Zolok

Danger looms

Chapter 7: Danger Looms

For a long while it seemed Sean had forgotten all about Neemah and James but that was far from the truth. He had eyes on every move he made and had been taking his time to plan a perfect and flawless execution. One mistake could mean a war he wasn’t prepared to go into considering the fact that he may not be getting the support of the elders to go into war. It was on a mutual agreement between the vampire elders and the Nimron government that they would cause no form of violence or harm to the inhabitants of Nimron as this would only mean that they would no longer be allowed into the town. Sean had seen the forthcoming competition as an opportunity to attack but needed to make it look like an accident. His reluctance had been the ignorance of the flaws of James and what could bring him down. He needed to know how powerful he was and be certain of what he was coming up against. He had his spies around the town working in every important sector of the government. One of those spies was Alicia who he had sent to win James’ heart in order to know his secrets and possibly get him to tell her what could subdue or kill him. James had never had a girlfriend because he felt no one would love a freak and consequently, he was always seen alone or with Danny.

Alicia had been trying to get James’ attention for quite a long while without success. She would sometimes jump her seat to sit close to James who had always noticed she’s been seeking his attention but because he wasn’t always very outspoken, he would always avoid her. After classes the following day, everyone was moving out of the class to get home, Alicia deliberately bumped into James who wasn’t concentrating and dropped her books in the process and made it look like it was a mistake. As James bent over to pick up the books, she bent as well to grab the book, looked right into his eyes and gave him a warm smile. James hesitated a little but eventually smiled back at her.

“Oh here, sorry I didn’t see you coming” James said as he handed the books over to her.

“Oh no no no, I should apologize instead…should have looked where I was going. Thank you so much” Alicia said as she took the book from James. He nodded and turned to walk away but Alicia called his attention back.

“If you don’t mind, I didn’t get your name. I’m Alicia Bowen” she said.

“James McCall.” James replied.

“You seem to be in a hurry to somewhere.” Alicia said to James.

“Not exactly, my friend is waiting for my by the lobby. I don’t wanna keep him waiting” James replied to her with hope she would buy that and let him go as he became uncomfortable with people staring at them. He wanted to disappear from her presence at once.

“Well, I’m leaving as well, we can both meet him at the lobby if that’s okay with you” Alicia said to him as she tilted her head in expectance of James’ reply.

“No, no problem”. James said as he feigned a smile.

“Shall we?” Alicia asked as she led the way to the lobby. As they approached the lobby, Danny saw them and opened his mouth in bewilderment seeing James walk together with a lady for the first time. James noticed his friend’s reaction and gave him a look that he would kill him if he misbehaved.

“Um, this is Danny, my friend. Danny, Alicia”. James said as he tried to keep the introduction as simple as he could.

“Hello beautiful, I’m not just his best friend, I’m also his brother. He is such an amazing guy. You should have seen him yesterday, he finished a 100m race in 8 seconds. You got to love this guy, he can do many amazing stuff…….” Danny was still speaking when James gave him a sign that he should stop talking.

"I love your friend, he's a cool guy" Alicia said as he smiled.

“I’m sorry but we need to go” James said as he dragged Danny away before Alicia could even say a word.

“Will I see you again, James?” Alicia shouted as she watched them go away.

“I hope not” James said with a very low voice almost to himself but not to Alicia’s hearing.

“Dude, what did you just do?. You walked out on the hottest girl in college, Alicia Bowen. Do you know how long the rich and famous Jack has been tailing this babe. Oh come on, you can’t be serious!” Danny said to James in disappointment that he could actually turn down a once in a lifetime opportunity.

“You are welcome to have her, I’m not interested in the hottest babe in college. I don’t want to be in the spotlight at all times”. James replied.

Allison has been stalking James as instructed by Jack. After his heroics at the training session the other day, Jack had been very much concerned and had asked Allison to keep an eye on him. When Allison got to Jack’s place and told him about Alicia and James and how they looked like they were in love; he exaggerated the whole scenario and even told Jack they were kissing at the school’s lobby and everyone was watching. This was too much for Jack to bear as he was so infuriated. He immediately became restless and stood up from where he sat. One could see the hard veins in his face as he was breathing profusely like someone who was being chased by something.

“This is as much as I can take this. I can’t just sit here and watch a nobody take away all I have within a short space of time.” Jack said as he walked from one end of his living room to another.

“If you’re going to do something about this, I suggest you do it now before it gets out of hand, definitely before the tournaments.” Allison said.

“I’m going to make sure he’ll have no legs to train with let alone participate in the tournaments.” Jack said with an angry tone.

Jack came to school the next day and decided that in order to really know who James was, he was going to give him so much troubles. It was on the Thursday morning, the day before the scheduled training session. After the end of classes for the day, Jack and Allison waited for James by the alley where no one could see them or hear whatever they had to tell him.

"You the guy that's been giving me sleepless nights, huh?" Jack asked James as he drew closer to where he was.

"Excuse me, do I know you? Please I want no troubles with you" James said as he took few steps back.

"The moment you called for that trouble was the day you stepped your feet into this college and the moment you decided to hang around my girlfriend" Jack said as he pulled out a gun from his back and pointed it at James and Danny.

"What girl are you talking about" James said as he maintained his innocence.

"Today's gonna be your lucky day but you won't be so lucky if you refuse to listen to what I have to tell you right now. I don't ever wanna see you around Alicia Bowen and I don't want to see you at the training grounds or the tournaments. If you know how you managed to be insignificant all this while, I suggest you find a way to remain that way because things are about to get very ugly for you." Jack said with the gun still pointed at James.

"I have nothing to do with your girlfriend but I'm sorry to disappoint you, I have decided to be at the tournaments and I'm going to prepare very well for it. James said as he tried to walk away even while Jack still pointed a gun at him. He never felt any kind of fear neither was he worried about the threats being made against him. Jack was so surprised and angry. He felt insulted and belittled that he shot James multiple times and he fell to the ground.

"That's for all the troubles you've ever caused me" Jack said as he turned to Danny to shoot him as well, just then the police arrived at the scene having heard the sound of gunshots. Jack and Allison had to run and leave both Danny and James behind. The police went after them but eventually lost them. Danny ran to where James had fallen and he broke into tears thinking that his friend had died. Just then, James rose up and not even a scratch was on his body.

“Are you okay, Son?” The first officer asked to make sure James was alright.

"I'm good, sir" James replied as he stood to his feet. Danny still could not believe what he was seeing because he was pretty sure no one could survive such multiple shots, let alone have no marks on the body.

"Alright, I need you both to be off the streets and get going, I'm sorry about all that and we'll get those that attacked you but first we need to bring you in for questioning to enable us to narrow out the search for the culprits. They both followed the police men to the station and gave them all the necessary information they needed before returning home.

“Do you want to tell me what exactly happened back there or are we gonna keep pretending that nothing happened.” Danny asked James as he spoke for the first time since the incident.

"I don't know what happened, but I feel good. Never better!" James said as he smiled at Danny.

"Seriously? I'm not stupid. I saw you get shot multiple times, there's no way in hell anyone could have survived that without even a scratch."

"I have special powers and I can do a lot of things. But I need you to keep this between us" James said as he brought out a knife and gave himself a cut, he bled but healed immediately.

"Wow!,l How the f**k are you doing that?" Danny asked in amazement.

"I wanna show you something, but I need to make sure no one is watching. follow me!" James said as he took Danny to a hidden area and pulled up his beast mode. He had claws, Reddish eyes and evolved into a half wolf and a half human. He grew bigger than his normal size but Danny was frightened by such looks that he ran off. James immediately switched to his human form and ran after him.

"Danny, wait up. I'm not gonna hurt you!" James shouted as he went after Danny, but Danny refused to stop and ran so fast that he didn't see a waste bin and crashed into it. He fell to the ground and before he could get back up, James had already held him down.

"Get off me! Get off me! Somebody help! Somebody help!" Danny kept shouting till James put his hands over Danny's mouth to stop him from shouting.

"Hey, hey. Danny, it's me and I'm not gonna hurt you. You're my friend. See? This is exactly why I didn't want to tell you of this in the first place. I knew you would be frightened. Please don't shout, I'm going to let you go right now" James said as he slowly removed his hands and stood up.

"What are you?" Danny asked still frightened.

"I'm The Zolok" James said as he smiled at him.

"What the f**k is The Zolok" Danny asked as he stood up from the ground.

"A superhuman, greater than the werewolves and vampires combined. Better than a hybrid!" James said.

"Were you bitten? How long have you been this way?" Danny asked.

"I was born this way dude...Been this way all along just discovered it and it's supercool. Walk faster, we're running late. I don't want my mum to be worried" James said as he walked faster.