Carmilla and its characters belong to their respective actors and owners. I'm just a writer.


Laura turned and ran to the entrance, shoving her way past shoulders and singles, looking for the coatroom, where all the coats had been hung up in a large closet. She flipped through a row searching for her own, finding it and grabbing a small file drive out of her pocket. She could hear Betty's voice nearby, calling for her to hold up, to stop.

"Laura! Where are you going? What are you doing?" Betty was confused, and maybe more than a little hurt, but not angry. She grabbed Laura's shoulders, realized what she was doing and let go awkwardly, but still staring intensely, waiting explanation.

"The jewel!" Laura exclaimed. This did not clarify anything. "The priceless jewel, the one this whole event is for?"

"What about it?" Betty shook her head, trying to understand Laura's thought process.

"It's about to be stolen! By a - by a really bad person!" Laura fidgeted and thinked and thinked and paced as a helpless Betty watched her.

"How do you know?"

"Because- she told me!" Laura said, then stopped pacing. "The security room! If I can get into there, I can hack their cameras and follow her." She began to inspect a fire alarm route map on the wall, looking for the location of the security room. Betty gaped and wrapped her arms around her chest, looking back towards the ballroom and down the corridors.

"Do we even have a security room? Why not just call the police?" Betty asked, still confused but doing her best to be helpful.

"Police can't stop her!" Laura explained, grabbing Betty's hand and taking off down a hallway. Together they ran, pink glitter and formal attire racing down a marble passageway, both hearts racing.

They reached the security room without seeing anyone or being seen was one on-site campus security agent overlooking monitors inside the security room, yawning loudly. From what they could see from the crack of the open door, the camera feeds were not showing anything unusual.

"Crap! We need to get him out of there somehow. Maybe I can use my krav maga to knock him out?" Laura suggested, mostly speaking to herself. She paced back and forth, gesturing with her hands. Her father certainly hadn't intended her to use her training like THIS.

"What? That's crazy." Betty grabbed Laura by the shoulders and pulled her towards the wall. "Laura, this is crazy. Are you sure about this?"

"YES! Betty, please, you have to trust me. Please! Something bad is going to happen, and I have to stop it. I'm the only one who can stop it!"

Betty ran her hand through her hair, frustrated and unbelieving. Puffing her cheeks out, she sighed and nodded. "Okay. okay, fine. Let me do this. Get out of sight." She shooed Laura into a nearby closet.

From within the closet Laura couldn't hear much. She heard a knock, then the muffled voice of Betty speaking, asking for help. For a moment Laura felt terrified at the thought that Betty would get into trouble, but it was only a passing thought, as Betty and the older man's voice passed by the closet and went down the hall. They didn't sound angry or excited.

Laura peeked out of the closet- the coast was clear. She jumped out and quickly slid into the opened security room, which was dimly lit, and full of monitors. The guard had been watching a movie- some disney movie about ice- and not paying attention to the screens set before him. Searching the room quickly, her eyes scanning the monitors, Laura was able to find a set of displays showing the priceless gem on its pedestal.. No one was there - the gem was still safe, for now.

She slipped her flash drive into the computer and waited for a moment as her custom-made hacks began to unzip, giving her total control over the security system within seconds.

The screen blipped and revealed an array of technobabble that only a hacking master like Laura could understand, and her fingers began to fly over the keyboard, moving cameras, zooming in, changing views. If Carmilla was on the second floor, she'd know about it. So where was she? She wasn't near the exhibit, not in the hallways, not even outside...

Maybe Laura had scared her off. That would be a victory, right? Laura chewed on her lower lip, focused intensely. She imagined where she would go if she was going to steal something. She'd take out security, first - oh.

The horrible thought that Carmilla might be right behind her right now entered her mind. She could hear Carmilla breathing, feel her presence approaching. She imagined the gothy girl standing just behind her, hands raised, teeth bared. Laura spun around, wielding the computer mouse as a weapon- no one was there. It was all in her head. She exhaled, then turned back around and there Carmilla was, on view monitor three. She was hanging on a rope attached to the ceiling. The ceiling, where the cameras had not been pointing. Carmilla had lowered herself into sight.

With incredible strength and poise Carmilla supported herself with legs interwoven around the black rope, stretching her hands out below her and carefully plucking the jewel.

Laura hesitated for a moment, then hit the silent alarm. Immediately a network of lasers appeared around the jewel and in the area nearby it. Carmilla froze in place, somehow lucky enough that her rope wasn't touched or scorched by the lasers, and that she herself was set in a neat web of lasers rather than being fried by them.

A blinking toggle caught Laura's attention, labeled "POLICE." The police had been alerted. They were on their way. On-site security was likely in a scramble to get to the jewel. Carmilla had at most two minutes, Laura estimated. Two minutes to.. what?

Carmilla began climbing up the rope as careful as could be, maneuvering her way through the laser net with nothing but her own bodily strength and agility, losing nothing more than a few hairs. It was awe inspiring, and Laura couldn't help but zero in on Carmilla's legs and biceps, the incredible amount of control and power the goth was exerting was making Laura feel very strange.

Then Carmilla was out of sight and Laura breathed in relief. Wait, she thought. Why do I feel happy she got out? She didn't have long to question her new, strange feelings.

Someone was pulling her away from the computers- Betty was there, grabbing Laura's arm. Realizing her precarious situation, being in the security room when the security went off, Laura quickly grabbed her flash drive and pulled it out, shutting down all her programs, leaving no trace behind before she was dragged away.

Shushing Laura as quickly as she could, Betty dragged the hacker girl into the nearby closet, slamming it behind them.

"What happened?!" Laura asked. "Where's the guard?"

"He passed out! I think, I think someone drugged him!" Betty responded. "I heard a whole bunch of people coming- they were coming this way so I had to pull you out!"

"Sssh!" Laura whispered. People were right outside the closet door. She grabbed for Betty's hands instinctively, and they pulled closer together as if it would somehow make them smaller and unnoticeable.

Someone flung open the door and Laura and Betty both held up their hands to the flashlight being shown directly on them by some large unhappy men.