Peyton Sammuels was at her last class that day, so she (as everyone else) was paying little to no attention to what the teacher, Ms. Anna, was saying.
Ms. Anna taught 'Basics of Magic', a class only for human students, so right now there weren't any magic users present apart from the teacher herself. She was nice for a witch, Peyton had to admit it, but her class was between her and freedom so she had no choice but despise her.
"...contrary to what media portrays through books, movie and television, magic also has its limits. Doesn't work as a spontaneous source of energy..."
Yeah, yeah: Peyton already knew that. Magic worked as a fast device to convert body energy and nutrients into mechanic energy, and usually said energy was transferred to another body or object. As body sources of energy were finite, also the scope of magic was.
Any magic user who tried to surpass those limits could die.
For the most part, Peyton entertained herself looking between the classroom's clock - expecting to make time run faster with her mind - and her classmates. Doucheb*g (Alexander) was eating from a bag of Doritos, licking from his fingers the remaining powder with his enormous whale-like tongue (gross); Taylor was trying to reach the tip of his nose with his tongue, unsuccessfully (what a silly guy); Travis was playing with some sticky, transparent substance between his fingers, which seemed even more gross; Candy and her friends were passing notes among each other and laughing discreetly, and everyone else seemed to be spacing out or about to fall asleep.
Why hasn't Ms. Anna scolded doucheb*g and everyone else? Maybe she wasn't paid enough for this crap, Peyton thought.
"... I know class is about to finish in five minutes..."
Yes! Hallelujah! God does exist.
"... but I need you to stay a little longer..."
What!? The nerve of this woman! Everyone else in the class suddenly stopped doing whatever they were doing before, starting to complaining and whining to the teacher, including Peyton herself.
"... you'll like this! As everyone should know by now, every year we collect blood samples from the youngest students as a supply to the Blood Of The Innocent. Maybe you cannot understand really the importance of this substance because you aren't magic users, but..."
Yeah, yeah, Peyton also already knew that. The famous Blood Of The Innocent was made with pure blood, a property of every person's blood since birth; however, this quality was usually lost as the person grows older (becoming impure blood), so it was more frequently found on the young, such as kids and pre-teens.
Peyton has heard some horror stories about deranged witches kidnapping and murdering children for their blood. The Blood Of The Innocent was too valuable for various reasons, mainly as a catalyst for any magic potion, so it had a great potential use.
No one was one hundred percent sure on how a person lost his or her blood purity, but there were many hypotheses about it. Some say it's lost if the person has a serious disease, or when said person copulates for the first time, or when a deeply psychological trauma happens. The only thing for sure was that, once the blood purity was lost, it would stay like that forever.
"... so, who wants to donate their blood?"
Silence.
Ms. Anna sighed, resigned.
"Okay, I don't expect you to volunteer for free. I'll give five extra points for the next exam to whoever has pure blood and donates it".
"I'm in" Doucheb*g promptly said, raising his Doritos-dirtied hand.
"Me too" Peyton added.
"Also me" said Travis, raising his free-of-mysterious-substance hand.
"We also want to" said Candy and one of her friends, both raising their hands a little.
There weren't more volunteers, as expected. School bell rang, but no one got out of the classroom: now judgement was about to fall upon the potential blood donors.
"First, I'll need to test each one of you to see if your blood it's still pure".
If one of the volunteers was found to have impure blood, rumors about him or her will start to arise. What would this person be hiding to have lost purity? It was too interesting to miss, and no one dared to ask for privacy at taking the test either: it'd be too suspicious, and an act of public cowardice.
These volunteers were the same from last year and all had pure blood then, so they were pretty confident (kind of). Ms. Anna went out of the room for a little while and came back with the essential tools for the blood test, Taylor getting nervous at the sight of the needle in her hands.
"Won't you volunteer this year either?" Travis asked mockingly.
"N...no, thanks!" Taylor replied, eyeing the needle warily.
"Coward!"
Ms. Anna went first to Alexander, pinched his index finger with the needle, and let a couple of blood drops fall into a blueish liquid. If the blood was pure, said liquid should emit a small amount of hot steam in the next five seconds or less; otherwise, there wouldn't be any reaction.
Ten seconds passed and nothing happened. Some students made amused 'ooohhh' noises, and others snickered.
"What!? It must be a mistake!" Alexander said, panicking "do the test again!"
Ms. Anna severely told him his result was absolute, and he had lost his blood purity. The snickers became full laughter, and murmurs started to flood the classroom.
"Wow, dude. I'm sorry for you" Peyton told him mockingly.
"Don't worry, Alexander. Only for volunteering, I'll give you two extra points for the next exam".
Ms. Anna silenced the room with a simple command, but the damage was done. Alexander was humiliated and confused: when did he lose his blood purity? he didn't feel anything changed from the last time he took the test, this was unfair!
Next one in taking the test was Peyton, and she passed. She let out a relieved sigh she didn't know she was holding, and the teacher told her to meet her after to take her blood samples.
The third one was Travis, who put on a fake front of bravery, but honestly he was one step away from retracting. At seeing his friend Alexander getting humiliated he wasn't so confident about his blood purity anymore, but there was no way back. Fortunately, he passed the test and almost let out a shout of relief.
As Ms. Anna was approaching Candy and her friend, the first one hurriedly said she didn't want to take the test anymore.
"I'm feeling a little weak, maybe I need to eat something" She anxiously explained.
Truth was, Candy got scared at seeing Alexander fail the test, so she made up an excuse to not take it. She couldn't lose her reputation over this, no way.
Her friend, at seeing Candy backing out, also made up an excuse to not take the test. Ms. Anna looked a little dejected at this but didn't say anything. At this rate, they wouldn't get enough blood samples for the Blood Of The Innocent this semester; what a problem.
Peyton and Travis followed Ms. Anna to the infirmary to take the blood samples, leaving behind an ashamed Alexander who (surely) would be fiercely mocked as soon as the teacher went away.
After Peyton gave her blood, she was offered a snack to recuperate some sugar and to avoid fainting. She was short of time to get to her club, which was one of the few worthwhile things in the school.
She got a big surprise at seeing little chicken (Bianca) there.
"Hi, Peyton. You're a little later than usual" one of the members greeted her.
"Oh, yeah. I was donating my blood".
A curious look crossed Bianca's face at hearing Peyton, but didn't say anything.
"What's she doing here?" Peyton kind-of rudely asked, pointing at the other girl.
"You know her? Mr. Finn insisted in her joining a club. She's been quiet and doing nothing, it's so creepy".
Peyton nodded and sat in her usual spot. She did notice everyone was keeping their distance from the hybrid, but pretended not to and kept acting as usual; if little chicken wanted to act like a stuck up b*tch, she wasn't going to stop her.
She knew from Dereck how she's been behaving these past couple of months, and didn't like it one bit. He was a fresh breath of sun in this madhouse and didn't deserve that kind of treatment from anyone.