Chapter 23
Layla had grown up her whole life reading fantasy stories and comics about all sorts of things. Before the whole war started, her father used to work as a writer, so her home was filled with books and stories and her favourite ones were always about vampires.
She loved everything about them, how they had to keep their identity secret to the world, the super-strength they had, the super speed and the fact that they could live on nearly forever.
When Abilities were realised to the world, it made fantasy stories a thing of the past. Many people read stories because they were that, fantasy. It allowed them to imagine doing something that they could never do but now that humans actually had special powers, what was the point?
However, the love for Vampires never died down for Layla, it only grew. If abilities exited then that meant somewhere out their maybe vampires did too. When she saw Quinn’s actions, she had already convinced herself that he was a vampire.
Quinn was right when he thought a normal person wouldn’t have come to the same conclusion but that’s was because Layla wasn’t a normal person.
Layla then suddenly got out of her seat and started to bow down to Quinn on her knees. The students in the room although couldn’t hear their conversation, couldn’t help but look at them.
“Please, I’ll do anything for you,” Layla said.
“Alright, I understand please get up,” Quinn said.
The two of them sat down at their seats again, before Quinn started to speak, he let out a big sigh, thinking about how he was going to explain this to her.
“It’s not what you think,” Quinn said, “I’m not a vampire, I became like this from an Ability book.”
Suddenly the smile on Layal’s face disappeared.
“You know what that means right?” Quinn asked.
Layla nodded. Quinn was basically telling her it was impossible for him to give her this ability. The reason was a human body could only activate one ability. When learning an ability, it mutated the genes inside of your body but once your genes had been mutated, they could no longer change or add a second mutation.
Because Layla already had the ability of telekinesis, it meant Layla was unable to learn a second ability.
“Then why did you hide this from the academy, why did you tell them you had no ability. If you got this from an ability book you can’t be an original?”
“Have you ever heard of an ability like this?” Quinn asked.
Layla thought about for a while and realised there was nothing quite like it. There was never a record of an ability requiring someone to drink blood.
“But if you told the school you got it from an ability book, one that’s not even been registered and you aren’t an original, you could make a fortune selling the book!” Layla said excitedly.
“I wish that was true but I can’t do that either,” Quinn explained. “When I learnt the ability the book simply vanished.”
Layla was debating whether Quinn was telling the truth or not but she had no choice but to believe him. It was the only explanation of why Quinn was so adamant in hiding his ability. Ability books didn’t just vanish they were books. They could be passed on for others to learn.
If people found out about this, multiple companies and the military would put immense pressure on Quinn to share the ability with the world and with no powerful family backing him, Layla couldn’t imagine what would be done to him.
They would never believe him if he said he got it from an ability book and it disappeared.
Quinn then proceeded to tell Layla about everything that had happened so far. About how his ability was a game, like a system and it had given him strange quests and he could unlock skills. It was nothing like the Vampire stories Layla used to read but at the same time, it seemed like the system was applying similar rules.
“Fine, I will keep this as a secret but only on one condition. I want you to help you out.” Layla said. “Clearly you don’t know much about this thing, so much so that you had gone out of control and bit me in the neck. We can’t have you going around school biting people. They’ll take you away in a heartbeat. If you need to feast on someone, then feast on me.” Layla said placing her hand on herself.
Quinn started to think about the situation, having Layla as a helper was a big advantage. Quinn himself wanted to test multiple things about the system and here he had someone offering to help for free.
And it truly felt like Layla was telling the truth. Not only that but Layla seemed to be more knowledgeable about vampires then himself. Perhaps she would even be able to help him in his research.
“It’s a deal,” Quinn said as the two of them shook hands.
Layla was happy that Quinn had accepted. The truth was Layla still hadn’t given up the idea of being a Vampire. Unlike Quinn, Layla wasn’t too sure that what Quinn had was an ability in the first place. An ability was usually a specific set of skills but Quinn had completely changed as if he was no longer human.
“Alright, the first thing is first, you going to need to take some of my blood.” Layla said, “That way if you’re getting hungry again, you can drink some of that.
Layla then pulled down her shirt slightly and started to show her neck towards Quinn.
“What are you thinking, we can’t do it here in front of the library and I’m not just going to bite into your neck.”
As the two continued to talk and chat about things in the library about what to do next.
Vorden had entered the library and could see Quinn talking to Layla, both chatting and smiling away.
“So you’ve forgotten about me that quickly huh,” Vorden said, “You’re just like the rest of them, I’ll show you what it means to betray me Quinn. If people are going to call me a monster, then I might as well embrace it and become one.”