CHAPTER ONE

Pain is all I feel, like a sharp punch to the gut. "This is what I get for listening to you. I could be watching Gossip Girl sex scenes on repeat right now," Quincy grumbles as she holds up her corner of the large oak canoe.

At three in the morning, any sane woman would be tucked away in their bed. Yet, here we are, in a bog, deep within the cold waters of Maine, at the peak of Fall. I just had to join Professor Dayton's weekly study group. The water provides a nasty bite as the cold settles into my bones.

My teeth chatter as I struggle to get the words out, "You said you wanted to get out more, and besides, those sex scenes are censored. So you aren't missing much," I readjust my grip on my side as the boat starts to tilt.

"Yeah, you're probably right. But we could go to parties, maybe even hook up with a few randoms. But your idea of fun is this," she groans. I laugh, "When have you ever done anything like that?"

"I've seen it on television plenty of times. Plus, if I wanted to punish myself, I would watch a documentary on climate change. Not experience it first hand," she shivers. I agree with her that this isn't my kind of pain, but Professor Dayton knows what it takes to be a successful hunter.

"Come on, pick it up! Unless you want to give up like the others," Professor Dayton stands off to the side of the shore. Several of my classmates sit, as they shiver at the cold. They are wrapped in towels and blankets along the bank.

"Do you think you have what it takes to fight monsters and live to tell the tale? First, you must prove that you can take the pain because they won't wait for you to rest. They'll take any sign of weakness and use it to kill you." Professor Dayton, a massively tall woman with nearly white hair cut short at her shoulders, is as close to Satan as you can get here at Infiniteye.

She kneels to my level as her face moves close to mine, "Do you want to give up, Gemma? It would be so easy just to release the canoe; give your arms a break." Not yet. I straighten my back and lift the canoe a bit higher. My arms scream in agony, as they strain from holding it up for so long. My feet, which I can hardly feel, are covered in ooze and muck. The bog we are in is deep, the water goes above my waist. The chill in the air makes it even harder to stand in place. The other students couldn't take it and called it quits. Only five of us remain as we try to hold it steady. When we graduated from the Academy and entered College, I knew things would change. The work would be more of a challenge.

The four others left are Savanna, Quincy, Dmitri, and Hudson. Savanna is the school's overachiever, or at least she wants to be. She's the preppy type with blond hair and blue eyes. The type one comes to naturally despise. Quincy's my best friend and won't give up unless I do. She's short with honey skin and curly brown hair. She radiates sunshine and is a natural comedian. Dmitri's the son of two council members and it-guy around here, so he won't stop until he passes out. He's the pretty boy president's son type. Always looks put together with his styled black hair and bright green eyes, he's also tall and has muscles from years of practice which just makes him that much more dislikeable.

The school uniform gives him a youthful and naive appearance. He's normally nice to people, but that's usually because he's working out a way to stab them in the back. Hudson is the strongest out of all of us. Who must be doing better than the rest of us? He's the tallest and strongest in our class. With bright red hair and green eyes. He's also the silent and deadly type, where despite his size I can hardly hear when he moves.

"No, I won't give up," I grit my teeth in pain. My legs are numb, and my body is cold. It would be an accurate description to describe myself as half alive and half dead if I don't mind the comparison to a vampire. Around here, that's the worst someone can be compared to, and blasphemy to even think.

"What's that, Knightly?" Professor Dayton asks her voice rising. "I can keep going. I enjoy a good workout," I smile through the pain. She fights a smile, "Miss Knightly, you've just saved your study partners from another hour of this; set my boat down and join the rest of the class. That's the resilience I look for in my students."

The five of us don't waste time as we lower the boat. My arms ache as they fall at my sides. My feet squish in the quicksand 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 to go 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 if you want to pass your Survivalist Class."

With my numb arms, I drag myself to the shore. My legs feel like jelly. Dmitri climbs onto the bank beside me, and we help the others. I hold my arm out to Quincy and pull her out. We both fall onto the embankment. I breathe heavily and try to catch my breath. "You still think we should have shown 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, and looks down at her watch.

"I feel wonderful," Savanna flips her hair as she stands up. She brushes herself off, a clear move to try to shield the exhaustion and show us all up. She gives us a wink and limps off toward the College. I despise her. Quincy grimaces, "All right, I'm just going to say what we're all thinking. I hate her." I laugh, "You hate everyone that isn't me."

"True, but her just a bit more than the rest. If we make a murder pact, I think we could take her out fairly easily," she comments and shakes her head in Savanna's direction. With a sigh, I muster the drive and pull myself up. My arms protest as I reach down to help Quincy, "Come on, let's get back to the dorm and try and make the best of our limited time to rest. The murder pact can wait."

She does not fight as I help her stand and drag her towards the College dorms, where our comfy beds call us. Infiniteye Academy is on a large plot of land; there are four buildings. First, there's the school which is where students twelve to eighteen train. Next over is Infiniteye College for those eighteen to twenty-two, then there's the men's dormitory, and to the right of them is the women's housing. A large gate surrounds all with four exits like a compass. This location is one of three branches in the world, the other two are located in Ireland and England. All three are headed by a council of ten, they are known as The Eye. They lead the hunters of the world.

I can feel him behind me, as he follows me through the woods. Leaves crunch under my bare feet. In one hand is a silver stake. My only weapon. The sun has long set, and my weapon is the only thing that makes me feel safe. A chill in the air is a remnant of winter—ice coats several long-dead leaves. The grass is glazed over with tiny icicles that look like spikes from a porcupine. The cold is familiar, yet the dark feels different. I turn a corner and he appears with red eyes, a pale complexion, and a set of fangs. He lets out a battle cry, a screech like that of an injured bear. I keep my feet planted.

My eyes meet his, in a challenge, ready for a fight. He hisses and charges me. He's fast, like a blur across my eyes. Two white doves swoop down and attack the creature. They protect me as they claw and ravage the beast. "You miserable little maggots, are you still asleep?" My blanket is ripped off me in one ferocious yank. I bolt upright, to be met with two angry eyes. Professor Dayton glares down at me. "No, ma'am!" I move to stand up straight beside my bed at attention. Well, aren't you pleasant this morning; someone eats all the whole grain oats again?

Quincy does the same, and Professor Dayton examines us both. "Get dressed and get down to chow, or else you'll go without breakfast. A pack of hungry freshmen has already ravaged the cafeteria while you two have been catching up on your beauty sleep, pathetic," she spits out the last word and walks out to go harass some other late risers I have no doubt.

As soon as she is out of sight, I fall back into bed, still exhausted from our study session.

"Hurry up, Gemma, or we'll be late," Quincy urges as she hurriedly pulls on her clothes. She grumbles to herself, "You know normal college students at least get to wear what they want and pick their classes. I mean they can sleep in, what a luxury! What do I have to look forward to besides occasionally catching couples doing it in closets? Not a thing, I tell you what. Although the food is decent."

Quincy and I met on move-in day when we were twelve; we're both children born beyond the wall of protection that most humans keep up. They do it so that they don't have to face the truth. That monsters exist and that they're slowly killing us off, one by one. My parents both came to Infiniteye. That was long before they died. They accepted a mission from the Council of The Eye and left with a few other hunters. They were supposed to investigate a vampire sighting, but they never came home. None of them did, well, no one that is, except for Uncle Jonas.

Now, he lives in Whiteshore Psychiatric Hospital; he won't talk about what happened. He's so locked in his mind that there is no way to get 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 twelve when I enrolled in Infiniteye Academy. I was eighteen when I graduated and moved on to Infiniteye Academy College. I'm twenty now and a Senior. I still go home every weekend. Our family has been hunting monsters since as early as the legend of Dracula and Van Helsing. My path was chosen for me hundreds of years before I was even born.

With a long-winded sigh, I throw my blankets to the side and stand up from the bed. I stretch my muscles and yawn. I resist the urge to look in the mirror at the mangled mess of hair atop my head. If not for class today, I would indeed be in mid-snore right now.

Our room isn't much, just two beds, two desks, two closets, and two windows. Wow, it sounds like a prison when I put it like that. Quincy's side is an explosion of pinks and sparkles, and mine is more neutral tones. "Come on, Gemma, we have seven minutes to get to breakfast, or all the good food will 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 a snack.

Five minutes later, I look at myself in the mirror dressed in my uniform; stretchy blue pants, a maroon shirt, a blue blazer, and a maroon and blue striped tie. "Alright, I'm ready to go," I sigh, and pull my disaster of hair into a ponytail. "Finally," she practically runs from the room as I slip my bag onto my shoulder.

As we arrive at the cafeteria, Quincy glares at me as she takes in the masses. At least sixty of our hungry peers have come here before us. I give her a guilty look, and I follow her toward the long line of similarly dressed students. The food is well picked over, with scraps of egg mixed in with yogurt and only bacon remnants left where the crunchy, delicious breakfast meat should be. I decide not to take my chances with the now-cold oatmeal, I go for a more traditional bowl of cereal.

Quincy leads the way to a table in the far corner away from prying ears and nosy busybodies. At such a small College, everyone has known each other since we were twelve causing gossip to spread 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 which nearly breaks at the contact, "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 only takes Quincy's waffles away 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."

Dmitri is what most would refer to as our school's resident prodigy. He always has two or three loyal followers trail after him. Around here, he's the guy who knows everything since his parents are members of The Eye. He laughs sarcastically, "That's funny; you know what isn't funny? I heard that Professor Maycomb has a visitor coming in today for The Reaping. The visitor happens to be E.R. Fletcher."

Today is the 17th of the month, an ordinary day for most people. However, this time of the month represents something different to us hunters. It means to burn, to bleed, betrayal, and death. Not exclusively in that order. On the seventeenth no matter what day of the week it lands on, no matter rain or shine they always have The Reaping. When hunters and mundanes who have betrayed The Eye are burned alive in front of all the students. It's a lesson to us all that we should remain loyal or else we're no better than the creatures we hunt. As such, we're not worth living.

They choose fire because it's not only painful, but the process is slow and pure agony. The scent of burnt flesh in the air, as smoke, fills the courtyard, the screams of the reaped. These are normal to me, I attended my first one when I was only twelve. If you look away you're punished. If you close your eyes, you're punished. If you cry, you're punished. If you get sick, you're punished. If you wince, you're punished. The only way out is to look forward. To tighten that spine you have that keeps you up straight, and build a cage around your heart. It was easy for me because the gate was already up. Locked tightly so that no one will get out and no one will get in.

There's something to be said about a group of adults that make children watch as they burn people alive. I just haven't quite found the right words yet. Quincy and I inhale sharply, "Are you kidding? E.R. Fletcher, as in the E.R. Fletcher? The best young hunter to graduate from here like ever? Please tell me he isn't a reaped?" Quincy gushes. Dmitri smirks, "Don't worry he's merely a guest, not a sacrifice. I hear he's supposed to make some big speech." My mind is a mess. Why would here come? Doesn't The Eye keep him too busy with assignments?

Edward Reece Fletcher is also known as my worst nightmare. Before he graduated, we kind of went on a date. It was his senior year, and I was a freshman. It ended when he tried to kiss me and I kneed him in an unspoken location.

This year will be a very stressful time for me if what Dmitri says is accurate. "They gave him a few months off since his last case ended badly. I guess he decided to venture back to his good old roots," Dmitri tells us with his usual arrogant grin. "Don't worry, G, I'm sure he barely remembers." Quincy must notice the disgusted look on my face. "Remembers what? Oh, you mean when Knightly over here kneed him in the family jewels? Yeah, I'm sure he has long forgotten that." Dmitri 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. He stands up and backs away from the table. "Fine, be like that, but the information won't be free next time. You know what I want," he winks at Quincy before he saunters away. "Fine, I'll be sure to have a bag of pesos for the next time we see each other!" Quincy shouts after him. He throws back a hand as if to wave away her annoyance. Quincy turns to me, her face morphed into a familiar expression. It tells me that she wants to reassure me but doesn't know what to say. "Let's just hope he has a short memory," I do my best to mimic her expression.

Beep, beep, beep, the morning bell chimes, the signal for the end of breakfast. Five minutes remain till roll call. We pick up our trash and dump the trays as we head to class. "Hey, look on the bright side, we're about to have a full month away from The Reaping after today," Quincy mentions. I sigh, "You're right there are worse subjects to worry about other than my embarrassment. I'm shallow, aren't I?" Quincy shakes her head, "Gem, you aren't shallow."

As we enter our first class, Quincy and I split. Each of us moves to our assigned seats. She has to sit in the front row on the left side of the room. While I get to the far right last row. Professor Harvey proceeds with role-call and moves to today's lesson. "All right, class, today we will go over some past cases assigned to previous Infiniteye graduates. Then, we will assess them to see if we could have approached the situations differently," he pulls out a large stack of files, he hands a different folder to each of us.

As I look over my file, I learn that three older women were found dead in their homes. Each of them drained of blood. The police wrote them off as accidental deaths, but The Eye knew that wasn't the case. So they sent two trained hunters to investigate and take action. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Savanna raise her hand. The distraction peeks my attention. She's always up some teachers' nether regions. Professor Harvey approaches her desk, "What seems to be the problem, Ms. Blake?"

She holds up her file, with an uncertain look. He snatches it away, "I'm sorry, I wasn't supposed to give this one out. Here take this one?" He replaces the file with one of the extras on his desk. "All right, 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 as she analyses me. She catches my gaze and glares. Her usual turned-up nose and sour-lipped expression. Her face is all scrunched up like she has eaten some bad yogurt. We've always been complete opposites. She and I are as close to enemies as you can get at Infiniteye Academy.

After a few moments, she looks away and moves to focus on her new case. Quincy gives me a look that questions Savanna's behavior. I guess she noticed her weirdness too. I shrug my shoulders and return to my case. Two boys a few rows up whisper to each other. Big mistake. They draw the attention of Professor Harvey. "Maxwell, Jamison, you both know the punishment for your disruption. Come to the front."

The class takes one big breath as we all know what is about to happen to them. I wince and try to look away. They're both a grade below me. Jamison has bright red hair and grey eyes. He always has a brave look on his face as he takes the lead and moves to the front. While Maxwell is short and thin and reminds me of a piece of paper as it flaps in the wind.

He has long brown hair and big brown doe eyes. What makes him stand out is the scar above his eyebrow that stops just above his right 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. He looks ill as he makes unsteady steps forward.

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 in shielded pain. The feeling of guilt surges in me as I sit back in my chair. Tick tock, tick tock, I need to make a decision. It nudges me like a continuous pinprick in my gut. The injustice, I should stand up. Tell him no. Fight back. Professor Harvey raises the wooden rod ready to slam it down on their hands. The chalkboard is black. The chairs are made of wood. The air smells of lavender as it comes in from the open windows.

I can't close my eyes, but I can pretend. "Professor, perhaps you should let the interruption go since we have The Reaping today. I'm sure they meant no disrespect. The whole school has been a buzz with news of our visitor." I wince at the familiar voice. My eyes move across the room to where Quincy sits. She has a determined look on her face as she stands in place. Her face is a determined mask. My brave best friend. His gaze is sharp like a knife as it trails over her. "Did I call on you, Miss Pierce?" Professor Harvey glides toward her. His steps are like he's on silk so swift and with no sound at all.

"No Sir." She answers with a slight quiver. He sneers, slap. He strikes her cheek like it's a drum. Ouch. I can practically feel that. I stay quiet and look away. My teeth clench and my fists ball. I compose myself and stand up straight. "Never speak out of turn. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Sir." Quincy bites. My gaze shifts back to them and I catch him giving her one last menace-fueled look and move back to the front of the class. "Maxwell, Jamison, Ms. Pierce has saved you from punishment today. But, you won't be so lucky if it happens again. Get back to your seats." He moves a stray piece of hair back into place.

The beep, beep, beep of the intercom sounds. Everyone's gaze returns to normal and the atmosphere lights up. I quickly take my seat; Maxwell and Jamison hurry to do the same. Professor Maycomb's voice eases out of the intercom, "Good morning students, today is an auspicious day. We will have a guest for today's Reaping. I expect you all to be on your best behavior and to represent Infiniteye with the highest regard." His tone has a hint of warning to it.

I tense at the thought of E. R. Fletcher. I glance over at Quincy. She munches on a bag of chips as if she didn't just experience a great injustice. She's just the one constant at this college of chaos. Today is a day. Not a good one.