Vampire Academy: New Generations

Chapter 12 (Part II)

"You okay?" I almost jumped a few feet in the air. I turned around to see Bash with Cayden behind him. I tugged on my long sleeves, purposefully trying to obscure my wrists. I was almost scared, thinking Trevor would be there with them, but he wasn't. Just like how he wasn't at practice this morning. I mean, I'd hardly thought about Trevor since last night, forget seek him out during morning practice, but yeah, I noticed his absence. "Yeah...I... I'm... just super tired. Practice went on too long yesterday." I said as Bash's frown turned into a slight smile. "People are talking about yesterday night. What the Queen said to Eden... privately... in the garden and away from other ears." He said as I nodded. "I know. But it's nothing bad. She... congratulated Eden and I, on not dying." I clarified. "Really? Everyone's saying the Queen yelled at her, gave her a talking to and totally brought her down." I frowned. "What?" I asked, the words coming out angrily. I shivered as a surge of darkness shot up into me. It made me cringe. "Who said that?" I asked. Cayden shrugged, and pointed to Bash. "I heard it from Abby and her group." I shook my head. I've never felt this terrible. Not even when I'd been called bad names, made fun of or even pushed to my lowest point. I didn't have feelings like that. I always got rid of unwanted anger.

"I... yeah. I hate all the gossip. It's really stupid." Cayden said as he noticed my slight shuddering and weird mood swing. One second I was happy and high and now I was murderously mad? How could he not? I was being really obvious. "I don't know how they can all be so shallow?" I said, trying to regain my regular attitude. "Ignore them," Bash said soothingly. "You were smart not to hang out with them anymore. And to suggest Eden to follow." Cayden added in. But ignoring them, them being the rest of the student body, grew harder and harder, though. The whispers and looks, to me surprisingly, had increased. But I knew for sure it wasn't centered on me. I had a... busy night, one no one knew about. I had an alibi. In animal behavior, it became so bad, I couldn't even concentrate on my now-favorite subject. Ms. Meissner had started talking about evolution and survival of the fittest and how animals sought mates with good genes. It fascinated me, but even she had a hard time staying on task, since she had to keep yelling at people to quiet down and pay attention.

After class, I walked straight to Cayden, who seemed to be talking to the other novices. They all shut up when they saw me. Cayden included. Which meant the gossip was pretty bad. "Tell me. Is it about me?" I asked as Cayden looked down to me. He'd always been an older brother to me and I could always trust him with the truth. "It's on Trevor." He said slowly. I raised my eyebrows and waited for him to finish. "People said—you know Maddy Smith? People are saying that she had sex with him and he let her drink his blood." I froze. My first thought was 'what kind of lies were these?' but the thought... drinking blood during the deed. The dirtiest of the dirty. Sleazy. Beyond being easy or desperate. Blood- whore territory. "That's crazy!" I cried out when everyone looked at me with misery. First off, Maddy Smith was one of my enemies. She and Trevor used to be close but he dropped her when she started doing crazy things. Blood- whore things. "Trevor would never— right?" I asked as Cayden shrugged. "She's got evidence. There are clear bite marks on his neck." He said as Trevor walked in, ignoring everyone's stares and instead focusing his thoughts on buttoning up his shirt, all the way up - something he never did. Cayden told me something else but I wasn't listening anymore. I was in my own world, a world that took me across the classroom to where Maddy sat. She looked up, face half smug and half...nervous, if I had to guess. Not unexpected, since she was lying through her teeth... hopefully. The entire class came to a standstill. Apparently they'd been expecting some type of showdown. My unstable reputation in action. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I wanted to ask. But I knew if I started a fight, Kirova'll kick my ass. So I shut up and grabbed my stuff, set on leaving the classroom.

"Oh, Evie!" I stopped and turned to face Maddy's annoying british accent. "Trevor's waiting next class. He's already told me how he's going to break up with you. I told you he'd always be mine." She gave me a bitchy smile and walked back to her own friends, gossiping about something to them. I turned around to see the rest of the students were holding their breaths, waiting to see what we'd do. I don't know how Mr. Nagy could have been oblivious to the drama occurring in his class. I wanted to punch both of them, hit them so hard that it'd make Vegas wish he trained with me instead of vice versa. But asshole or not, she was right. If I touched them, Kirova would expel me in the blink of an eye. And if I got kicked out, Eden would be alone. And, I'd loose Vegas. Taking a deep breath, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. I walked away. But not before I lit her books on fire. It was the little things really. And spirit meant that I had a good control on all elements. The rest of the class was miserable. In backing down from the fight, I opened myself up to mockery from everyone else. Even though the whole problem wasn't with me, everyone seemed to suddenly take into account how close we were. People stared at me saying they pitied me. Some people actually had the nerve to laugh. Eden kept trying to talk to me, to console me, but I ignored even her.