During the morning time, before having his breakfast, Conner made his way towards the university's infirmary. He had been waiting to see the file since yesterday's dinner, and when he reached the building, he headed towards the main office. He wanted to confirm something, and he couldn't rest until it was clarified.

  Reaching one of the rooms, he noticed Olivia was already in here. On seeing him, she greeted him with a polite smile,

  "Good morning, Conner."

  "Good morning, Olivia," the curly brown-haired boy greeted her back. This senior girl was usually unapproachable because of the icy vibes to people. "Sorry to be bothering you this early in the morning. I was wondering if I could take a look at the thing that I mentioned to you last evening." He looked around the place, noticing doctor Isolde wasn't here yet, and this was an opportune moment, thought Conner to himself.

  Olivia gave a nod, "Let me get the file. Would you like to take a seat?" she offered him, but Conner shook his head.

  "No, I am good."

  The vampiress knew that the human had sniffed something to be amiss, which was why he was here. Everyone who had been at the table had caught on to it, as Conner hadn't been subtle with his question, and it only showed that he was an immature hunter. But the more important concern was if the multiple compulsion on his mind had started to crack and if the sealed memories were seeping back into his current state of mind.

  She made her way to the drawers, pulling them out one by one even though she knew exactly where the girl named Reese' file was present. She finally pulled the right drawer while also deciding to ask him,

  "What are you particularly looking for?" she asked him.

  "Just the cause of death. I recently realized I was never clear on it," replied Conner, unaware of the fact that the person he was with right now was a vampire. Olivia brought the file to Conner, handing it to him and noticing how his eyes eagerly tried to read and gather all the information that was written in it, which clearly mentioned that the sudden death was because of her heart condition. "Does the infirmary take any pictures?"

  Olivia shook her head, "Veteris doesn't deal with the procedures like the morgue work. We only fill in the details of the cause of what happened before handing the bodies to the parents or relatives of the deceased."

  "I see," replied Conner.

  He couldn't help but wonder if his mind had been playing tricks. The more time passed, the more vivid the image in his mind turned out to be of his ex-girlfriend covered in blood. If a person had passed away because of her weak heart issues, why would he be seeing these images?

  "Is everything alright, Conner? You seem to be worried about something," Olivia pointed out while hoping to get some information. With the way he was alert, she could only guess that he had consumed Silverwater. Which was why compelling him to get answers wasn't going to work here.

  Conner offered a smile, "It's nothing. It was just me being curious. Thank you for letting me take a look at the document."

  "Anytime," replied Olivia, watching the human starting to walk away from the room. Before he could leave, she said, "You know, if you are still troubled with the loss of her, you can always talk to Mr. Evans. Sometimes no matter how much we grieve it is never enough and the hole in the chest stays."

  He smiled at her words, thankful, "I will pay him a visit," and he left the room.

  The doctor finally stepped out of another room, and she looked at Olivia, "You cannot protect people if the human mind is breaking where the compulsion won't work. Is he the hunter's son they have been speaking about?"

  Snooping around for answers was not good for Conner, and it could warrant him not dungeon time but death. All these years, Olivia had spent her time in the close circle of her vampire friends, and this was the first time she was looking for a student human, only so that Veteris wouldn't have another death. Sometimes, death was like an infection that could spread and turn the entire place into a graveyard. She was only trying to avoid it.

  "Can you not tell it to Dante or anyone about it?" Olivia requested Isolde.

  "I will let it pass this once, but if it repeats, I will have to let them know. You know that right?" Isolde reminded Olivia, to which the younger vampiress nodded.

  "I understand."

  Outside the infirmary building, where Conner had started to walk, he caught sight of a male student staring into one of the female's eyes and whispering something to her. The male student then pulled the girl to an isolated spot. To Conner right now, everything that moved and breathed was suspicious, and his eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration. On seeing the male student hold the girl's neck and tilt it, his eyes widened, and he quickly dashed to the place.

  Discreetly pulling out the wooden stake from his hoodie, his hand tightened around it. When he reached there, intruding on the couple's space, the couple stared at him.

  "What do you want?" asked the male student, and the girl looked equally annoyed.

  "Scram away from here. Don't you see we are having some time for ourselves?" asked the girl, and Conner realized that people under compulsion didn't behave like this.

  Letting go of the stake that he had been holding, which was hidden in the front pocket of his hoodie, Conner apologized, "Ah, I am sorry about that. I came here by mistake."

  "What a weirdo," Conner heard the girl comment when he started to leave the place.

  Conner ran his hands through his hair with slight frustration. Maybe there were no vampires in Veteris, he thought in his mind. He made his way to the lunchroom, where Melanie and Julie had already reached and were waiting for him.

  "Sorry, I am late," apologized Conner when he caught up to where his friends were.

  "Did you sleep late last night?" asked Melanie before they started to head towards the counter to collect their meals.

  "Just got caught up with something. Was a false alarm," replied Conner, and though he tried to behave nonchalant about it, both Julie and Melanie were aware of what their friend was up to. On receiving looks from both the girls, he asked, "What happened?"

  "Don't get unnecessarily caught, Conner," Melanie pursed her lips.

  Conner grinned, "There's no one to catch me or you, Mel. That is if this place is truly lacking in the things that we need to worry about." He quickly turned to Julie and asked, "Did Mel tell you about our special weekend?"

  He was asking if she knew about them being hunters and her knowledge of the existence of vampires, and Julie nodded.

  "Must have been a shock, isn't it? Melanie and I went in shock too and we thought our parents were making up stuff. That is until we saw them with our own eyes," he explained.

  Julie, who had known it way longer than they did, she just agreed so that to Conner, it looked like she was in shock.

  "It was surprising when I found out about it," replied Julie, without lying too much and keeping her words to be vague. "We should be careful and lay low, Conner. We never know when we might be in danger."

  "You don't have to worry, Julie. We are learning the art of combat, and I downloaded a bunch of videos, it is only a matter of time that I am able to kick a vamp—"

  Melanie kicked Conner's shoe so that he wouldn't continue with his words, "Let us discuss this later and have our meal peacefully."

  But upon the word peace, when it was their turn to get the food in line, they heard some of the students whispering to each other.

  "……maybe not."

  "It is hard to know if they are going out, considering how he is," said one of the students.

  "Looks like every male in the famous five have partners now. What a shame that we couldn't even snag one of them," murmured one of the girls and left the spot.

  Julie, who hadn't been up to date with her friends, asked Melaine, "Do you know what they were talking about?"

  Melanie waved her hand as if not wanting to talk about it. At the same time, Conner held an unreadable expression on his face while watching the students who had just spoken about the possible relationship of someone. Even though Conner had never seen his best friend romantically involved until now, he couldn't help but feel a little irritated.

  He replied to Julie, "I don't know. Only Mel can tell us," he said.

  "It's nothing big. For some reason, people decided that I was Simon's girlfriend. You know how rumors spread in here," replied Melanie, putting an end to the matter.

  Now that Julie thought about it, Melanie had found out about vampires through Simon. Was it possible that Simon had purposely made a slip up in front of her friend so that he could gauge her reaction.

  When they went and sat at the table, Roman and his friends arrived after a few minutes, joining them. Somewhere while getting more food or juice from the counter, it happened that Simon had taken the opportunity to come and occupy the free seat next to Melanie.

  "Did you think about my offer?" questioned Simon in a low voice.

  "I already refused it," came the clipped answer. She turned to look in the direction Conner was talking to Maximus.

  "Why?" came the dull question next. Catching the way her eyes darted to look at Conner, he said, "He's not going to think anything bad about you talking to a male. After all, he sees you only as your friend."

  Melanie didn't respond to Simon, as if every word that left her lips only fueled the vampire to annoy her even more. She tried to ignore him, feeling his gaze on her. "I am just being a kind and helpful person. Why is it so hard for you to believe?"

  Clutching on the spoon, Melanie finally spoke, "Thank you for your help, but I don't need it."

  "Finally she speaks. What, lonely ten seconds they were," chimed Simon, and when he received silence, he said, "How about I do it right here?"

  Melanie didn't know what Simon was talking about, but she decided to take her meal from the table. Just when she was about to stand up, Simon spoke to the people who were at their table,

  "I wanted to clear up a rumor that has been going around lately. About me and Melanie," he smiled before saying, "There's nothing as such going on."

  "What is he doing?" murmured Maximus in a low voice.

  "Who knows," replied Olivia, and she continued to chew her food.

  Victoria replied to Simon's words, "I don't think anyone here is interested to know if there is something going on or not."

  "Oh, you would be surprised, "Simon grinned before his eyes fell on Melanie, and she felt slight dread starting to sink in her. "It would be troublesome for Melanie, after all, the person whom she is in love with, would misunderstand it."

  "Stop," whispered Melanie, but Simon showed no signs of stopping. Her face and hands turned pale.

  Simon leaned towards her and said, "How long do you plan to keep those one-sided feelings?" He then went back to his seat and said, "The person Melanie likes is Conner, and not me."

  Melanie couldn't look at Conner because her face had turned red. It was hard to tell if it was because of embarrassment or her anger. When Simon turned back to look at Melanie, he said,

  "Now you don—"

  SLAP!