ALL NOVEL 33
It was puzzling.
Brent knew the Bludge nest well. There were only two of them and he’d spent the better part of five years tracking and obsessing over slaying them. But this… he didn’t understand this.
Pat had reached out a second time describing the call that came into the station. But… a young woman? So far in all of those five years he knew of Blacke and Demetrius Bludge, he had never heard mention of a woman with them. Both were males, Blacke a young male and Demtrius an older male.
So were the Bludges a larger group than he thought? Most vamps didn’t travel in groups larger than four or five for the sake of not drawing attention. That was partly why the Bludges were easier to track. Two men brooding over nearly untouched food at small coffee shops and sleeping on park benches and in cheap motels brought attention. Even if it was brief, it was enough to follow them up and down the west coast. They left a trail of bodies.
This little town in Massachusetts didn’t have that. Neither did the towns surrounding it. It was like a vampire had spontaneously warped here with the signature Bludge M.O. .
So it was of great interest, considering this vamp appeared by all accounts to be traveling and hunting alone, that when the police finally left the asylum the little beast had fled to, he would take over their investigation.
Vampires were slippery creatures, but he was a specialist.
Scarlet wasn’t home. I’d been vaguely woken up, feeling her pull out of the bed from me. And she had said she was hungry so I didn’t feel any worry about it until now. It was broad daylight. The hoodie she normally wore was draped over the bedpost, and she wasn’t with it.
I swallowed down the panic. She was… at least a young adult, she could handle herself. As long as it didn’t involve sunlight. Or people hunting her down for murder. But I hadn’t been called by the police for more questioning, so surely there hadn’t been another murder.
Unless she was in police custody. My heart pounded as I hurriedly pushed my hair back, out of my face.
There was a knock on my bedroom door, sending me into another second of pure panic before I opened it.
Mike was standing there. “You’re gonna miss the bus,” he pointed out. There was a frustrated expression on his face as he waited for me. “I can’t be late this morning so I need you to catch it.”
I nodded and started grabbing my things and pulled some clothes off the floor to put on.
“Don’t forget I’m staying over at Lee’s tonight,” I reminded him. There was a lot of final polishings to do
“Sure, have fun,” he told me and shrank back to the kitchen where he was drinking his morning coffee.
I had to run to catch the bus at the end of the street, but I made it. Lee plopped down next to me. “Show me the pictures,” she babbled.
I looked at her, not sure what she meant at first.
“The photos, you finished them last night right?” she reminded.
“Uh— yeah,” I agreed and pulled my phone out to get into my photo cloud.
I scrolled through them with her. She seemed happy. “Sierra’ll put these up during lunch,” she said excitedly. “We’ll be all set for opening night tomorrow.”
“Uh-yeah. But I haven’t heard from Scar since last night, so I’m not sure what’s going on with her.”
“Huh?” she asked. “I mean, do you normally constantly have communication with her? Through what, text?”
“Y-yeah,” I said uncertainly. “Basically.” I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be quite so panicked if we just texted instead of constantly being together.
“Maybe her phone’s dead or something.” Lee frowned. “We should add her to our Cloud-Group. That way you could see exactly where she is.” She shrugged. “You’d see she’s probably just at home or whatever. Is she homeschooled or something?”
“Yeah…” I trailed off. My brain chewed on all of that. I was digging myself into a hole. Lee had no idea Scarlet didn’t understand phones very well, let alone own one. I might’ve been able to explain it all away with ‘she doesn’t have a data plan’ but it’d be weird to point that out now.
I’d just have to wait and hope she was alright. After school, I could walk up to the asylum. It was possible that she got stuck there with the sunlight and all of that. I’d just bring her the hoodie and everything would be back to normal tonight. I hoped.