Authors note:

I know that i haven't updated for ages, so yeah, sorry about that...

Also, i'm not really sure whether or not to continue with story... i kind of feel like it's not really going anywhere?

Please tell me what you think, if i should continue or not... Also, new ideas are welcomed =)

Thanks

Enjoy =D

- Emmaa x

Chapter 10

So naturally I didn't get much sleep and was actually awake to turn my alarm off before it even went off. Which actually was a whole lot more secretive than, say, an alarm clock waking the whole dorm up at 3 O'clock in the morning.

I'm really not made for sneaking This thought was rather ironic, considering the fact that I'm 'supposedly' the assassin of rogue vampires. I mean how am I supposed kill people who are skilled in the art of assassination themselves, without sneaking?

Anyway, I grabbed my backpack and tiptoed to the door, bearing in mind to avoid the squeaky floorboards where possible. I made it to the door without incident, but then I turned and saw a rough 'Abi' outline sleeping peacefully in her bed and I realised that I couldn't just leave her without saying goodbye, or something.

I hurried back to the desk and grabbed a rough sticky note and a biro. I scrawled a rough letter which read:

Abi,

You have been a great friend, the best actually, and I wouldn't have had any other roommate. You have to understand that I never wanted to leave; I especially didn't want to leave you but I couldn't handle you or anyone else getting hurt because of me. I know you don't think it's me, but I do and I need some time to think it all through. I would also like to find my dad and although I have no leads at the moment, I'm sure I'll find something. I hope to come back some time in the future and I hope you'll wait for me. Tell Zack I'm sorry, and I love him.

Grace xx

I had written on both sides but I stuck it on the back of the door as I left, thinking that she would have to see it when she went out.

The letter wasn't great as a goodbye note, great? It sucked. Goodbye's are not good for you. Okay so I sucked at saying goodbye, but it was better than nothing right?

I was now making my way down into the common room, so far so good. No one's woken up yet, maybe I can make in the assassination business yet. With that happy thought in mind I headed for the door leading outside.

I opened the door super slow and turn back to face the door to close it slowly as well in order to stop the awful creaking sound it sometimes makes.

It felt good to have fresh air on my back and I breathed deeply with my eyes shut as I turned to face the trees and early morning.

"Where are you going?" Shit! I flung my eyes wide open in panic to find Zack, Lottie and Abi sitting with their backs against a nearby tree, facing the door.

"I have to leave to find my dad." They all stood up and to my utter surprise brought down backpacks from the tree.

"Then we'll help you." It was Lottie who had spoken and so I addressed her first.

"But what about Nick, you too are like, a couple?"

She smiled at me kindly, "He'll live, it's you who needs me now." Such comforting words, to know that someone wants to help you. I turned to Abi,

"And you, you were so... angry. I thought I'd lost you forever." I ran to her and hugged her, tears welling in my eyes.

She hugged me back tightly too, "Hey, I may not be the best fighter, but I've always got your back." Lastly I turned to Zack,

"You and I are a team Grace, always have been, always will be. Where you go, I go." I hugged him too. "So, what's the plan?"

"Well the plan was to climb up that tree over there," I pointed to the massive oak I'd been up earlier, "and jump over the wall."

Zack laughed, "I'm sorry seriously?"

"Yes!" I was actually hurt by his response, I thought it was quite a good plan. You also thought vampires were a load of crap. True.

"You don't think people have tried that before? You're not the only one who can climb a tree you know." Ouch.

"Right. Well what's your great idea then?" I asked rather harshly. I'd actually felt insulted by his earlier comment and decided that he deserved the icy tone.

"Well, it's simple really, "Lottie was the one telling me their fabulous plan, "We just walk out the front gates." Okaaaaay, and they thought my plan was ridiculous...

"Yeah, that's great, except for one slight" I made a little gesture with my fingers, "Issue: The doors are locked and guarded like 24/7!" My words were dripping in thick, sticky sarcasm that hung in the air even after I'd spoken.

"Well you haven't been here as long as us. We know all of the routines and guard patterns, some of us more than others." Lottie cast a sideways look at Abi when she said this and I raised my eyebrow at her questioningly.

"What? So I used to sneak out maybe a couple times a week to meet friends... boys... go to parties..." Abi shrugged, but still beamed at us like Winnie the Pooh with all the honey pots he could ever imagine.

I grinned back at her, "So, how does this work then?"

Abi gave me a devious smile, "Well, all you have to do is..."

Ten minutes later and Abi, Zack, Lottie and I were all calmly walking towards the ain gates. This is genius! Why didn't I have this idea?

We reached the front gates within a couple of minutes (with no one around it was a lot quicker) and then we waited around the corner, crouching down behind one of the biggest trees I think I've ever seen (Trust me, the trunk was MASSIVE! Like... three metres wide). There was two guards on duty at this time, one on the outside of the gate, hiding in a tree (with a freakin' gun!) and the other on the inside of the gate, pacing back and forth.

The gates were huge, old, very pointy and black. This made them look very foreboding and I kind of understood why no one sane wanted to break in.

We waited for 3 more minutes in total and then, at exactly 3:27am, the guards both simultaneously moved back towards the schools entrance which was about ten metres away from the gate itself. We moved around the tree as the guards walked by us so that they didn't see us. Or at least they weren't supposed to see us.

The guards were about 5 metres away from us when Abi stepped on a twig that snapped beneath her weight. We all stopped dead and didn't move because the guards had immediately turned in our direction and they were damned good guards. Curse my damned bad luck! These guards apparently, took their jobs very seriously and so they walked over straight towards us to check out the noise.

"Shit!" I hissed under my breath and mouthed "now what?" to Zack. He thought for about half a second before gesturing up at the tree. This particular tree had low handing branches that Zack could just about reach on his tip toes or if he jumped. Naturally Abi, Lottie and I were all smaller than him and so we couldn't reach the braches.

First Zack and I launched Lottie onto the lowest branch so that she could climb higher, we then launched Abi (We had done all of this is about 20 seconds, I know quick!) and then Zack and I jumped in unison because the security guard was just coming to the edge of our tree.

We climbed quickly and silently, all of us. It's one of the upsides at being a vampire, or in my case, a dhampir (Lottie and Abi's grace and agility surprised me slightly because, I'm not really sure why, but I never pegged them as the 'sporty types', more girly girls). We perched in the tree about 20 metres off the ground and sat entirely still, literally holding our breaths to ensure that the guards did not detect us.

Thankfully, after a couple of intense seconds, the guards moved away and continued back towards the school. As soon as we saw them enter into the schools walls, we climbed back down quickly but not quite as silently; We were running out of time.

We had worked out that we had a gap of about 3 minutes between each guard change and we had just wasted about a minute and half over that encounter which meant that we only had about a minute and a half left.

We all ran flat out straight towards the gate, sticking to our hastily made plan from earlier.

When we were within 3 metres of the gate Zack stopped and then Lottie, Abi and I hung back, preparing a run up to him (Zack having trained the longest and hardest, we felt was better equipped to get over the gate by himself... although I was a close second).

Lottie went first again, running up to Zack so fast that all you could really see was a blur, although I knew what she was actually doing; she would run full speed straight at Zack, then at the last minute before she hit him, she would place her foot on Zack's hand, he would then give the upwards boost she needed, along with her own power to jump to flip herself up and over the gate.

(With vampire speed and agility this worked a lot better, although it was not easy. If you judged just 1cm off, you could hit the gate, and since the gate was electrically charged with 1000V and fitted with an alarm system... Well let's just say hitting the gate wasn't really an option for us.)

Lottie flipped up and over perfectly and even landed on her feet. It was a truly amazing thing to watch. Abi followed and then it was my turn. Everything went totally smoothly until it came to landing. I'd twisted my body perfectly over the gate so that I had missed the edges by inches, but I hadn't judged my power along with Zack's combined strength very well and I over shot the landing spot by a mile. Instead I ended up landing about 10 foot away from where Lottie and Abi were standing, on my side, which, let me tell you, hurts like a bitch.

I hissed upon impact and curled into a ball instinctively to cover my head as I rolled a couple times to absorb more of the impact.

"Grace? Hey, you alright?" It was the warm loving hands that brushed my hair away from my face that got me up, otherwise I think I would have just laid there all day.

"Jeez, you got over quickly." I simply stated as Zack helped me to my feet. I gingerly rubbed my injured side and winced. "That's gunna leave a mark."

"Quick! I think I see the guards again!" Lottie hissed through the morning light and Zack and I exchanged a look before hurrying after Lottie and Abi into the shelter of the woods.

I wasn't exactly sure of what to make of our little travelling group at the time. Or of how I planned to find my father, but one thing I was definitely sure about was that it sure was going to be fun.