Chapter 5 Toward Danger

• Newspapers still litter her living-room floor forming a carpet of black-and-white, Dan’s face staring at her from a thousand grainy photographs printed under bold headlines. She wants so badly to believe that he’s still alive, but how can she? All this vampire stuff sounds crazy, but it kind of explains it all. She looks down at her arm; she forgot to ask Cayson how it had healed so quickly. She knows she should be bleeding from tonight too, but again there’s nothing to suggest she’d been injured at all. She spends the next few hours looking through news articles of mysterious deaths and disappearances: the more she reads, the more she is convinced that Cayson is telling the truth.
• It seems this has been going on for centuries, but given that no-one had an answer they had just chalked the deaths down to natural causes, and the disappearances as runaways. They mostly happen at night – very few during the day – which just confirms Cayson’s story even further. She giggles in the quiet of her house. Why is she even considering believing his story? It’s so bizarre… it’s at that moment that her mind reminds her of that man: the bite, his eyes, everything about him.
• Cayson has to be telling the truth. She should run, ignore it all, yet there’s part of her that wants to go back out there right now and look for proof, to be sure it’s real and that he’s telling the truth. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s crazy, but then she can at least say for sure that yes, vampires do exist, and that Dan is gone forever. Having an answer though, an answer she can’t share, an answer that involves vampires, does she want that?
• No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to know a vampire killed him if she can’t tell anyone, and she knows if she did try to tell anyone they’d think she was going insane. She finds herself considering it before finally drifting asleep as the morning light peeks through the gap in her curtains.
• When she wakes up it’s late. There’s a momentary panic before Olivia remembers that it’s Saturday and she doesn’t need to be anywhere, although it doesn’t mean she’s going to stay at home. She gets ready quickly and grabs her coat before leaving, hastily pulling the door shut behind her and briskly walking without lending much thought to where her feet take her. She’s made this journey so many times that at this point it’s muscle memory. She will keep her promise to Cayson and stay away from the graveyard, but she still needs to know if it is true. She walks to the old mining hill; walking around it she sees nothing. There is no-one there. Sitting on the ground she relaxes, waiting in the quiet morning air. Someone must come soon, and then she’ll finally be able to prove that either vampires are real or that Cayson was lying. She hears the snapping of a branch, her head twisting to the direction of the noise as a figure moves too quickly for her to see. She tries to follow it but her eyes aren’t fast enough.
• “You must be a stupid little girl.” The voice sends chills down her spine and she nods. The voice is right, she must be. “I thought the other night would have scared you away, but instead, you come back for more?”
• She stands up, trying to see the person as they keep moving, just out of her vision’s reach every time.
• “Who are you?” She steps forward, before a menacing laugh makes her stumble a few steps backwards.
• “No-one. My name, who I am, that doesn’t matter. Such information is irrelevant and will be no comfort in your death.”
• He’s right, it won’t be. She watches as the man steps out of the trees, her eyes this time able to see him. He looks- actually, he looks hot, but his silver eyes are scaring her. The other night she froze, there was no warning he was going to appear; tonight she was prepared, and she can’t stop her eyes raking over his body.
• “You have questions? Ask away.” He steps closer slightly. Am I crazy? She has to be to still be stood there right now.
• “I’m looking for someone. I need to know if he’s still alive.”
• The man laughs, his body moving fast as he stops a distance behind her, she turns and looks at him.
• “And who would this someone be? A friend? A parent, maybe?”
• She shakes her head at him.
• “My boyfriend. His name is Dan.” He laughs at her words, shaking his head.
• “You’re merely a child. He wasn’t a partner, just something you were obsessed by. I did you a favour.”
• “You killed him?”
• He moves fast again, stopping right behind her, his breath oddly cold on her ear.
• “And by God did he taste delicious.”
• Her body shakes from the core with fright at his words.
• “No, no, I don’t believe that.” She squeezes her eyes tight, shakes her head, but she still feels a hot tear fall. He can’t be dead. The man moves again, her body shivering involuntarily at the cold air whooshing around her from his speed. His face is now in front of hers.
• “Either way, he is not the man you loved; that man is long gone. Maybe I should stop teasing and let you join him?” His hand wraps around her throat, his nails digging in as she whimpers. He smirks, his hand dropping away. Olivia gulps down the welcome air.
• “You will taste fantastic, I can just tell. And yet there is something there, something telling me that spilling your blood would be a waste, that you would suit immortality rather well.” She swallows loudly; why did she come here? She was a fool for believing that she would get answers and be able to leave without getting hurt.
• She hears a loud growl, the man being pulled back as a loud screeching sound from his lips pierces the silence, watching helplessly as his body falls to the floor, and the wolf drags him off into the trees. What just happened?