Chapter 8
After school, the evening passed by slowly. I just hoped that my mom was actually asleep behind her shut bedroom door and not waiting for me to try anything. Walking out of my room, I crept across the hallway and listened for sounds coming from my mom’s bedroom. Not hearing anything, I looked underneath her door. Her light was off, so I took that as a sign that she was asleep.
I sent Taylor a text message and let her know that I would meet the team at the end of my block in ten minutes. After getting dressed, I snuck down the stairs and out the backdoor. Outside I opened the trunk of my car to get my katana just in case I needed it for our information gathering trip. Closing the trunk quietly, I glanced up at the house to make sure that her light was still off.
The coast was clear, so I quickly started walking down the sidewalk. Luckily Taylor’s car was waiting at the corner of my street. She had already picked up Lucas, so I climbed into the backseat.
“What about everyone else?” I asked them.
“They are meeting us at the park,” Lucas explained.
I nodded in acknowledgement and Taylor drove off toward the park. When we pulled up to park, the other guys were already there waiting for us.
“You guys ready?” Kyle asked as we get out of the car.
“I am,” I told him. “Should one us jog the trail as a decoy?”
“It would probably be our best bet,” Lucas said.
“I’ll do it,” I volunteered.
We all started to get prepared for our hunting trip, and I handed my katana to Taylor to hang onto for me. Bidding them goodbye, I walked toward the most recent trail that we had heard people were being abducted from. Just as I was about to enter the trail, someone tapped me on my shoulder. I stopped and turned around to see Nick standing there looking unsure.
“Be careful,” he finally said to me after a few seconds.
“I will,” I told him, giving him a confused look and making eye contact with him.
One of our teammates cleared their throat, and the staring match we had going on ended. I turned back to jog down the path.
Even though it was already dark out, I could still see because thankfully there were light poles every ten to fifteen feet to keep the path lit for night runners. I started with a light jog because I didn’t know how long I would be running before any vampires would come out or if there were any out at all. On my way, I passed a small group of joggers that nodded greetings to me.
Jogging another quarter of a mile, I reached a bench. Deciding to take a break, I stopped and pretended to be stretching. I had a feeling that something was about to happen because I could sense that a vampire was near.
I felt like I was being watched, so to keep with appearances I continued to stretch. As I finished, I turned around. Surprised, I found a female vampire standing a few feet behind me.
“Hi,” I said to her, trying to act like I didn’t know what she was. “Can I help you?”
“Oh yes,” she told with a purr in her voice.
“Are you lost or something?” I asked, playing dumb.
She smiled at me and stepped even closer until she was only about a foot from me. I should have been afraid, but it was hard to be afraid of someone who was around my size and looked no older than me. Besides, I did have an advantage over her. She didn’t know that I knew she was a vampire.
“No, I am exactly where I need to be.”
“Okay, well it’s nice to meet you,” I told her. “I am going to finish my run now.”
When she just stared at me and didn’t do or say anything else, I started to turn away. Almost immediately she grabbed my arm.
“You aren’t leaving yet,” she said with a hiss.
“Seriously?” I asked her and punched her in the throat.
She was taken by surprise when I hit her, and even though she was stronger than me, she still stumbled back a few steps.
“That was not very nice,” she said and pounced at me.
Before she could attack me, she was tackled to the ground by Nick. He managed to hold her in place while the boys started to tie her up with a rope that they had brought with them. After she was secure, we sat her up so that we could question her.
“Look, we just have a few questions for you,” I told her loudly.
In response, she just started thrashing and hissing. We had to kill her quickly or get her to talk to us. The ropes would not hold her for long if she kept on moving so violently.
I walked up to her and punched her in the face. “If you stop and cooperate, we will let you go free.”
That got her attention. “You are hunters. You will not let me free,” she said doubtfully.
“Usually we wouldn’t even consider letting you live, and you already would be dead,” Nick told her, “but we have some questions we need answered.”
Looking at Nick, she paused for a minute. “You are one of us. Why are you working with these humans?”
"Just because my father was one of you,” he spoke lowly to her, “does not mean that I am one of you. Besides, you aren’t one of us anyway. You are just a low rank, made vampire.”
The vampire’s fangs came out, and she hissed at him. The rest of us were surprised by what Nick said. We all knew there were made vampires and born vampires, but we had no idea that one kind looked down upon the other.
“We want to know about a girl who was taken a few days ago,” Nick told her, slowly pacing around her.
“I am sure she was just taken for food and is already dead.”
My temper got the best of me and I sent my fist into her right cheek, sending her face to the left.
“Look, bitch, if you know something you better tell us.” I walked over and took the katana from Ben who was holding mine for me. She just looked at me, so I waved my weapon in her face. “Start talking or I will kill you now.”
She just stared at me, so I brought my weapon up and started to bring it down on her.
“Okay, okay!” she screamed, stopping me.
“Okay, what do you know?”
“I just know that my Master is angry that someone is back in the city, so he kidnapped his daughter.”
“Okay, so what are the plans for the girl?” Taylor piped in.
“If the girl’s father does not come and surrender, the girl will either be fully turned into a vampire, or she will be killed.”
“Has your boss figured out that he has the wrong girl?” I asked this time.
“Wrong girl?” the vampire asked.
I rolled my eyes at her. “The father of the girl your people have, has been here for years.”
“What do you mean fully changed?” Nick cut in. He’d caught on to something that the rest of us hadn’t. “Have they done something to her already?”
“From what I have been told,” the vampire paused, “the girl already has vampire blood in her.”
“Great, so we need to find the father of a girl that has vampire blood and give him to these people so that we can get Sam back?” Lucas questioned the rest of us.
“Seriously, maybe we should find out where they are holding her and just go in and get her,” I told the rest of the team.
Everyone, including our captive vampire, turned to look at me like I had lost my mind.
“Do you guys have any other ideas?”
Everyone shook their heads, and we all turned back to the vampire that was still tied up.
“Where are they holding her?” Kyle asked.
“My Master has a home in the city they are keeping her in.”
We questioned the vampire longer, but she did not know the house that they were holding Sam in. We also learned that apparently this vampire’s Master had a deal with some guy that he was to leave town, and he would leave his daughter alone. But since he returned to town, the Master’s lackeys kidnapped the person they thought was the daughter until the guy contacts them.
It just sounded crazy to me and kind of like the vampires were in the
mob or something. Now we had to either find out who they wanted or figure out how to get Sam away from them.
True to our word, we started to leave and let the vampire live. We left her tied up, and since she was a vampire, she would be out of the ropes the minute we walked off. As we started to walk back down the trail, I turned to give the vampire one last look to see if she was still tied up when she pounced at me. I couldn’t believe she was trying to attack me with all of us around. But in the five seconds it took for me to form that thought, Nick was already there. He took her head clean off with his sword.
Now that the vampire was gone, we didn’t have to worry about her anymore. It was now around midnight, and I figured we should get to our homes before one of us was busted for sneaking out. With the lockdown that we had been under by our parents and the organization, we could be in a lot of trouble.
“So what do we do next?” I asked the others as we got further down the path away from where we had killed the vampire.
“I don’t think you guys will be doing anything else,” John’s voice was heard ahead of us.
We all looked as my mother and John walked out onto the path from the tree line.
“Wow,” I said clearly not in control of my mouth. “Fancy meeting you guys here.” If looks could kill, the look that my mother gave me would have killed me where I was standing. “Are you guys out for a jog like we are?”
“What in the hell are you thinking?” my mom yelled at me. “I told you that we would handle it, that we were handling it.”
“Well, how can we trust that when you won’t tell us anything?” I yelled back at her.
“We are telling you everything you need to know,” she said, calming herself down.
“We have been told nothing,” Taylor said. “We found out more tonight than we have been told since she was taken.”
We all nodded in agreement with Taylor and Kyle spoke up. “We all have a right to know what is going on. Sam is our friend, teammate, and my cousin. We know that she was taken because some vampires thought she was someone else. What are you guys doing about it?”
My mom and John looked at each other, and then John turned to Nick. “I thought I told you to make sure nothing like this happened. I gave you orders.”
Nick looked at the ground. “I was helping my friends.”
John nodded and sighed. “Look, I understand that, but this was stupid and dangerous. You guys could have put more than just Samantha in danger tonight.”
“I think we need to get Sam from where they are holding her,” I told my mom and John. “Or we need to figure out who they want and have them get Sam back for us.”
“Do you guys know who they want?” my mom asked.
“No, but we are going to find out,” Lucas told them.
“We are going to try and find out who it is they are looking for, but for now stay out of it,” my mom said sternly. “Let us handle this. We are angry at you all for sneaking out. I know your parents are worried, but truthfully you guys did well on finding out this information.”
“Then let’s use it,” I told her.
“We will start by finding out who they are looking for and where they are located,” John said and glanced at my mother who was staring at the ground deep in thought.
I got the feeling that there was more going on here than what we were being told or had uncovered. If only everything would come out, I was sure that it all would turn out better. But they were not talking for whatever reasons they had.
“What if you guys can’t get her out?” I asked. “Will you guys figure out who they want and make them go in?”
“No,” my mom said quickly, taking us all by surprise.
“We will consider everything,” John said. “Just let us get started with this information first. It wouldn’t be right to make someone go into a vampire’s nest.”
When we exited the trail, I started to get into Taylor’s car when mom directed me to her car. “Oh no, young lady, you are going with me. You are not getting out of my sight because I am sure you were the ring leader of this little expedition.”
I pouted and got into the backseat of her car as she climbed in the driver side and John sat in the front passenger seat. John motioned to Nick, and he got into the other side of the backseat. We all buckled up, and my mother drove away from the park.
“What about my car?” Nick asked John.
“We will come get it later,” John told him, leaving no room for complaint from Nick. Nick just nodded and sat back in the seat.
The feeling coming off of my mom was an icy one, and I was sure if I opened my mouth to say the wrong thing that I would end up locked inside of my room permanently. Instead of going straight home, my mom drove in the opposite direction and traveled a short distance to a complex of town homes. She stopped in front of one, and John said goodbye and gave Nick a look. He got out of the car with a nod to me.
My mother drove out of the complex parking lot without even letting me get into the front seat, and I knew I was about to get it.
“You just don’t know how worried I was. I was sure they had taken you,” she said, and I could see her eyes watering in the rearview mirror.
I sighed. It was hard to be mad at her for being overprotective when she was nearly crying. “I am sorry. It won’t happen again. We just want to help because we haven’t been told anything about Sam, and we are really scared for her.”
My mom nodded in agreement. “I know, but please trust us on this. We are doing everything we can to get her back safely.”
“I know, mom, but please if something happens don’t keep it a secret,” I smiled. “You know, mom?” She looked in the rearview mirror at me. “You should be glad that I am just going out and hunting vampires. I could always just go out and get drunk and pregnant and use drugs.”
She rolled her eyes at me with a slight laugh. “Daughter dear, that would never happen.”
I sighed. “Yeah, you are right, but it always makes a nice threat to scare you with.”
“I don’t know what I am going to do with you,” she said as we pulled into the driveway.
In the house, my mom sent me to my room with strict orders not to get out of bed until morning. Deciding not to push things with my mom, I did exactly as she said and climbed into my cozy bed.