by Jade White
“You’re a lucky little Prince,” she told him with a very pleasant voice so he wouldn’t know how terrified she was. She wasn’t going to scare him or let him know how terrified she was. Nope, she was going to be the strong, independent woman that she knew she was and she was going to stand her ground. “Mommy is going to make sure you’re safe and that there’s nothing that will go bump in the night here.”
Blake stared at her, watching her lips and trying to understand what this bigger version of himself was saying. She loved him and she just wanted hold him and kiss him for the rest of the night, but she didn’t trust that they were safe.
Standing up, she looked out the window to see if there was anything she should be aware of. Part of her expected to see Victor standing down on the street, looking up at her, or to be standing in one of the windows. Nothing would surprise her right now if she saw it and she could feel the fear running through her, even with the knife in her hand.
She flinched at the sight of something moving out of the corner of her eye and she looked to the rooftop across the street and saw that it was a flock of birds fluttering up into the sky and she knew that she was being silly. There was nothing for her to be afraid of.
Her eyes moved across the buildings and she started looking at the windows and she knew that there was something off. She could feel eyes on her and she didn’t know where they were coming from. As she looked from building to building, she decided to look at the windows.
There was something about the windows that was drawing her attention. As she looked at them, she spotted one with curtains that were gently wafting in the breeze. Staring at the curtains, she noticed that there was something wrong.
There were crimson stains on the fabric as it flapped in the breeze and there was someone standing just beyond the curtains, watching her with devilish eyes and the kind of presence that made her think that everything she had been afraid of and everything she had been worried about wasn’t fake.
There was a real reason to have terror inside of her. She stared at the woman in the window, who was watching her and a cold trickle ran down her spine. There was something watching her.
Looking at the other windows, she saw others, three of them, each occupying different windows in the buildings across the street, all of them standing there, watching her as she stared at them in horror. She had no idea how many others were out there, but right now, there were four of those things watching her with a strange fixation and curiosity.
There was no question about it, she had to call Victor. She had to call him and tell him what was happening and she had to tell him right now. She needed to know what she could do and how she was going to get out of this.
They were going to have to get rid of these things somehow and she was worried about those stains. Had they killed people? How had they gotten into those apartments and where were the people they had harmed?
Panic flooded through her veins, shooting through like bullets as she tried her hardest to get everything into perspective. She wanted to know what to do right now and there was no knowing how she was going to get out of this. She didn’t know how she was going to protect her child.
She walked back into her room and looked at Blake, not willing to let anyone separate them until she knew what she was going to do. She wasn’t going to leave his side until she knew he was safe. At all costs, she was going to make sure that he was.
As she reached into her purse, digging around for Victor’s number, she knew she was already on her way down the rabbit hole and there was nothing that she had to fear now. She was going to be a part of all of this, no matter what. There was no more room for questioning and suspicion. She needed to embrace this and accept it right now.
Taking a deep breath, she dialed the number and waited for him to answer.
“Hello, Shawna,” he said with a polite voice that couldn’t sense the horror she was feeling. She wanted to scream and curse at him and tell him that this was all his fault and that everything that was happening was on him, but she knew it wouldn’t do her any good. There was no need for that and it wasn’t going to help the situation in the slightest. She needed to move on and she needed to think about productive ways to help their situation.
“I can see them, “she said to him nervously. “They’re in the buildings around me, staring out the windows and watching me. I think they’ve hurt people, Victor. I think they’ve killed people.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said to her with an assuring voice, but she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to take that.
She had just told him they had hurt people and he was telling her to calm down and that everything was going to be fine. She felt a cold trickle run down her spine and she wanted to have answers to this.
She wanted to know what she was going to do. Everything around her was crippling and disintegrating into something beyond her control. She wanted to know how to handle this situation, but there was no book on this. She wanted to be a mother, not a vampire hunter.
“So long as you stay there until I come get you, you’re going to be just fine.”
“What does that mean?” she asked nervously. “What does that mean, Victor?”
“I’m going to take care of them,” he told her with a confident voice. “Don’t go anywhere near the windows and don’ t talk to anyone else, Shawna. If you call your family or your friends, they’ll just try to use them against you. Don’t put anyone at risk by contacting them, understand?”
“I won’t,” she said with all confidence.
There was no way that she was going to lure anyone else into this ridiculous scenario. No, she was going to protect as many people as she could and she was going to make sure that everyone was safe that she could afford to keep safe.
“Stay away from the windows,” he reminded her again. “Don’t let them see you and don’t let them see you scared. They’re going to try and get inside your head, but I’m going to get rid of them. Don’t answer the door for anyone who knocks and make sure that you only open the door for me. I’ll tell you in advance that I’m coming.”
“What if you don’t come for me?” she asked nervously, thinking of the worst.
“Don’t worry, I’m coming for you,” he said with a laugh in his voice. “There’s nothing that’s going to stop me, Shawna. I’m not going to let them harm you or my son. I can promise you that.”
They were beginning to mess with her and she knew this was just the start of all of the weird games that they were going to try and play with her. She wasn’t going to be a victim for them to come and toy with and she was going to take all of this as seriously as she needed to.
When she hung up the phone with Victor, she knew that she was going to have to be confident and that she was going to need to take things seriously. She was going to need to be brave and bold for the sake of her child. That meant she couldn’t let these monsters get to her and she couldn’t let them get to her son either. She was going to have to be the woman that she knew she was.
Going to the windows, she closed the blinds and the curtains, refusing to look at the men and women who were standing in the windows across the street, staring at her with their cold, black eyes. She didn’t want to think about what they might have done. None of this was on her.
When she decided she was going to have faith that Victor was going to come back to her, she decided she needed to be ready for him. She grabbed a duffel bag out of her closet and stuffed it with everything that she was going to need for Blake. There was no way she was going to get caught in a situation and not have everything she was going to need for him to be safe, happy, and fed.
Packing up diapers, formula, clothes, blankets, and anything else that she might need, she was thankful that he was still small enough that he was going to be relatively easy to keep happy. He was a low maintenance baby to begin with and this was going to make getting out of here all the easier. With a deep breath, she placed the bag in her living room and let him sleep for what sh
ort amount of time they might have. She had no idea when Victor was going to arrive and everything was going to blow up in their faces. She didn’t want to think about it or worry too much about it right then. She needed to live in the moment.
Waiting in the house, she began to pace back and forth, wondering if those things had made it inside of her building yet. She didn’t want to think about her neighbors being attacked by those creatures or being hurt by them. She didn’t want Greta or anyone else getting hurt by all of this or getting harmed like those people across the street from her. She couldn’t bear to think about it and she told herself to stop it.
If there was one thing that she couldn’t do right now, it was carry the burden of these people on her shoulders. No, she was going to throw all of that in Victor’s lot of things that he was going to have to deal with for the rest of his life.
He was going to have to think about the fact that there were people dead or hurt because of his actions. She was going to do all of this to protect her son. If he had really cared about taking care of those people, then he would have contacted her sooner.
Pacing back and forth, she walked into her room and stood over Blake, looking down on him and contemplating what she was going to do. All she could think of was that there was something inside of her mind telling her she was going to have to do anything in her power that would save this child. Hurting him was not going to be allowed and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to make sure that he was safe. She hoped that Victor understood that.
Sitting down on her bed, she wondered how long it was going to be before Victor contacted her. She was going to need to call into work and give them an explanation as to why she wasn’t going to be there and why she probably wouldn’t be there for a few days or weeks. She knew they were going to be upset, but that wasn’t really her concern right now. What if it took months or years to make sure that Blake was safe from these creatures? She knew she was willing to sacrifice all of it for him. There was nothing that she wouldn’t do.
Her thoughts raced on. What were the costs of all of this? Was she going to have to sacrifice her life and give up everything that she had worked so hard for? She knew there was a possibility she was going to lose everything and that scared her.
Of course, she would be more than willing to give it all up for the sake of Blake’s safety, but she wasn’t going to feel good about losing all of it because of what Victor had done to her. He was going to answer for that.
There were always going to be costs in life and Shawna had learned that the hard way, but she also knew the higher the cost usually meant that something was more valuable to her. She would willingly giveup everything that she had going on in her life if it meant that she would be able to spend more time with her son and she would never have to worry about anything like this again.
She stared over at the clock and knew it was going to be a long night and that she probably wouldn’t fall asleep until she passed out. She was going to make sure she was up as long as she could be and she knew that in a little while, Blake would probably wake her up and remind her that he was still there, waiting for her.
She looked over at him and saw that he was still fast asleep. She’d finally mastered getting his sleeves pinned just right so he couldn’t wake himself up in the middle of the night. She wasn’t going to have any more of that.
Standing up, she felt nervous about all of the windows being closed and she desperately wanted to know if they were still out there. She was scared that she might open the windows and they would be flying outside her window or something strange like that.
She still had no idea what the extent of their powers were, but Victor had seemed to think they wouldn’t be able to break into the apartment, so she was going to hold him to that. She didn’t want to think that there was more they might be able to do.
She walked slowly toward the windows and lifted one of the blinds, looking out at the rooftops and wondering if there were more of them out there. The night was black and inky, the lights of the city seemed to be more sinister tonight, protecting the shadows and making it hard for her to discern any shapes and figures. She didn’t know what she was looking for and that scared her.
She didn’t know who was what and what was who, from where she was standing. But, as she looked through the glass, she knew there were things outside that were beyond her vision.
In the windows where she had memorized who was standing where, she could still see the haunting outlines of figures watching her with malicious intent and dark thoughts in their minds. As her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, she could see the rooftops through the glow of the city lights and she could see figures standing on the rooftops, coming out in the dark cover of night and standing there, watching her.
She could feel a cold shiver running down her spine as she looked into the darkness and saw more figures standing on the rooftop, watching her with a hunger in their eyes that she didn’t quite understand. It haunted her and she took a step back from the window, letting the blind fall shut and she knew without a doubt that there was no way Victor was going to get safely through all of them.
She stared at the curtains as they wafted into place and she shuddered again.
She was trapped and there was no escape. There was no way she was ever going to be able to leave her apartment again and she knew Blake was going to be the only victim she actually cared about. She had to get him out and get him to safety.
CHAPTER FIVE
She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she did remember waking up while it was still dark outside. Something told her that she wasn’t actually asleep for long and that she had just barely fallen asleep before she was suddenly awake and feeling a cold sweat breaking out across her. There was something definitely wrong and every cell in her body was screaming out as she opened her eyes and suddenly bolted right up.
The shadowy figure that was standing in her room was horrifying enough and she knew she was going to open her mouth and scream at the top of her lungs but there was something oddly familiar about this presence.
She knew what she was looking at and that opening her mouth and screaming was only going to wake up Blake and draw attention. She wasn’t going to do that to her child. She wasn’t going to put him in danger right now and make things worse for either of them.
“You need to keep quiet,” Victor said to her from the shadows of her room. “They’re out there, but they know better than to try and stop us. I don’t want them to think that you know I’m here.”
“What are you talking about?” she hissed at him.
“I just need you to keep quiet for a while.” Victor moved silently across the room. No, that wasn’t correct. She watched him move and she realized that he wasn’t making a sound at all; that was the freakiest realization she had made yet.
It was like watching a movie on mute. As he moved, he reached the windows and lifted one of the blinds and looked across the street.
“That was smart thinking, packing your bag and getting ready for me. I forgot to tell you that. You’re much smarter than anyone that I’ve met before. I’m very grateful for it.”
“It’s not rocket science,” she said to him sternly, keeping her voice low.
She stood up and walked over toward him, still afraid to reach out and touch him or to even look at him for long.
He could sense her apprehension and he looked at her with a kind expression on his rather terrifying face. She suddenly realized he wasn’t as clean and perfect as he normally looked. The seam on the shoulder of his jacket was torn and there was something thick hanging on his clothes and in his hair. She looked at him and furrowed her brow, trying to figure out what he had been doing. He looked at his state and gave a little bit of a shrug, like it was nothing at all.
“Get stuck in a chimney coming over here?” she asked him, realizing that it was ash on him.
There was a moment when the flash hit her and she totally understood what she had just said and what the ash m
eant. She took a step back and tried to picture what he had done. The thought of him doing something dangerous and violent had never crossed her mind.
“Is that?” she trailed off, looking at the dust on him.
“Well, yes,” he said with a shrug. “You didn’t think that they were just going to politely leave you alone, did you?”
“I didn’t think that you were actually going to, well--” she trailed off again, trying to imagine what Victor had done to them.
He looked at her and smiled in a way that was probably meant to be assuring, but it wasn’t. There was nothing about this situation that was going to assure her of anything other than the fact that she was insane and in trouble. She looked at him and knew he had probably put his life on the line for all of this.
“Listen,” he said, turning and facing her. “Regardless of what you think my past actions have said to you, I do have feelings for you, Shawna. I know you don’t believe me and I don’t really expect you to. However, I hope my actions from here on out will assure you it wasn’t wanton lust that brought us together and I’m more than willing to risk my immortal life for you and our child.
