Caylee's Confessions (Caylee's Confessions Series) Read Free Page A

focused on.  Something I would never do now, but
that was all I could think about.  When he was a foot from me, I threw up my
stake, putting it into his chest that I had been so heavily concentrating on,
and I felt his body crash into mine.  My head slammed into the cement behind me,
and everything went black.

Chapter 3
Altered
    I
awoke to Kevin screaming my name and shaking my body.  “What…What…” creaked out
of my mouth.  I then, slowly, forced my eyes open and saw all of the book club
members staring at me in shock.  “How long was I out?” I asked.
    “About
ten minutes.”  Kevin laughed.  “Is that really all you’re concerned about?” he
asked, smiling from ear to ear.  “Caylee, you just saved all of our lives…” 
    “I,
what?” I asked as my lovely memories of what just transpired flashed back to
me, and informed me of why I was on the ground.  “What the fuck was that ?” 
I mumbled as I slowly lifted my body to stand.  My head was throbbing from the
knot that had just been placed in the back of my skull.
    “That
was your first vampire killing!” shouted Alice from my left. 
    “So
you weren’t kidding about this not being a book club?” I asked.
    “No,
definitely not,” she said.
    “Well,
that’s good, because I don’t really like reading…”  I said as I tried rubbing
my temples to make the headache go away. 
    “I’m
so sorry, Caylee.  You weren’t supposed to be involved just yet.  I just wanted
you to be there so you would believe.  I underestimated this vampire.  I didn’t
know he was an empyreal.  I would have never brought anyone if I had known,”
Kevin rambled.
    “What
is an empyreal?”  I wanted to know.
    “Yeah,
well, we hadn’t had the time to explain that part, but there are different
kinds of vamps.  This one was one of the worst to face,” Kevin explained.
    “You
can tell by their eyes what kind they are,” Stacy said as she flashed Kevin an
accusing look.  They then enlightened me on how vampires, depending on age and
skill, were ranked.  The lowest rank was the amateur level.  These were freshly
made or born vampires.  They had little skill, but still had super strength,
and other things that were superb to human abilities.  The next levels, in
order of rank, were: rookie, knight, judicial, empyreal, and royal.  Empyreals
and royals were the “top dogs.”  They told me that I should never face an
empyreal alone, and if I ever saw a royal, run the fuck away, as they were near
impossible to kill.
    “I’m
so sorry,” he pleaded to Stacy.  “The lighting had to have been funky. I
thought he was an amateur.  You know I would have never…”
    “She
knows that…” Alice chimed in.
    “It
doesn’t change the fact that my wrist—and now Scott’s arm—is broken,” Stacy
shouted. “It’ll take months before we can go out full-force again.”
    “More
time to train Caylee,” said Scott softly, trying to mediate the situation. 
    “Yes,
Scott is right.  Let’s look at it like that.  This was definitely scary, but we’ll
learn from it.  What a good first kill for Caylee to have on her record.”  She
didn’t bring up the fact that it only happened out of sheer dumb luck, and the
vampire way underestimated me.  But, hey, I was alive and the vampire was not. 
One point for Caylee, zero for the vampire. 
    Things
carried on like this for four years.  They taught me everything there was to
know about undeads.  Like our vows said, we really all did become a family—a
naïve, stupid family, thinking we could remain a large group and successfully
take on the undead.  We trained, studied, and even came up with a sweet hunting
party name: ‘The Dukes.’
    Ultimately,
it wouldn’t matter.  We probably would have been better off to break apart and
hunt on our own, but we thought the group unity made us stronger.  In the end,
it would be our demise. 

Chapter 4
Graduation Present
    It
was the Friday after the day I