Chapter 278 Controlling emotions
The students had a better sleep they did when comparing to the whole time they had spent at school. They were exhausted from the trip and more than they realised both mentally as well as physically. Although a lot of them didn’t like the military school they had to admit it was nice to be back here. In terms of danger, it’s one of the safest places they could be right now.
Late last night a message was sent out to all of the students stating that their morning classes had been cancelled. At the same time, in the afternoon, they would be required to return to their homeroom classes.
Before anything else, Quinn decided to make a stop just outside the girl’s dorm and was currently standing outside Layla’s room. He had travelled there the early morning the second he was able to leave his room. It seemed like no one else had woken up yet.
A knock was made, and he patiently waited until a drowsy looking Layla had answered the door. She was standing there by the doorway rubbing her eyes with her short pink pyjama bottoms and a shirt that didn’t have the top three buttons done up. It looked as if the shirt was barely hanging onto her, as the top of her shoulders could be seen.
"Who’s here so early in the morning?" She said as she finally stopped rubbing her eyes." Quinn?... Wait! Quinn!" She shouted.
Quickly, Layla grabbed her shirt doing her buttons up as her face had gone bright red. If she knew who was coming to the door, she would have been better dressed then this, but it was too late, and Quinn had already seen her.
Regaining her composure, she wanted to redirect the attention back towards Quinn. "Do you need something, it must be important if you came this early?" When asking the question, she took a look at his face.
Noticing that while she was flustered and worried about the situation, it hadn’t affected Quinn at all. He didn’t feel embarrassed by what he had just seen, and the situation seemed to only be awkward for her.
’I didn’t realise I was that unattractive.’ She thought.
Although that wasn’t the case at all. When Quinn had first seen her at the door, the first thing he thought was she had quite a nice body, showing more skin then he should have been able to have seen.
The problem was, ever since turning into a full vampire, even though the feelings were there, it was as if they felt suppressed. They didn’t show out on the surface. There were a few times this happened to him before, such as when he was scared.
For certain situations, he thought it was quite helpful. When going through the whole ordeal with Peter, and seeing him eat the human flesh, he believed it was the only thing that had gotten him through it. Otherwise, he might have never been able to sleep again.
The other situation where it had helped was during fights.
Before when fighting as a human, the adrenaline would get to him. His hands and body would start trembling before the fight had even begun. Still, just as some feelings were suppressed others seemed to be amplified, and one of these feelings was anger.
There were a few occasions when he felt like this feeling had wholly consumed him and taken over. Of course, he had this happen as a human. When one was so angry, they didn’t even know what they were doing, and their body acted before they did. Only now these angry episodes seemed to be happening more often.
Things that wouldn’t have bothered him so much was starting to grate on him. Like the shop keeper, and when Cia had stabbed him with her spirit spear.
Peeking his head slightly through the door, he started to look around if he could see Cia. In the room, he could see a bundle of quilts all rolled up and a person inside fast asleep.
"Did she do anything to you last night?" Quinn whispered.
Layla then walked forward and closed the door slightly behind her as she shook her head.
"We didn’t speak much before she was a team member. Honestly, it’s pretty much the same as she said before. We still talk to each other casually, but didn’t say anything about what happened on the trip at all."
Hearing this, Quinn didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing, was she just trying to pretend everything didn’t happen?
"If you don’t mind," Quinn asked. "Would you be able to get her to come here now, say I need to speak to her about something."
"I can try", Layla said.
Layla walked up to Cia’s bed and planned to try to gently wake her up by rolling her backwards and forwards, but when she was just a few steps away from the bed, Cia said...
"I’m awake, you don’t have to wake me up." She took the quilt off and sat upright. Unlike Layla, she was already in her military uniform rather than her pyjamas. She then looked Layla in the eyes.
"It’s one of your friends, right?" She said. "I’ll speak to them, but please... come with me." When saying these words, Layla could feel they were genuine, and there was a slight fear in them; it was a normal reaction after what she had seen.
When getting off the bed and walking towards the door, without asking, she forcefully grabbed Layla’s hand. She practically dragged her with her to the door.
Quinn could see the two of them holding hands and didn’t know quite what to make of it.
"I was wondering which one of you they would send to come to talk to me." Cia said. "But I guess it would make sense for the so-called leader they all follow, to come to speak to me."
"Leader?" Quinn replied strangely. He never saw himself as the leader of the group. That position, he felt like belonged more to either Vorden or Logan. They were the ones making the decisions most of the time.
The reason why Cia had come to this conclusion was it seemed like whenever they were planning stuff or talking. Everyone in the group would always naturally ask Quinn for confirmation. It was as if Quinn didn’t agree with it, then they wouldn’t go through with it.
Even if he didn’t feel that way, it was clear he was the natural leader of their group.
Ignoring what had just been said, Quinn decided to continue with what he wanted to do. He wasted no time and immediately activated his influence skill.
Once again, Cia could see the person’s eyes in front of her glow red, only this time, something was drawing her in as her mind seemed to drift away.
Noticing what was happening, She clenched her left fist hard and was free while the other hand was holding onto Layla.
While Quinn was in the middle of using his skill, he could suddenly smell something sweet.
’Is that blood?’
The drifting feeling was no longer felt, and Cia’s mind was back where it was once again. When looking towards the direction of the smell, Quinn noticed that Cia’s hand was dripping blood. She had managed to dig her own fingernails into the palm of her hand to cause an immense amount of pain. Redirecting her mind somewhere else, causing his skill to fail.
The action didn’t go unnoticed, and even Layla was impressed. One would have to have an extreme will power to be able to hurt themselves to the point where they would bleed. The normal reaction for a human was to not hurt itself. Even the agents at Pure would struggle to do something like this.
"Again you guys tried doing something to me", she said as she backed away, now clenching Layla’s hand even tighter. "Look, if it’s about what I saw, I won’t say anything. I don’t know why you are hiding your abilities and your power. The only thing I will say to you is, don’t threaten me.
"I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not like people you have met before. Remember I’m keeping your secret. So if I need a favour from you guys. I’ll be coming to you." With that Cia slammed the door shut and Quinn was unable to get the last word in.
"Maybe it didn’t work now, but I felt something", he said. Quinn could feel that it started to work, but her mind was just a little too strong as she was able to resist his charm skills. If he was to get his Charm points over thirty, he was confident he could remove her memory.
Cia hadn’t told their secret so far, even though there were plenty of opportunities, for now, he would just have to keep an eye on her and trust Layla to make sure she didn’t say anything. Still, he would prepare himself for a plan B.
Inside the room, Cia’s heart was beating at an incredible rate, and Layla could feel and see this too. She was wondering why it seemed like Cia trusted her so much. She was just a part of Quinn’s group as much as anyone else.
Cia then looked over at Layla and gave a big smile.
’Do you not even think of me as part of Quinn’s team?’ Layla thought.
With the first Job on Quinn’s list done, there were a few more things, he wanted to take a look at. In his hand right now was the blue crystal that he had obtained from the tunnel from below. He was sure Logan would be interested in such a thing, but there was a second reason he wanted to visit Logan as well.
To see and test out the detail of the new skill he had obtained, Shadow eater.
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