a little
while after. I didn’t really want to see him, so that little bit
was more than enough time for me. He didn’t really bother much with
me, which I found odd. If he thought I was that important, then why
didn’t he even act like he wanted to get to know me? It seemed like
he wanted me only because I was his, like a little kid with his
toy…he only wanted it because the other kids wanted to play with
it, but when they didn’t want to play with it anymore, neither did
he.

It seemed the whole eating dinner together
thing was an obligatory time to spend together. Trevor was
confusing to me. It seemed like he wanted to be my father, but at
the same time, he didn’t spend much time with me, and I was sort of
a prisoner in the house.

It had been months since I left the
community. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was beginning to wonder
why they didn’t try to come for me. I told them not to, but a part
of me sort of thought they would anyway, especially since Luke knew
the truth about why I had left, even if the others didn't.

Alice had become the first girlfriend I’d had
for a while, since before my mom’s death. The more we got to know
each other, the more she trusted I wouldn’t talk about her with
Mr. Trevor.
Oh, how I hated it that she called him that. I
really liked Alice, and I wished that she would understand life
could be better for her outside of this place. She wouldn’t hear of
it. For her it was as good as it was going to get. She didn’t care
that Trevor used her for food and sex; she was taken care of and
would never want for anything, so she let him.

So sad, I knew I couldn't help someone who
didn't want to help herself.

Secretly, I vowed to get her out of this
place. I loved Alice, but I had to restrain myself from talking
with her about Gavin and Drew. I didn’t talk to her at all about
any of the hunters. I knew she had grown to trust me more, but that
didn’t mean I trusted her.

During the time I spent reading, I only read
the books Trevor had given me about vampires. I learned about the
different types of vampires, half vampires, gifts and abilities,
how vampires can die, myths and legends, the list of topics went on
forever. I guess when you’ve been around as long as vampires have
there was a lot of information to document.

It was early April by the time I decided that
if I was unable to leave, I needed to learn something besides
vampire history. So one night at dinner I said to Trevor, “I’m a
little worried about not being in school. I’m actually a little
discouraged that
you
haven’t been more concerned about it.
I’m still in high school, and I need to learn things. If I can’t
leave to go to a regular school, could we at least hire someone to
come in and teach me?”

Trevor nodded and shuffled his food around on
his plate without actually eating it. Sometimes he did that. I
think most of the time he didn’t eat real food when he was already
full on human blood. “I don’t see a problem with having a tutor
come in and homeschool you.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. It would be
really nice to see someone else in this house other than Trevor,
Alice, and the occasional guard. “Thank you.”

“I will look into it immediately and hire
someone with excellent credentials.”

“Thank you, I’d appreciate that.”

And there ended another of our short
conversations. He never asked me anything about myself, like what
my favorite color was or what I enjoyed doing. Not that I really
cared to tell him that stuff anyway…it just baffled me.

Two days later, a tutor arrived. His name was
Oscar Williams, and he was not the kind of man you would think
would be a school teacher or a tutor. He was hot! Oscar couldn’t
have been more than twenty-five years old. His hair was a light
blond color, and he styled it in kind of a punk spiked style. He
always wore a casual jacket over a button up dress shirt and jean.
He also rode a motorcycle. I couldn't help but wonder where Trevor
had found the guy and what kind of qualifications he could possibly
have that would convince Trevor he was good enough to tutor me?

We immediately began lessons. Having someone
else to talk to and something purposeful to do was a huge relief. I
studied with vigor, impressing Oscar right from the start. He
seemed to like my spongy ability to retain everything I learned. I
liked that he was impressed.

Alice had a crush on him, too. I saw her more
when Oscar was around than I ever did before. If anything, Oscar’s
presence gave us something juicy to gossip about, and a reason to
primp a little more than we had been. I’d been getting so lazy that
some days I’d just walk around in sweat pants. But there was no way
that I was going to let Oscar see me in them. Alice normally wore
her hair in a ponytail, but on the days Oscar came, she would style
it. Trevor noticed Alice's changes, too. I could have sworn he
acted peeved about it. For the first time, I wondered if he
actually cared about her.

In any case, having Oscar around was really
nice, and learning stuff was easy with him. Plus, he was full of
surprises. Only a week or so after our first tutoring session
together, Oscar showed up in my room carrying a big black guitar
case.

“What’s that?” I asked him, not bothering to
sit up. I had been lounging on the couch reading and munching on a
big bag of potato chips. At least Trevor was okay with buying me
chips. I couldn’t get those back home.

He rolled his eyes. “It’s a guitar, Chloe. A
musical instrument with five strings—”

"I know
what
it is.” I cut him off.
“Why do you have it?”

“I thought I might play you a song or two.”
He set the case down on the table and opened it. Inside was a
beautiful acoustic guitar. I noticed the body was an awesome teal
blue that made me think of tropical water.

He pulled out one of the straight-backed
chairs from my little breakfast table and sat with the guitar on
his lap.

“Any requests?” he asked, and he strummed
once.

I shrugged and shoved a chip into my
mouth.

“Play whatever you want.” I shifted on the
couch until I was sitting up and pulled my legs up onto the couch
with me.