Bad wilderness of Máville

After Hazel had left, Lauren hastily got up and looked around the cafeteria at everyone.

There was pin drop silence, which made Lauren nervous and embarrassed at the same time. 'Thank God, I didn't do anything out of order,' she thought and left.

On her way outside, Lauren's eyes fell on Zaiden, who stood near the tree, talking to someone on the phone.

Before she left to meet Hazel, who was lying in one of the beds in the infirmary, injured.

Lauren wondered if Zaiden had noticed her awkwardness when his eyes met her and hoped that he hadn't. She quickened her pace, eager to check on Hazel and put the embarrassing moment behind her.

Reaching the infirmary, Lauren noticed all the beds were almost empty but two beds were occupied by two students. Hazel and Elliott.

Hazel laid on the bed in the infirmary, her eyes trained on the ceiling as she tried to will away the pounding headache that made it feel like her brain was being squeezed from her skull. She was not alone in the room.

She heard the door creak open and, out of the corner of her eye, saw a figure make its way inside.

Lauren stared at Elliott confusedly before walking towards her cousin.

"How are you?" Lauren immediately questioned sitting on the edge of the bed. She narrowed her eyes on the girl as she examined her.

"Obviously, I am good."

"Yeah, that is why you are here." Lauren looked back at Elliott, who was lying on the bed and had an IV connected to his arm.

But in the next minute, her eyes widened as she saw that the IV was filled with blood.

He was getting a drip when he could easily drank someone alive. May be, he is a good vampire. Lauren thought. But something was different about him - his skin was deathly pale, his eyes a deep crimson that glinted in the dim light of the infirmary.

"Oh my..." Lauren gasped dramatically, "Do you really run out of blood?" She asked in an almost mocking tone.

Elliott snapped his head in her direction, but he still held a blank expression as if she wasn't talking to him. But Lauren knew he understood what she meant because, after smirking at him, she was shaken by Hazel.

"What are you doing?" Hazel asked, her voice barely above a whisper. She glanced at the two individuals glaring at each other.

What's going on? Hazel thought worriedly. She was not closed to anyone here, but she did know about them as vampires, and she didn't want Lauren to get involved with him. Have they become enemies or what? Hazel thought.

"Yeah, I just ran out of blood and then you came into my mind," he snapped back in the same dramatic tone she had used.

She shook her head and tried to make something quick to throw at him. The only sounds that of the IV drips that hung next to her on a stand, the clear fluid inside slowly trickling into their veins made her focus on something else.

"So sad, you can't have mine."

Lauren was trying to make light of the situation, but deep down she was terrified. She had never felt so weak and vulnerable before, and the thought of someone taking her blood made her shudder.

Although, she acted and showed that she was alright deep down the sounds of the IV drops dripping made her have panic attacks. She tried to fend it off by focusing on the man in front of her.

Lauren knew that what she was doing by provoking a vampire was nothing but an open invitation. She had read that they don't have mercy on humans, and when they run out of blood, they see nothing but blood everywhere near them. 'Maybe, it's the same case with him,' Lauren thought.

She was in such shock that just a few minutes ago, she had thanked him, but now what? She had admired him as he was always in her thoughts, and she was unable to let them slide.

But as she had confronted him and knew his true personality, she was beyond shocked by this man. Here this man had her mind set to north and south just for him!

"Nah, I don't think so—" He looked her up and down with a twist of his tongue. "I'm pretty sure you wouldn't even make an appetiser." The man said, a sly smirk playing at the corners of his lips.

She glanced around them and the door, curious, if anyone else was witnessing this mess. But when she turned her left, she saw Hazel's wide eyes.

It made her realised that she had embarrassed herself in front of her cousin. This made her so furious that she sent a glare at the man on the bed.

Determined to regain control of the situation and herself, Lauren snorted, looking away, ignoring them, her pounding heart, and the pterodactyls flapping around in her stomach.

She demanded. "What is wrong with you?"

Seriously, Elliott had the manners of a rabid polar bear. He was as nutty as fruitcakes when he suddenly changed his demeanour near her.

"Got a century or two?" His smirk was back. He was obviously proud of getting to her, and for a moment, just a moment. She thought about how satisfying it would be to punch him right in the centre of that annoying mouth of his.

"You know what? You really don't have to be such a-"

"Don't tell me what I have to be. Not when you don't have a clue what you've wandered into here. As from thanks me."

"Oh no!" Lauren made a mock-afraid face. "Is this the part of the story where you tell me about the big, bad monsters out here in the big, bad wilderness of Máville?"

"No, this is the part of the story where I have shown you the big, bad monsters right here in this university." The horrible scene from that day circulated in her mind.

Hazel heart was also beating loudly hearing them. She couldn't believe in her ears. What they were specking. Was they nine?

Lauren's expression changed from mock-afraid to genuine fear as she realised the danger that lurked within the walls of the university. She couldn't shake off the image of the gruesome scene that had taken place there.

Lauren tried to push away the memory of the gruesome scene and focus on Elliott. But she couldn't ignore the nagging feeling that something was off about him. As she looked into his eyes, she realised that he was hiding something from her, and it made her uneasy.

Elliott laid down, and Lauren's eyes travelled from his face to his stomach, and seeing how it was so flat, she shook her head, but there went her heart again, beating like a caged bird desperate to escape.

Lauren hates it.

She hates that he bested her, and she hates that his words made her feel a bunch of things she shouldn't for a guy who had been a total jerk to her. She hated even more the look in his eyes that told her he knew exactly how she was feeling.

The fact that she was reacting so strongly to him when all Elliott seemed to feel for her was contempt was humiliating, so suddenly Laureen stood up.