Chapter 14

I wake up to the smell of something musty and stale. My nostrils burn with the smell but as I continue to wake up, I recognize the smell as cigarette. I open my eyes to take a look at my surroundings but my eyes become overwhelmed with the smoke. I close them quickly and rub my eyes to try and help the burning go away. It isn't very affective.

Eventually, when I'm lying on the cold hard surface of what I assumed to be a tile floor, the burning from my eyes goes away and I open my eyes.

I'm in what appears to be an apartment or a trailer, a crappy one at that. The ceiling had water stains, the walls were torn up so that the insulation from inside the walls was peeking out. I was clearly in the living room/kitchen, the two rooms connected and not too far where I was now sitting up, there were 3 men sitting in chairs around an old, wooden, and beaten up dining table. The men were laughing as they were smoking their cigars and cigarettes, along with their scotch as they played poker.

They obviously didn't notice me waking up until I moved, making a noise underneath the broken tile that lay beneath me. The 3 men look up from their cards and up to me with no expressions until one with a fedora and a suit comes over to me.

I frantically back away from the man until he speeds up catching me by grabbing my hair tightly, preventing me from moving. Tears sting my eyes as he lifts me up by the hair until I'm finally standing up, but, he doesn't let go. "What do you want from me?" I ask desperate for answers, I've never met these men before. What was their intention with me? I was too shaken up to think beyond that question.

"Easy," the man says with a smirk on his face, "You have a reward on your head," he sighs, "But the sad part is that you need to be alive… for now."

"What do you mean?" I barely whisper, hoping that he didn't hear me.

But he did. When I stepped back ever so slightly, he throws me down to the floor. "Exactly what I said, you have quite an amount of cash on your head." He crouches down in front of me so he's looking directly in my eyes. "What did you do to piss off the Velknar pack?"

I don't answer right away for the pain on my back is intense from the force of the man as he threw me down. I shallow hard and whisper, "Who are the Velknar pack?"

He gives out a short laugh, "Don't play stupid. You clearly pissed off those Washington werewolves or else they wouldn't have a reason to be after you."

I frown, werewolves don't exist do they? If vampires exist, I don't doubt that werewolves would also. But what would werewolves want with me? I'm just an ordinary human, nothing special about me other than I've had a vampire boyfriend. I don't think many girls are able to say that. Other than that, I have no connection to the supernatural.

I remain calm, or try to anyway. I keep my composure hoping that Shawn will find me and come with policemen. I try to block the pain on my spine as I slightly tilt my body to the right to help keep pressure off my back. "Are you part of their pack then?" I manage to ask.

"Actually, I'm a vampire and so are my friends here." He gestures to the two other men at the table, playing without him. "So, I suggest you don't run like you're trying to plan right now." I furrow my brow, "And no, I don't think your boyfriend or the cops will find you."

I mouth opens slightly, how did he know that I was thinking of Shawn and my plan to escape? Unless he mined controlling me right now to tell him the truth. "How did you know that I was thinking of my boyfriend?"

"You should know that vampires have special abilities. I mean, you dated one; Daniel wasn't that his name?"

My heart stops when I hear the man mention Daniel. He couldn't have possibly known that from my mind because I haven't thought of him the whole time, right? Or maybe Daniel was known in the area, especially here in this small town, word travels fast. But no one knows about Daniel's secret but me, with the exception of that slut Jackie. "How do you know him?"

He gives me a small smile, "Besides the fact that you were thinking about him the whole time you were unconscious, yeah, I know him. I knew him when he was still living in Paris and may I say he was not a walk in the park."

"What do you mean?"

He laughs darkly, "It was a century ago and he was just a wreck; killing people nonstop, the funny thing was that he liked killing people, no remorse. You see, vampires don't need to kill as much as he did. I must say, Daniel impressed me with his methods." He searches my face to see my reaction. When he sees my disgusted expression he says, "He's boring now, I heard he got bored with killing people and that he was starting his life anew in Lamia. That's when he met you."

I just look at him, not knowing what I could say to the surprising news I just received. The Daniel I knew wouldn't hurt anyone unless they hurt me physically. I didn't want to believe this man but I had a feeling that he was telling the truth. After all, I didn't know his past life other than his mother and father, and how Daniel became what he was today. "Why are you telling me this about Daniel?"

He smirks, "Why not? It's not like you care about him." The man gets up and walks back and forth while looking at me, "Or do you? Let me tell you something, he isn't on good terms right now especially with some of the vampires. He was protecting or still is protecting you from us and he's not the only one doing it. It's something that we vampires don't want. So I may be tempted to drive a stake through his heart when all is said and done."

I furrow my brow in confusion. Daniel was protecting me? How? I thought he left town for good and who else is protecting me? Daniel shouldn't be protecting me if it meant that his life was in danger, I wouldn't allow it. Regardless of the resentment I feel towards him. I wanted to save him no matter what he put me through.

I look up to the man with hatred in my eyes as I tell him, "Screw you, don't you dare touch him."

Before I had time to blink, I suddenly have the wind knocked out of me and a gut wrenching feeling, and then the sharp pain in my midsection starts. It takes me awhile to register what just happened; the man kicked me in my stomach, hard.

I curled myself into a ball at first but then I unravel myself knowing that it wasn't helping. Tears begin to stream done my face, the pain starting to become unbearable. "Why?" I can barely say without gasping for air.

"You said 'screw you' and it offended me," he says with a smug look upon his face. I glare up at him through my tears. Just then, he grabs my arm and drags me over to the semi-lit up side of the room. He stops dragging me until we reach pipes going through the floor and ceiling. "Just to make sure that you won't be able to attempt to escape." The man then pulls out a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket, puts one of side of the cuff on my left wrist. I clear the click of the cuff locking in place. Soon, I hear the click of the other cuff around the pipe.

The man doesn't say anything when he walks away and joins his friends. Once he reaches the table, he sits down, and continues playing as if I never interrupted in the first place.

I remain silent for what feels like hours. Shaking in the chilly air, scared, alone, and having no idea what will become of me; I was too afraid to ask any more questions. I can still feel the pain on my stomach, it's throbbing and I know that there is going to be a bruise. Hopefully, there was no internal damage done to me.

I close my eyes and take deep breaths as I try to listen in on the group of vampire's conversation, but all I hear is their boisterous laugher echoing through the abandoned house or where ever we were.

As I continue sitting there trying to bare the pain as it slowly feels better the longer I sit there. After what was I assumed an hour I finally come up with an idea to attempt my escape. I ask the men "Is there a bathroom around here? I need to go." I really didn't, hopefully this could be an opportunity to escape. Maybe there was a window in the bathroom I could crawl out of.

Soon, I hear the creaking of the floor boards under someone's wait as they walked over to me. Until I hear the voice, I realize it wasn't the man with the fedora and it that made me worry; hoping that this man was a little nicer than him. As he got closer, I see that it is the bald man from the table, "If you try to do anything, I won't hesitate to break a bone…" He warns me.

I nod reluctantly, "Yes sir." I say quickly, getting a little bit nervous about trying this. But he ends of releasing me from the pipe with the handcuff still around my wrist. He pulls my arm to make me get up from my place on the floor. Next thing I know, he's guiding me to the bathroom.

Once we reach our destination, he pushes me to the floor inside and slams the door behind me. I quickly lift myself off of the floor and look around me. I curse to myself, for there are no windows or any other way I could get out of here. It was a crummy bathroom with a rusted sink and toilet with some sort of other stains on it. There was no way I was going to get near that thing.

I finally walk over to the sink and open up the doors underneath the sink, finding nothing but a bottle of Clorax that clearly hasn't been used. I sigh when I close the doors and out of nowhere I hear a crash of something big outside the door, causing me to jump. The sound came from the area by the group of men.

I rush over to the door opening it with caution. I don't see anyone in the little hallway or hear any voices. Slowly I move down the hallway to investigate what the source of the noise was, the floorboards creaking underneath my feet.

Suddenly, I hear a creak behind me, whipping my head around, I see the man in the fedora hat. The next thing I know my back is against his front and he has me in a choke hold, making it hard for me to breathe. "Take one more step and I snap her neck," he orders to someone in the dark.

I swallow hard as I hear the creaking of the floorboards in front of me get closer. The figure reveals himself in the dim lighting; I am shocked to see Daniel standing in front of me.

He had his hands up in the air up to his shoulders, dropping a wooden stake. Daniel just looks at me with a longing look but his attention goes up to the man. "Don't, just give her to me and I'll let you live. I don't want to hurt you Harris, but if you don't let her go I'm afraid I have to."

Harris laughs, "You can't hurt me as long as I have her, and we both know that; so I suggest you leave."

"Not without Lauren. Please Harris," Daniel pleads, "If this is about Jackie, I don't care, she is all yours but don't do this. I know you Harris and you wouldn't be able to kill anyone. You felt guilty when you killed that man when you first changed and you haven't since."

The look upon Daniel's face breaks my heart; he looks hurt, pained, and longing for Harris to understand. He couldn't be this upset over me; after all he didn't care about me, he never did and he never will. I finally put my hands up on Harris's arm around my neck, and try to push it off. But it's no use; he is stronger than me by a long shot.

Harris basically ignores what Daniel has to say and squeezes his grasp tighter around my throat. "I can break her like a twig. I may not kill her but I can break torture her, making her cry out in pain. You would like wouldn't you?"

Anger is added into the mix of emotions on his face and the next thing I know, I'm released from Harris's grasp with my back on the floor. I look over to my left and see Harris against the wall, with Daniel's hand tightly around his throat. "Nobody," Daniel hisses, "threatens anyone I care about; going after Lauren, bad move. I don't care about our past friendship, you brought this upon yourself." With that being said, Daniel takes the hand not around Harris's throat and punches it into his chest. When his hand emerges out of Harris's chest, he's holding something bloody. That's when I realize, it's his heart. I look up to Harris but his face is blank, his eyes still open but not moving; he was dead.

Daniel tosses the heart over his shoulder and wipes the blood off his hands with Harris's shirt until there was no more blood present on his hand. He rushes over to me, kneels down beside me and places his hand on my cheek, "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

I nod, "Yeah, just my stomach and slightly my back." I pretend that his hand isn't on me right now and just lift myself off of the floor. I ignore the hand Daniel holds out to me to help me up, "Thanks for helping me." I say genuinely, if it wasn't for him, I would be dead right now.

"You're welcome," Daniel gives me a small smile, "C'mon, I'll take you home." He walks away before I can respond and I follow him.

"Actually," I intervene, "I'm going back to Necto for Shawn and Rachel. Thank for the offer though." Daniel steps over a body before he leaves the building and I do the same; noticing the stake in the bald man's chest. I step over him and rush to keep up to Daniel.

"I think you're too late for that. They left the club when they decided to go looking for you."

I frown, thinking of why they didn't call me and I realized that I didn't have my purse with me. Finally, Daniel and I reach his car, he opens the passenger door for me but I don't go in. Instead I stretch my hand out to him, "Let me use your phone."

He rolls his eyes, "Fine," he says as he fishes the phone out of his jeans and places it in my hand.

I immediately dial Rachel's number and she picks up on the 2nd ring. "Hello?"

"Rachel?"

"Lauren? Is that you? Where are you? We have been calling your phone for hours now! I'll come pick you up!"

"Actually, I have a ride home I don't have time to explain but meet me at your house in a couple hours," before I could say anything else the phone clicks. I frown when I see the phone lost service. I give the phone back to Daniel.

He raises his eyebrows, "Well, what's it going to be?"

"Take me home," I order as I climb into the passenger seat, "And no funny business on the ride back to Lamia."

Daniel is already in the car before I have a chance to close my own door. "I'll try my best," he says with a smirk on his face. The engine roars to life, Daniel steps on the gas and we speed past the abandoned apartment building. I try to mentally prepare myself for the possibilities of what may happen between Daniel and I on our way home.