After making sure the front door was securely locked, Anna dumped Vlad on her bed, then ran to the window and quickly shut the blind. The room was thrown into instant darkness. Anna fumbled for the light switch on the wall and flicked it on. The cold bulb flickered and let out a dim glow, making the room look yellow and fuzzy and not at all comfortable.

Vlad didn't look particularly comfortable either. He was lying on the bed at an odd angle, still clutching his side.

'Vlad?'

There was no answer.

In the harsh overhead lighting Anna could see his vampirically pale skin had a greenish tinge. She jumped up and ran downstairs to the kitchen. There she grabbed a large mixing bowl (in case of further sickness), another bowl full of water, kitchen towels, and the first aid kit that they kept under the sink. Once back in her room, and after again making sure that the door was locked, she placed the bowl on the floor by Vlad's head.

'Vlad? I'm going to have to take this off,' Anna said, fumbling with the buttons on his slayer shirt and sliding it out from under him. His torso was covered in blood. Anna set about cleaning him up as he lay, apparently unconscious, on the bed. It was only when she'd wiped most of the blood off that she noticed.

She had of course politely averted her gaze from Vlad when he had got changed in the slayer office, but now she couldn't take her eyes off him. His chest was dotted with not just one, but multiple burn marks, some still sore looking, and others healed to no more than faint round scars in his flesh.

Healed or not though, they looked like they'd been painful. Then her eye was drawn to his arms. One was slightly bruised, and both were littered with small marks that had obviously been caused by the copious amounts of injections he had received in the camp, but these were nothing when compared to the other marks on his arm. There were a dozen or more jagged scars; huge, deep-looking cuts, running this way and that up the front of his arm, from his wrist to his shoulder.

Anna was stunned, and didn't move for a moment, taking him in. What had caused this unbelievable amount of injuries?

But of course, she had an idea off where he had obtained them, and a burning hatred flared inside her once again.

She didn't have too long to think about it though, as her attention was brought hack to the wound that was giving Vlad the most trouble. Anna was no doctor, she knew that, but she tried her best at sorting him out. She cleaned the burn and put a very large patch over it, then made him swallow the strongest painkillers she'd been able to find. Vlad would have to let his body do the rest, and already she felt like the huge chunk missing from his side had grown back a little.

Once she'd done all she could Anna yanked off his trousers, without looking, and covered him in her duvet. She flicked off the garish light above and instead let the soft orange of her bedside lamp fill the room.

Sitting down for a moment on the edge of her bed, she flipped her phone out of her pocket to check the time. It was half past five in the morning. She knew she really had to get some sleep herself, but she was too on edge. Plus there was a vampire in her bed.

A red dot had popped up on her phone, and clicking it told her she had thirteen missed calls. Most were from her Dad, naturally, although one was surprisingly from Mark. She put that out of her mind as she dialled her Dad's number.

He picked up after little more than a ring, and almost shouted her name frantically down the phone.

'Anna!?'

'Yeah, hi Dad, it's me.'

'Where are you, are you ok?'

'Yeah, don't worry, I'm fine…'

'Thank stakes and sunlight, Anna! I thought the vampire might of drained you and flung you in some ditch!'

'Sorry, Dad,' Anna said, putting on her best apologetic tone. 'I don't know what I was thinking, running after the vampire like that.'

'Utterly thoughtless, Anna, you could have been killed…'

'Well I'm not, am I? I chased the vamp down the street for a bit, but then I realised he was long gone… super sped didn't he… so I just headed home…'

'You're at home right now?'

'Yeah, I have been for a while.'

'Well stay where you are, and don't go out of the house, and keep all the doors and windows locked. Don't worry about me, I've got my own key. And keep your pocket stake with you at all times! There's no telling where this bloodsucker's got to.'

'You're nowhere close to finding him then,' Anna stated matter-of-factly, trying to keep the relief and satisfaction out of her voice. It was kind of laughable really. Her murderous torturer of a father was out scouring the city for a person who was tucked up safe and sound in his very own house.

'He's wounded, so he can't have gone far,' said her Dad briskly. 'The whole city is on red alert. We've got all the police and slayer army out; it's amazing he's evaded us for this long. Soon we'll have the parasite locked up again.'

'Still though,' said Anna, a smile tugging at her lips. 'The fact that he got away at all, it's not going to look very good for the slayers guild.' Putting on a thoughtful voice she continued 'Didn't you tell me that this vamp is the chosen one? What a horrific situation.'

'Yes, well…' said her Dad, sounding uncomfortable. 'It's far from ideal, but we have to deal with whatever happens, and we will deal with it Anna, don't you worry. I've got to go now, there's a lot to organise. I won't be back for a while, at least not until tomorrow.'

'Ok Dad, good luck,' she said, and immediately cut him off. It was then that she felt a pair of eyes on her; Vlad was awake and looking at her from under his eyelids.

Anna let a moment of silence run between them before she spoke. 'Are you going to be ok?'

Vlad gave her the slightest of nods. 'I'll be fine, after a while. My body just needs time to rebuild itself.'

'That's what I thought,' Anna said. 'Don't worry about my Dad, he won't be back for a while, and he never comes in here anyway. If he does come home you're just going to have to be really, really quiet.'

'Quiet as the grave,' he said with a very weak grin.

Anna rolled her eyes at him. 'Is there anything else you need?'

Vlad looked at her from under his lids again, an unreadable expression on his face. 'I think we both know what I need. But there's none of that here, so…'

'Well,' said Anna with a pause. 'There is me,' and she bit her lip awkwardly.

Vlad let out a whisper of a laugh and turned his head into her pillow.

'Not an option,' he said in a muffled voice.

'I've definitely picked the right vampire,' Anna said, trying to sound lighthearted. 'Half dead and the thought of eating me still isn't on the cards.'

Her pillow let out a short chuckle.

'There must be some way,' Anna said, trying to think.

'Most breathers don't tend to have bags of blood lying about the place,' Vlad mumbled.

'My next door neighbour has a cat. I bet I can entice it in here…' said Anna in all seriousness.

Vlad pulled the duvet closer and laughed. 'Just some food would help, for now,' said Vlad.

'What, normal food?'

'Yeah. I dunno, some toast or something.'

'My dad has bacon in the fridge. I could make bacon butties?'

'Sure…'

'I'll be back in a moment.'

When she came back upstairs twenty minutes later with two plates full of food Vlad was completely out of it, with his face smushed into the pillow. Anna set down the food on her desk, sat down on her chair, and before she knew it her eyes were drooping and she too was wandering down the path towards the dream world… wherever that place was.