Title: Taking Chances- Chapter 10: I'll Begin To Let You Go
Author: Bubukittypuck
Archived: Here of course, Fictionpress, and my laptop
Summary: Marguerite's first person perspective on the relationship she has or does not have with Josef. She is freshie to Josef's donor.
Rating: It ranges from PG-13 to M later on.
Pairings: OC/Josef
Feedback: Review please though do not flame.
Characters: Josef, Marguerite, Beth, Mick, and any other characters inhabiting Los Angeles.
Beta's: None
Disclaimer: I don't own Moonlight or the characters, though I do wish Moonlight does come back. For now, writing fanfics seems to stem the need to hunt down Jason Dohring and bring him back to my bedroom. I do not own the right to Nair though I wish the company could make it less sticky and perfumier. Plus Saran Wrap is not a patent I hold but it does come in handy when I need to cover up a dish and send it off on its way. Chippendale I love but I do not own nor the Coolpix but I wish I owned Ashton Kutcher. I do not own Hostel and I respect Eli Roth. If I ever met him in person, I would ask him to put me in his next movies, whether I am the one being killed or the one to kill. He is a genius and I adore him.

Also the title of the chapter inspired by Fauxliage's song called 'Let It Go'. Such a great song and invokes what the relationship of Josef and Marguerite in the beginning. Now, enjoy.

In the shower, Josef tried as best as he could to wash away Marguerite's touch and smell from his skin. Not even half the bar of soap helped with the lingering smell that was Marguerite. Dressed in a new Armani suit he headed into the study and retrieved his messages. The howling and scratching coming from Phantom brought Josef out of the haze of thoughts.

"Damn dog is going to chip the paint," he replied as he ignored the barking and the howling of Phantom. First, he went into Marguerite's room to remind her to keep an eye on Phantom. The damn dog just wanted a chance to get into his own bedroom and cause a bit of damage. Even now, he wondered if the dog itched to leave a few presents for him in his study.

"Mar, get your Phantom," he started but stopped when he noticed the door to her bedroom was opened and she was nowhere to be found. He looked in the master bathroom, the walk-in closet, even under the bed. Josef started to call out for Marguerite to stop playing the hide and seek she seemed to put on for her dog's benefit. Angry now, he walked towards the location of Phantom and his incessant barking. Phantom only stayed in the house because of Marguerite. Never a lover of animals in his home, he feared the life of his furniture from being ripped or pissed on.

"Now, where is Marguerite?," he said aloud as he stopped at the front door of the house. Phantom laid by the door scratching and trying his hardest to jump at the door handle. An odd sensation slithered up and down his spine and the air on the back of his neck stood on end. The whines of the mangy mutt brought more concern. Never had he heard Phantom whining this much and the only reason he would was if Marguerite left him alone for too long or? The Or part did not sit well with him. Or part included if the dog sensed Marguerite was in danger. Marguerite kept yammering on and on about the psychic link dogs had with their owners. Sensed happiness, fear, even pain in one another.

Feeling like an idiot, he hunched down, looked Phantom dead in the eye and asked, "Is Marguerite in trouble?" The dog barked three times before he pawed at the door again. Though he never sought answers from four-legged creatures, he bet the deed to his house the dog was right.

Holding up a finger in front of Phantom, he instructed the dog to give him a minute as he left messages on Mick, Beth, and Iris's cell phones. Afterwards, he grabbed the necessary human items. Car keys, cell phone, and his sun glasses. When he returned to the front door, he found Phantom clawing even harder at the door. Sighing, he would have to bring the dog with him.

"Come on," he answered as he opened the front door. Before he had a chance to tell the dog to heel, Phantom vaulted down the stairs and out into the road. With speed on his side, he caught up to the dog as the mutt chased a scent it picked up. Sniffing the air around him, he smelled the lingering scents of sex and Marguerite rolled into one.

A block down the street, Phantom stopped at two cars parked against one another. There was a small space and he found the animal sniffing the ground and pawing beneath a BMW. Not caring about his Armani suit anymore, Josef got down on his hands and knees and reached underneath the car. When he pulled his hand back, he held a black flip flop. Marguerite's favorite pair of flip flops. The woman walked around in either flip flops or barefooted and her excuse was her feet needed space from her sneakers and high heels for the summer.

Growls and the snapping of teeth caught Josef's brought his attention back to Phantom. "What is it?," he asked as he held the flip flips in his hands. Phantom took off and he followed the mutt right behind. Phantom stopped at a trash can which at the moment shook vigorously. There was no need to guess what was inside especially since Josef heard the heart beat of a human inside. With his foot, he pushed the side of the garbage. Out came several bags of trash and a male human dressed in black and a Venetian mask covering his eyes.

Quickly, Phantom went to attack the man who cursed and fought from being bitten. "Get your damn dog away from me!," he snapped and tried to punch Phantom away from his face. Josef rushed to move the scene from the street where anyone could see the altercation back to his house after he grabbed the man by the collar.

Behind the closed gates, he shook the man by the neck and bit out his request for answers. "Where is she?!," he said through gritted teeth. His eyes and facial expressions changed. Eyes turned and canine's punched through as he wanted to scare the hell out of the man.

The masked assailant struggled and cursed at Josef. "She is a dead bitch. You will never save your whore," he replied as he went to kick Josef in the chest with his foot. The attempt was stopped by Josef's hand and on the ankle and breaking it with a flick of his wrist. Anger overcame him as he flung the man against the ground, finding pleasure when he heard several bones crack. He was going to have fun with this one until he figured out what to do next.

"Fuck, my head," I answered as I went to rub the back of my head. My hand jerked back and I tried once again to stroke my head but it retracted back. What the hell?, I thought to myself as I slowly opened my eyes. Lying on the ground, I started to notice the reason why my hand kept getting pulled back. Someone handcuffed my good hand to a thick pipe. Pulling on the cuffs, it rattled and banged against the pipe, making a loud echoing sound.

"You should not do that," someone whispered in the semi-darkness. My eyes darted in several directions of where the voice came from. Once my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in the place, I figured out I was either in a rundown warehouse because of the several windows located across every wall or a rundown orphanage/foster center.

"Go fuck yourself," I stated as I clanged the handcuff over and over on the pipe. It started to make a little rhythm and I even sung along to it.

"I said stop it," the figure said as he reached out to grab my cuffed wrist. Looking up at him, the Venetian mask covered the top of his head, betting the guy had no use for it at the moment. Big mistake on his part. I let my eyes linger from one part of his face to another, mentally painting the image of this dirt bag in my thoughts. Once I was freed of these hand cuffs and had a chance to go at him, he was done for.

Another voice came through the darkness and it was none other than the no-good-dirty-fucking-asshole-potential-boyfriend James. His mask was off and he watched me with hatred and disgust in his eyes. "Nice to see you again, Mar."

"Cannot really say the same thing to you, James," I replied as I spat in his direction. He moved his shoe far away the spit. Damn, I was no Pumkin compared to the real one.

"You reek of him. I cannot believe it," he answered, rubbing his eyes. He looked as if he wanted to throttle me but if he tried, he would have a black eye. No man had the right to touch me unless he was a stripper or someone I really wanted. Like Josef at the moment to kick their asses.

"Believe it," I replied that response landed a slap to the face by the other gentleman. I tasted bitter copper on my tongue where I bit down on my tongue. Oh, those two needed to get closer within spitting distance.

A few more pacing back and forth and I was ready to ask him if he planned to let me eat anytime soon. "How could you? Lay with a monster? A beast that drains women of their blood, ruins relationships, marriages, hell even hopes and dreams? Why?," he asked as he sat himself down in front of me.

Licking my lips and spitting at the ground to extract the blood forming in my mouth, I merely smirked at him. James was twisted. "Why do you care?," I spat back. Once more, another slapped to the face, this one a courtesy of James's hand.

"Answer the question."

If answers were needed then I needed them as well. "Were you planning to kill me all this time? The night we went out, I had to cut the date short but were you already planning to kill me if the date had continued? Huh?," I questioned him. Visibly, he winced and his Adam's apple bobbed considerably. A slight flash of need lingered in his eyes before it disappeared and replaced with hatred.

Licking his lips, he answered, "Someone else was supposed to be there once I managed to get into your house and make the call. Make it look like you and I fought him off but I would have survived the attack and well, you would not."

Curiosity got the best of me. I had to know if there was any sort of feelings towards me. "If the situation were different would you and I have had a chance to make a relationship or do you swing for the other team?," I asked. If he admitted there was, then a slim chance I had to exploit those feelings.

James caressed his jaw where I noticed had a 5 o'clock shadow. I was taken a block and a half away from Josef's place ten minutes to ten and the sweat James and I produced in this place, there was a good guess it was around noon. Sun poured in through the windows not covered over with black paint. There were several mattresses lying around, opens cans of food and water, and a small computer system set up a few mattresses away from me. The sound of computers whirring and the ding of email arriving let me know there were computers there without having to see them.

Seconds went by, long uncomfortable silence, before James answered my questions. I even gave up on him to reply but the sound of his voice brought me out of my thoughts. "I have, had, feelings for you when I saw you that night but when I learned you were Josef's whore, I knew you were just like them," he answered, literally spitting out the last few words. Really, I could not blame him. Blame him not in the fact he might not have been around people of other species. Species such as Mick, Josef, and my sister, succubis' and incubis', dhampirs', demons, angels, etc. However, I do blame him for not seeing both sides of the coin.

Only time would tell me what his intentions were.

Staring at James, I wondered how I had not seen the ugliness hidden beneath the mask he wore. I might have been too eager to go on a date that included trying to forget Josef but it landed me with a psychotic murderer holding me hostage.

Earlier, I started to scream and out cursed a sailor but James had one of the men try to duct tape my mouth. The bastard who went to tape my mouth forgot one crucial thing. While one hand at the moment was cuffed to the pipe, the rest of me was not. I slouched forward which made the man have to move closer and hold my chin in his grip as he went to reach for the tape. As the asshole grabbed the tape in his other hand his eyes off of my face, my left hand shot out to punch him square in the nose. Sweet pleasure overcame me when I heard a resounding crack vibrate through the room. The guy flew back and grabbed his profusely bleeding nose.

"I think the bitch broke my nose," he yelled as he looked to James for further instructions.

"Yes, I broke his fucking nose and that is Miss Bitch to you, motherfucker," I replied with a satisfied smirk. James merely smiled as he told Don with his broken nose to clean up and have one of the boys with the medical training to set it back into place. James pulled from his pocket a cell phone and flipped it open.

Already I had a clue that he planned to call. Josef. My heart leaped in joy and I needed him to know where I was without James figuring out. Going over in my head, I went through what I could say and then it popped into my head. Smirking, I waited as James made the call to my cell phone and I planned carefully what I needed to say.

The caller id on Marguerite's cell phone showed the call was a blocked number. His fingers itched and his nerves tingled in anticipation. "Hello, who is this?," Josef asked over the line. He hoped Marguerite was alive and safe. The thought of her ending up like the other murdered freshies made him see red before his eyes.

"Josef," she answered on the cell phone. He heard the undertone of her voice. She was safe but irritated at the situation she was in. No one would be happy about being kidnapped by the people who wanted them dead.

On the outside he was calm but on the inside his anger and rage soared. He wanted blood and he wanted the blood to seep from their wounds of these men. "Yes, Marguerite. Where are you?," he asked over the line. It was a shot but he had to try it out. The men holding her might not be smart enough to realize what he asked.

"WARE is the HOUSE," she answered and repeated it again before telling him that she was hungry and needed a plate of mint chip doused in Tabasco sauce. Strange words she told him over the line. The phone was taken from her and the caller's voice he recognized. James, the son of a bitch.

"Let her go," Josef simply replied. The background check on him with a few discrepancies but he felt Marguerite would have thrown it in his face for spying on her relationships. James had one restraining order out on him on an ex-girlfriend of his. Name of the ex-lover never revealed in the document papers he ordered but the order came out two years ago. Since then, he had his sources search what connection James had to the freshie killings. His assumption ran each man held a connection to the freshies and vampires.

Marguerite's voice tried to get through the phone line but someone muffled her. "We have wanted to send a message out to you. You took what was pure and innocent and twisted and raped it for your benefit," James answered

"I can only guess you speak of music because since marketed by the Hollywood industry it has been raped for monetary consumption," he replied as he smirked, wanting to let James know he was not going to be intimidated by a bartender.

"Do not play games!," James roared over the phone.

"You are the one playing games and you will lose this game if you do not let Marguerite go."

"You mean your concubine?," he questioned.

Seconds later, a smack and a curse resounded through the phone. He growled and nearly cracked the cell phone in his hand. Josef stopped himself from doing so and knew this was the lifeline he had to Marguerite. There was a trace on Marguerite's line since the very beginning. Never had he wanted any of his freshies to reveal secrets so he made sure each cell phone had a bug on it. After the attempted murder on Marguerite, he placed a tracing mechanism in her phone. It took only a minute but once the minute was up, he could trace any call made to and from her phone to the callers'/callees' location.

"I have, had your Aaron. You will end up like him if you keep harming her. I will find you and when I do..."

"We will send you word through email in a few hours time with further instructions."

The call ended and he cursed. He looked down to Phantom who had bloodstains on his fur. "Come on, lets get you bathed," he answered as he headed towards Marguerite's room to wash the dog of any evidence of the man's death. The cleaners were coming soon to sanitize his bedroom and install in a new carpet. Josef doubted someone would never notice the deep stains in the bone white carpets.

Mick, Beth, Iris, her fiancée, and the cleaners were all congregated in his living room. Each one were making plans and getting things prepared. The cleaners came earlier to 'clean' up the mess he made after showing his 'appreciation' to Aaron.

Rubbing the back of her neck, Iris sighed. "What did she say exactly on the phone?," Iris asked, snuggling into her fiancée's side. She wished she had stayed on and even kept pushing her sister to stay with her.

Thinking over the words, Josef replied, "She said, 'where is the house'. Then she announced she was hungry and wanted mint chip with Tabasco sauce. I have been trying to decipher it. She pronounced 'where' and 'house' distinctly than the other words." He wondered whether Marguerite was slowly going out of her mind with the heat or lost her function with words.

A smile came over Iris as she figured out the clues. "Mmm, good girl," Iris replied as she snapped her fingers. Grabbing a pen and small notepad from her purse, she started to write down a few words.

"What do you mean by that, Iris?," Beth asked. After the news of Marguerite's kidnapping, she dropped everything and headed out with Mick to Josef's house. When she asked what happened for Marguerite to leave the house without supervision, Josef kept sliding away from the question. He finally relented when Iris threatened to get him on a lie detector test and have everyone sniff Marguerite's bedroom. The sheets were still off of the bed and the clothes Marguerite wore the night Josef and she were together lay incriminatory all over the floor.

Scratching out several notes, she nodded and turned to the group with her results."What she said is a message I can decipher. When we were younger and even now, we made up our own code words. You know, not have everyone else trying to get in our business." A good code to have around especially now that it was needed more than ever to rescue Marguerite.

"Go on," Beth replied.

Looking at her notes again, Iris made a few corrections before she started. "Well, when she over enunciated on 'where' it was meant to be a homonym. You know? Where, ware, were, wear etc. Now, the where in where are my shoes and the wear as in wear the clothing can be taken out." She used her green pain and scratched out the two words not needed anymore.

After scratching off the two words, Iris finished with, "Which leaves us with ware and I doubt she is talking about an item. If you put it next to house, then it is ware house. She is trying to tell us that she is held at a ware house."

"Then what about the ice cream with Tabasco sauce?," Mick asked as he sat down to the right of Iris to look at her notes. He excused himself as she let him glance over her notes and hand them around to Beth, Josef, and the cleaners. The cleaners at this time watched and waited for orders. News came to them of the other freshies and had scrubbed clean the evidence of any vampire association with the victims. Now, they wondered whether a new freshie clean up was needed again.

Iris laughed as she rubbed at the sides of her eyes. "Saying she is hungry means she has news for us to chew on. Now the ice cream reference means there are men that she could have wanted to savor but the Tabasco sauce means the people are bad and have ammunition behind them. The mint means they wore black clothing primarily and the green tint of the ice cream signifies they have enough money to get the things needed." Clapping her hands together, Iris was satisfied with her conclusion.

Turning to look at Iris, he wondered if both Marguerite and Iris were considered the normal ones in the De La Cruz clan. "That is what you got from the words?," Josef asked.

Shaking her head, Iris crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her chin up at him. She hated having her answers questioned and prodded even by Josef. "Yes, it took some refinement to get the codes down. For example, if she commented on the fact a certain person had a lot of meat to eat, then they are meat heads, if another person had sour milk, then spoiled rotten, wine for breakfast then you can tell what she meant by it," she commented, using her hand to gesture her meaning.

Clicking his fingers, Iris's fiancée figured it out. "A wino," Iris's fiancée piped in, receiving a kiss on his lips from Marguerite's sister. The two nuzzled one another and the ring on Iris's ring finger glinted in the light. It caught Josef's attention and seeing the engagement ring brought a tightening to his chest. In his pocket, he grasped the ring he had given to Marguerite and found on the island table in the kitchen after finishing with Aaron.

"Nice way to talk about people's vices in front of them," Josef sarcastically replied as he looked over the notes Iris made. Though he had to hand it to Marguerite and Iris to make up their own language and go under the radar of everyone around them.

"When is the next call about to be made?," Beth asked.

Pointing towards his laptop top, he stated, "No call, he said a message would be sent through email and I am waiting on it." Everyone would wait and see when the message would show up. Show up and see what further instructions were given and whether Marguerite could be acquired back safely. Even Iris started to say a few prayers she had not used in a long time.

Lying against the wall, I wondered how much longer I would be here. How much longer before I started to hallucinate about pink elephants and dancing bears. Stomach rumbled over and over, never had a spot of water or food this morning.

"Can I get a cup of water unless you want your own person hippie on hallucinations then a few pints of water can remedy that," I answered as I bit down the side of my cheek to produce a tiny bit of saliva. With the saliva, I tried to dehydrate my body with it. My lips were dry and cracked; if I tried to smile I ran the risk of bleeding from the crackiness of my pretty lips.

"Here, tilt your head back," James replied as he held a cup of water. My other hand was cuffed to the same pair of handcuffs originally cuffed to my first hand. After I punched the other guy in the nose, everyone saw it fit to immobilize both hands. Now the cuffs scraped at my wrists and made me ask for a bit of ointment.

Tilting my head back, I drank as much of the water as I could. James poured the water a little too fast and some of the water got on my shirt and chin. Still, it was better than nothing. For now, I had to play nice and try to keep myself under control. Even though I wanted to spit at James with the water, this might have been the only chance I had at refreshments.

"Thanks," I muttered as I smacked my lips together and moistened them.

James merely nodded and sat back in the chair he currently occupied. He and I for the past few hours as far as I knew kept glancing at one another. Every few times we made eye contact, I threw him a smile. It threw the son of a bitch off.

When I did it for the eighth time, he actually smiled back and laughed. Good, progress was made. "I must say I enjoyed the smile, James. I remembered getting butterflies when you smiled at my joke about the man and the subway woman." His smile disappeared and a frown appeared just as quickly.

"You lie," he whispered as he stroked his neck. This man reminded me of the typical low-self esteem guy. The kind who used his charms to get women to like him but when the date went south, he blamed it all on the other person and walked away with clean hands. Damn, I should have seen it coming.

I needed him to see I felt something for him even though at the moment I wanted to scratch his eyes out. "Nope, that is one thing I do not joke about. Why lie about a thing like that? If your smile did not cause butterflies, I would have told you the truth." There, that should make him question his assumptions about me.

His eyes bore into my own as if he wanted to weigh my words. Hell, I am not even dead yet and he is playing the part of the judge to see whether my sins and faults outweighed the good. "Then tell me the truth on this. Why did you whore yourself out to that monster?," he asked with disgust clearly shown in his eyes.

Ooh, I had to tread carefully on this one. Say anything he might not like and he would shut himself off. Ah, men.

"I barely know him. I met him at a party to celebrate my sister's upcoming album." That was the truth. Iris's fiancée had started up his own music label and my sister happened to walk into his office wanting a meeting with him. Other labels wanted to sign my sister but the labels wanted to change my sister's music, her image and have someone else write her music for her. She went to him and you could say the whole love at first sight happened to them. Physically, he was twenty-seven years old. However, mentally the man was close to a hundred years old. Formerly, he was boot leggers and fought in the one of the World Wars, I do not remember. When the craze for music came in the fifties and new stars started coming out of the woodworks, he jumped on the bandwagon. Of course he had to play the part of his own son and grandson but he made it work.

Now when the two met, I remember my sister telling me he was an old soul. At first, I thought she meant he was mature for his age. When I met him at a family function, I felt and knew he lived more lives than his body stated. I believed in reincarnation and karma. A person holds memories of their past lives through the dreams, déjà-vu's and even in their personality traits.

With Iris's new man, Stephen reinvented himself every ten years or so to throw off suspicion off of his age and background. Photographs of him mysteriously disappeared or he gave excuses as to why he did not want his pictures taken. Finally, my sister photographed him one night after she spent the weekend at my house. She made copies and gave me one in case he came back to try and destroy the original and negatives.

When he revealed himself to Iris, at first, my sister wanted nothing to do with him. She was not upset he was a vampire but she was angry he had not told her sooner. Trust was always an issue with Iris. Her first love cheated on her with her best friend. After that, she managed to attract the men who treated her like crap and I was there, along with the De La Cruz clan to clean up and handle the ex's. The vampire thing never bothered her because she and I were always interested in the supernatural. Hell, one of our grandmothers is a curandero.

"Tell me more," James replied as he laid his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees holding him up. Good, I had him hooked.

"We met and the first thought that popped into my head was how arrogant he looked. You had those few times you met him," I asked as I tried to use my hands to gesture. James nodded and smirked. In reality, the first thought I had when I met Josef was actually how his smile never reached his eyes.

"Yes, he made me feel as if I should have bowed in his presence. Sicken me."

"Same here, I stayed as far away from him as I could. He is damn snake charmer. I felt the women surrounding him pushed the rest of the women's rights back a few decades. I swear those women would have parted their legs and begged Josef to have them right then and there on the floor."

James nodded fervently and he scooted his chair closer. There was a gleam in his eyes, a fanatical gaze I had for certain authors. Gena Showalter and J.R. Ward made me quake in my flats whenever I read their books. He inched closer, his expression that of a priest holding conversation with God.

"Yes, the women at the Banquet drooled all over him like bitches in heat." The way he said those towards made my skin crawl. A rare occasion to be offended, even with words, but James took the prize.

"Yes, I noticed."

"I noticed you were not drooling over him like the others. In fact, you opted to sit down with Sasha then dance with Josef. Why?"

Again, I had to be careful in what I said. He was open to me and even interested in what I had to say. Great, only man who wanted to actually listen to me was relatives and psychotic murderers. Can never get a break around here. "He asked me as a backup. The first date of his never got back to him and he asked me out of the night of the charity ball. He knew I was home since I studied most of the time. I was his pity date and because of it, he had no right to make me stay by his side. I did my own thing, hence, why I ended up at the bar with you and Sasha." It helped to try and make up various lies and weave them closely together for him.

"What about you and him being a couple? Was any of that true? I smelled sex on you earlier."

Double damn. No idea whether to tell him the truth or not. If I told him Josef and I was not a couple I might not be considered worth anything and killed. If I said I slept with Josef which in James's eyes might constitute as a couple act, the ties I created with James would be severed. I went with the most basic half truth I came up with.

"Back in January, there never was a relationship but he asked me out several times. I said no every time because it was not right, especially since I worked as his personal assistant. Last night, I brought back to my place an ex-girlfriend and we, you know..."

James cheeks went pink and he cleared his throat. "Yes, I had no clue you were. Are you lying about the sex with the girl?"

I shook my head even though it was a lie. "I have known I was a bisexual since high school. Remember the comment I made about Angelina Jolie on our date?" Ooh, even at this moment, Angelina popped up into my head and I pushed it back to keep myself on track.

"Yes."

"I was serious about the make out session with her. Even had a few sexual fantasies and dreams about her," I replied and plastered a smile on my face. Yes, I lied about the female ex coming to my place but the bisexual lifestyle is true.

James cheeks became even redder as he rubbed the back of his neck. The neck rub thing I caught on as a sign he was uncomfortable/confused by a subject. "Then tell me why there is a bite mark on your neck?" He stood up from the chair and headed towards me.

Crap, I forgot about the bite mark. Had to think fast. "My ex-girlfriend was a biter. Loved the rough sex. Check my backside; you can see where she smacked me with the belt she brought." Thank god, it was true. Josef and I had been in a position where he slapped my backside and pulled my hair. You can guess which position it was.

James eyed me and I eyed him back. "Do not kick me," he ordered as he came around. I was not about to piss him off just when I had him in my grasp. No problem I had in James to take a look at my ass. If he had not turned out to be the asshole he was he could have had a chance to sleep with me.

Audibly, I heard him swallow and groan. "She did a number on you."

"Yes, one of the reasons why I left her. She wanted to cut me with a knife while we had sex the last time."

He shook his head and I nodded. Tisking, he sat back down in his chair. Much better. The rest of the men came around to inform him of the latest newscast and if Josef left his house. Each one asked about my fate and if each could have fun with me.

"Hey, buddy my standards are not that low even to take you on," I snapped as I gave him the stink eye. The son of a bitch who asked to take me for a ride tried to walk over and slap me. James grabbed the guy around the wrist and shook his head.

"No, Samuel. Remember you must respect women."

"She is no women but a vampire's whore."

This was my chance. "Vampire? What the fuck are you talking about?," I questioned, feigning confusion at his words.

Samuel and James turned to look at me. The way they looked at me was a mix of astonishment and bewilderment. Both men must have assumed I knew everything and anything on Josef's condition as I liked to call it. For now, I had to let them think I was naive and brainless to get them off my scent.

"What did you say?," James asked as Samuel rolled his eyes. Once more I had to weave up a nice lie to them. I told them James and the others must have been jokiung. Maybe Josef played a role in a movie or even dressed up as one for a banquet the two had seen him attend.

"Josef is a vampire, Marguerite," James stated.

"She knows, James. The bitch is just playing dumb."

"Hey, Sam. Do me a favor and shut the fuck will you? I want to hear what James had to say. Now what are you talking about? There is no such thing as a vampire. Vampires burst into sunlight, hate the cross, and loathe garlic. Josef has been out in the sun, bought me a crucifix while he held it in his hand and ate garlic bread the one time he came over for a visit. He is only a Euro-trashed spoiled brat."

Samuel cursed and shook his head while James eyed me for any sign I was lying to them. I held his stare and even threw him a confused-as-hell look.

"Is that why you hate Josef? Because you think he is an undead being when really he is not?," I asked as I raised my eyebrows at him. This time I burst into laughter and had to ask for someone to wipe the tears I managed to shed from laughing too much. My laughter echoed through the warehouse and James's buddies asked to shut me up because I made far too much noise.

"We will find out soon enough," James whispered as he ordered the men to duct tape my mouth. Seems the man had enough of our conversation for now. While forced to be mute, I would continue to think of ways to twist James's mind to me and prayed Josef kick the living snot out of this bastard before I got my hands on him.

Friday morning:

I was screwed. Another day had gone by. Two days spent with James and his gang. We talked and slowly he revealed the basis for this whole scheme. Since he thought I was going to be dead in a few hours, he figured better for me to know the whole plan before he murdered me. Every man in the room had a connection to the murdered men and women.

Sonja was Samuel's cousin, a woman Samuel doted on until he heard she had gotten into the wrong crowd. The crowd being the vampire community, mostly the elite vampire community who hired freshies for their services. Samuel blamed Josef for marring Sonja's outlook of life.

"Once, Sonja wanted to marry, have children and live a simple life. After moving to Los Angeles to study in literature, her dreams changed. Her attire, speech, even her personality changed. All she thought about was marrying a rich man, not a man she loved but one who would support the lifestyle she yearned for."

Samuel noticed the bite marks and later on the track marks on Sonja's arms. He assumed Josef had drugged her to use her while she was unconscious. Really, Sonja had a heroin addiction for a while and one of the reasons Josef rarely needed her services.

"I am sorry for your loss but Josef abhorred drug use. Sonja worked as a temp assistant but when she started to use drugs heavily, Josef let her go and pushed her to enter rehab," I replied. When Sonja tried to barter her body to pay for her next high to Josef, he offered to pay for her rehab and clean herself up. Sonja refused and went to me and the other freshie of Josef's for drug money. I denied her but the other freshie took pity on her and gave her a couple of dollars. After that, the last time I saw Sonja was a Polaroid of her murdered body. On that note, I remembered my time of date on the X-ed picture.

"Lying bitch, you take that back!." Samuel shouted as he came forward. His eyes were glazed over with anger and resentment. Red marred his nose and cheeks, a good indication he tried to drink away the pain of Sonja's death. Though I wondered whether he drank to forget the fact he could have killed her with his own hands.

The man had to know the truth about Sonja's addiction. "Did you not notice the track marks? Even the ones on the backs of her hands? She had to do it there because her veins were collapsing in her arms." When Sonja forgot to pull down the sleeves of her shirt, I managed to catch the various needle marks but I never questioned her about it. I knew but it was Sonja's demons she had to fight with no one to baby her.

Last time Samuel was never able to smack me but this time Samuel managed to slap me. James had tried to hold him back but Sam managed to fight the hold and went to slap me a second time. However, I had the advantage to kick him in the shins. He cursed, hollered and grabbed at the place of impact.

Sneering at him, I whispered in a voice I used only to get my message across, "Do not try that again. I may be handcuffed but you do not get to play dirty. You want to fight? Then let's do it one on one with no handcuffs stopping me the next you want to fight."

Samuel sneered and promised to exact revenge. Other than James and Samuel, the rest of the group included Max, Conner, Steven, Don, and Jagger. Jagger must have been a nickname because the man had the lips of Mick Jagger.

James had a connection with Gabriela, Josef's other dead freshie. The former freshie placed a restraining order on him a year or so back. From what I remember she mentioned a guy named Jameson who was obsessed with her. He kept telling her she was a Goddess sent from above and who needed to be looked after day and night. The man grew jealous over Gabriela conversing with other men or people the guy thought would make her want to cheat or rebel against the image he wanted her to be.

This James before me had the crazy factor but he seemed good on my sexuality. Well, the courts ordered James after he received the restraining order to attend anger management and therapy. In Los Angeles, for him to get a job as a bartender with his criminal background was either looked over or never came up. I guessed looked over since Los Angeles is always in need of alcohol, drugs, and sex which opened up a lot of occupations to fill in the positions to push all three of the vices to the public.

Somehow, each of the men felt the problems stemming from their connections to the freshies were on the heads of the vampire community. Every man assumed the existence of non-human caused the mayhem and destruction of the humans and the interactions. In reality, the men were using the vampire's as a scapegoat for their own mistakes. Granted, there may be a few vampires who actively caused the other freshies to commit adultery, murder, drugs, etc and other times it was the freshies themselves who caused their own troubles.

"Well, tell me, James. Were you the one who took the lovely pictures of me in the dress when you went out to "grab" cd's from your car or did you have someone else do you dirty work?"

"Max (the one who I gave the broken nose to) took the picture. He is better at getting a person's good side," James replied as he ate a sandwich. I was given water again three more times and even half a ham sandwich. James held the sandwich to my lips and flicked off the crumbs from the corners of my mouth and shirt. It became awkward when I informed them I needed to use the restroom. Jagger and Samuel ordered me to go in my jeans. I refused and shot back the risk of a yeast infection setting in if I peed on myself. Now, if I held it in, I warned I might contract a urinary tract infection which might cause my bladder to burst and killing me. It was a lie about the bladder bursting but I wanted to get the message across if I died Josef would stop at nothing until he had their heads on a gold platter.

James spat out orders to take me downstairs to use the semi-functional bathroom. Conner and Don, two new men I became acquainted with guarded me and showed me the way to flush the toilet using a bucket of water to pour into it. My hands at the time were removed from the cuffs and I rubbed the marks where it cuffed into my wrists. Don and Conner stood their backs to the none-existent door and I had to keep asking if they were going to watch me while I went.

"No," Don replied and shook his head.

"No, and hurry up." Conner answered.

"You better not watch you perverts," I muttered beneath my breath as I made my business.

After I made my business and made use of the bucket of water to flush the toilet, the men brought me back to the pipe. I did not fight because I wanted James to think I was slowly coming around to his side and accepting my fate.

Cocking my head to the side once I was handcuffed again, I asked James what he felt for me the afternoon we went out. "Did you really want to go out with me or were you solely interested in slicing my throat open?." We managed to converse to whittle away the time.

James thought over my question carefully and I whistled to pass the time for a bit. "When I saw you, it was not at the banquet but at your school. I trailed you for a while but the first time I saw you I admit you caught me by surprise. You were not the regular female these vampires enjoyed."

"Is that so? What type of females did these so called vampires liked?," curiously, I asked. From what a lot of the vampires wanted women of a high status to show off at events but low-class to play with in the bedroom whenever they tired of the high-maintenance ones.

"Supermodels, women of slim statures and the kind that most men would want," he answered, his eyes lingering on my breasts and neck. Those eyes of his kept going back to the bite mark on my neck and I tilted my head to the side to stop the sight examination.

"Gee, thanks for the boost of self-esteem," I muttered but I let him hear clearly.

James frowned and narrowed his eyes at me. Damn it. I hoped he would not realize I was using the classic women problems to doubt his ideas about who I was. "You never needed to fish for compliments, why now?," he asked, his curiosity peaked.

The rest of men were occupied with setting up the video equipment up to record the next set of instructions and send it to Josef's email account. At first, I thought the men were not smart enough to figure out their IP address could be traceable. Max, one of the men connected to the last of the freshie killings seemed to be an expert in changing IP addresses and confuse the computers into where exactly the information came from. Afterwards, I heard the computers would be fried and thrown out.

Shrugging, I turned to look at my feet where each toe was painted a different color to represent the rainbow flag. Since I was not able to attend Gay Pride in San Francisco because of the upcoming wedding, painting my nails and feet would show in spirit I participated in the blessed event.

"Alright, we are ready," Conner informed James, glancing from him to me. Seems my cinema debut was now. Once again, my mind whirled with what I could say in the video and have Josef and the rest of the group decipher without letting the other men catch on.

"Josef, meet me at Santa Monica Pier tonight at 7:30 pm. An older gentleman near the entrance of the Monica Pier will give you a map. There, the map will lead you to a secluded area of the beach. No one will disturb the trade off. No cell phones, cops, or other "vampires." Break any of these rules and I am dead. This is a monkey's barrel in my pants. Really, now boy toys?," I asked the last few seconds during the video was recorded. James and the others were not happy for the last few comments. Again, they made me retake the whole thing but I added, "Suckle a rat and watch your cookies, dearies." When the fifth take came around, a gun in Jagger's hand was held to my head.

"Either you say what is on the cards or when Josef opens up the video it will be you having your brains shot out."

"Nice use of grammar."

The safety was removed and cocked, ready to blast away my face if Jagger pulled the trigger. Sighing, I went back to repeat what was on the cards but I kept enunciating a few of the words. The meet part became meat, pier became peer, beach turned into bitch, disturb morphed into disturbed and made sure the vampires part was punctuated harshly. I wanted Josef and the others to know the meat part was about the men were not strong in physical but in using whatever was around them to get the job done, peer that he should definitely bring Mick and the other necessary people to help out, bitch into there were a couple of the men who had a temper like a bitch which can be used to antagonize and throw them off their games, disturbed for the fact all of them were maniacs, and vampires because I needed Josef and the others to vampire out and take care of business. Hopefully, the message would get across if Iris was there to decipher it for the group.

Once the video was sent out into cyberspace, James and his companions all slapped hands and cheered. "We will get our revenge and after we wipe out Josef, we let the other brothers know of it and have them rain down on Los Angeles to exterminate the rest of the community." His eyes settled on mine and he smiled. The smiled turned my blood into ice and I looked away from him. James's smile reminded me too much of the devil waiting to collect his souls.

Growling, I fought and made them work harder to push me into the back of the SUV. "No! Do not even do it! James, please...," I begged, my legs wiggling as I placed them against the closed door. Conner, Don, Jagger and Samuel held me up by my arms and legs in the air while Max heated up the SUV and James watched on. The men were loaded up with guns, knives, stakes, and holy water ready to murder and torture Josef. I tried to talk with James after the video was made but he kept himself near the computer monitors. Jagger and Samuel both watched me near the pipe and muttered what a waste of a good fuck I was. As if I would ever sleep with any of them. Each men talked about how when this was all over, if James even thought of keeping me, all the men would have a chance to teach me a lesson in respecting men.

The image of Josef dead and me held in captive as the men's whore made me gag and I retched the contents of my stomach up. None of them went to offer me water to clean out the taste of vomit from my mouth and my throat burned with the stomach acid it encountered.

"Get her in the car, now," James stated. Max jumped out of the car and the other four men moved a few feet away from the car. With the door was opened to them, it became easier for them to throw me in but I continued to struggled and scream. As a result of the screaming and throwing my weight into the other men, I was gagged and cuffed by the ankles. Jagger and Samuel's guns both prodded against the sides of my sides, warning me to be a good girl and not cause any more trouble. On the trip to the Santa Monica Pier, I swatted at the inching fingers of both men from my thighs. No feel me ups unless you are invited, I thought to myself. God, I hoped everything went well.

Josef walked towards the Santa Monica Pier, taking in the sights of what it had to offer. He came here every few months to see any new events hosted but rarely did he come near the end of the week. More people attended the Pier towards the end of the week and made it harder for him to identify if the men were in the crowds and where the old man was around.

"Sir, some spare change," a voice asked several feet in front of him. He turned his eyes from the people jostling to enter the stores and the rides to a homeless man holding a tin cup in his hands.

Reaching into his wallet in his back pocket, he grabbed two twenties and placed them into the cup. The man nodded at him and grabbed something from his ragged shirt. "This is for you and thank you," he replied, whistling to his companion, a terrier as he went on his way, the dog trailing close behind him.

Quickly, he headed away from the Pier and down towards the beach. Opening the map, he stretched it out in front of him and glanced immediately at the location. The secluded meeting place was another mile from her. Josef could make the trip in less than two minutes. "A mile to my left from where I am standing, guessing an area where it will be surrounded by the mountain hills, a good place to form an attack from around if I stepped into the middle," he muttered to himself. The small microphone attached inside of the breast pocket picked up his words and transmitted itself to a dark blue mini-van in the parking lot.

Inside the mini-van, Beth, Mick, Iris, Stephen, and the cleaners waited inside and listened to his words. All who had keen eye sight stared down Josef's back and turned in the direction of where he looked towards.

"Alright, we will follow you several hundred feet away but know to give us the signal and all of us will be there to assist," Mick said into the microphone where the message landed in Josef's left ear. Logan Griffen, tech geek extraordinaire helped to hide a skin colored ear piece and a few more gadgets to let everyone hear and see where Josef headed towards the meeting point. Now everyone waited in anticipation to see whether or not the need to slaughter was required.

"Let her go," Josef said several minutes later when he arrived at the assigned meeting place. Marguerite was handcuffed by her hands and a gag placed around her mouth and a pair of night vision goggles over her eyes. Her legs kept moving as if she were trying to dance with two guns pressed against her sides.

He eyed James and gritted his teeth. The man changed he could see that. Gone was the façade of a bartender laughing and seducing Marguerite and in its place stood one ready to have a good fight. Oh and Josef ready than ever to show him how to handle business. Brought back a lot of fighting memories and this one he intended to fight.

The rest of the group even in the semi-darkness also wore night vision goggles to keep the fight away from light and wanderers. If the men wanted to have it that way, he had no problem with executing them away from humans' eyes. Sooner he and the others cleaned house, he definitely was going to have the 'talk' with Marguerite about where they stood with one another.

"You want your whore? Well, let us hear her speak her peace first," James answered, signaling to Jarred to remove the gag. The order for her to wear Aaron's night vision goggles was in good reason. James wanted her to see him kill his precious Josef before her very eyes and he could not let her own imagination guess what pain he inflicted without seeing it with her own eyes.

Once the gag was released from her, Marguerite flicked her tongue several times over her bottom lip. Inside, Josef's blood pumped itself down South when he witnessed it but he had other matters to attend to. The plan to rescue her from danger far outweighed the image of her naked and pressed against him while he did various things to her.

A few breaths in and out of her lungs and Marguerite looked straight at Josef with the goggles. "James, how about you remove the handcuffs?," she answered which earned her a strike across the face from Samuel. Josef strode forward on his feet towards Samuel after witnessing the injury he caused against his Marguerite. His. His Marguerite, who needed to get to safety as soon as he could ensure for it to happen.

James held a finger out and waggled it left and right. "I do not think so. Get close and," he stated as he let Josef hear the guns cocked and placed against Marguerite's temple. Josef's anger shot up several degrees as he clenched his fists. He muttered beneath his breath the codeword, "Death", and everyone in the mini-van shot out of the car and headed off.

"What did you say?," Conner, Don, and Max asked as they came behind Josef, their guns ready and stakes out to stab them right in his chest. The men brought along a few more things and Marguerite voiced them with mouthing it to him.

"I said fasten your seat belts boys because I am turning this car around," he replied as his closed his eyes, opened them and let their fears come to fruition with what he was.

Screams and curses filtered through the air blanketed over by the waves crashing against the shores. Wind slapped at my hair and face as Josef threw Conner and Jagger away from me. I cried out in triumph and held my cuffed wrists out to Josef in a gesture to help me with removing them. Never did he bat an eyebrow as he gripped the chain between the cuffs and ripped them apart.

After I thanked him, I headed off to find a weapon to use against James and his buddies. Only thing I managed to come upon before Max came at me to wrap his fingers around my neck was a beach rock. Using the rock, I bashed the side of his head when he fell on top of me. I threw the rock again over his head, satisfied when he did not get up from the blows.

"Serves you right," I muttered as I grabbed the weapons off of him. A couple of knives, throwing stars, and a gun with no bullets meant the knives and stars were my only choice of weapon. At least I could use the gun to hit someone over the head with.

"Hello Marguerite," James answered as entered into my line of vision. He must have Don and Conner do the dirty work with Josef while the rest of the group handled Josef's posse.

"Hello, James," I answered as I palmed the knife in my right hand. Finally, I had my chance to teach this son of a bitch not to mess with a De La Cruz woman.

Knives slashed the air as screams and howls of pain resounded around James and I. We both held knives in our hands with steady fingers. He and I waited for the other to leave an opening to attack. This could have been a moment in a dance number. Every backwards step he took, I came at him with two steps and a swipe of my knife.

"You could have been a grand person if you joined our movement. What a waste of a good woman," he spat out as he moved forward.

"Like I wanted to join your damn cult," I shot back and gave him the finger to further push the fact I loathed men who talked to me in that fashion. This man deserved to be on the end of the knife I snatched from Max.

I danced with him in a circle but my steps must have been off because his knife sliced through my other arm. Muttering a curse and letting the blood further push me towards my goal, I went forward and slashed the side of his face. Damn, it felt good. He wiped at his face with his arm and noticed the blood stains. James growled and warned I would pay dearly for it.

"Sorry but all I have are a few dollar bills in my g-string," I shot back, wanting to incite his rage even further. The more I agitated him, the more the chance to catch him off balance in either his next thought or move appealed dearly.

What caught my attention from the corner of my eye was Jagger holding a bat with nails on it. The son of a bitch must have kept it hidden from my sight when I was thrown into the SUV. Jagger's intent with the bat when I realized it was to swing at Josef's head and hopefully take it off. Mick, Beth, Iris, Stephen and the cleaners were too busy with the other members to catch the new weapon in the fight.

Losing my concentration, I screamed, "Josef, watch out!" Josef heard and moved quickly from the swing of the bat. Before Jagger had a chance to swing the bat around, Josef was there to rip the bat from his hands. Jagger got cracked over the head with the bat and he went down for the count, a few nails sticking out of his skull. Ouch.

The distraction to warn Josef cost me fatally. James's knife stabbed in the stomach. Pain shot through my whole body as I tried to keep myself vertical. I looked from the knife protruding from my stomach to the man who held the knife. To me, everything went slow motion as I processed why I had this knife buried inside of me.

"Go to hell," James whispered as he pushed the knife in deeper. I cried out in pain but I gritted my teeth against the wave of dizziness. He smiled at what he accomplished. I smirked back and with the last of my strength, I stabbed the knife into the side of James's neck.

"You first," I whispered as I fell back. Josef was there to break my fall and gently placed me on the ground, his arms wrapped around me. James eyes went wide with shock as he used his hands to staunch the bleeding but it was too late for him. He fell to his knees, his eyes on me. Before he keeled over, James threw a small smile towards me.

"See you in hell," I whispered. God, this was the exact same image shown to me in the mirror. The portrait announced how my death would be. Just like the mirror revealed, blood poured from my stomach, staining the front of my shirt and sweet Josef held me as I lay dying in his embrace. What better way to leave this earth.

My hand reached out to caress one last time the man who would forever hold my heart. "Come on, we can get her to the hospital if Josef takes her," Beth answered.

"She is bleeding out too fast. Moving her will cause her to bleed out faster," Mick answered as he helped to stop the blood loss by pressing his jacket against the wound. I groaned and hissed which caused Josef to growl at him.

"I am so cold. I need a blanket, please," I pleaded, my teeth clanking against one another. Josef rubbed my arms, covered me with his jacket and laid the sweetest kiss upon my lips. I was touched.

"Do it," Iris urged, "she is dying, Josef." My eyes blurred as I tried to keep my vision on Josef. I coughed and tasted on my tongue the bitter copper blood.

"Do you accept the new life I am going to give you?," Josef asked.

Laughing as best as I could, I nodded. I coughed up more blood and everyone urged him to hurry up before it was too late. Teeth against my neck, I thought I heard him say he loved me but it must have been the loss of blood making me hear things.

A slight dull of pain overcame me as Josef drank from me. One bloody hand came up to hold onto his shoulder as he gorged himself on the last of my blood. Black spots started to show up in front of my eyes and my breathing grew labored. From what I could make out, Irish was latched onto her man and Beth snuggled into Mick's side.

All waited on bated breath. The last image I caught before total darkness overcame me was the sight of Josef, lips stained with my blood with love and fear in his eyes. That's a way to leave this earth.

My, my, ladies and gentleman. Seems we have a predicament. Marguerite may or may not be dead. Now remember, I never ever said Marguerite and Josef were made to have a happy ending. In fact, all I said was a relationship between the two and how it overtakes them. Will she die? Now all stories need to have a happy ending especially if the story was meant to have a death. Shall Marguerite die or what? Wait till the next chapter and let me know what you think.