I am so so so sorry that it has been so long! I went on spring break and then came back to this virus craziness and got the flu. Things have just been chaotic.

Thankfully, we had an uneventful night and everyone was rested. Matt woke us up super early and we all sat around eating gross cold canned food while Matt explained today.

It was going to be an all day operation. We were to set out in teams to do surveillance. The vampires were likely still on the prowl now so we needed to find them and where they were nesting. He emphasized we are not to engage with them, just try to locate them.

There was no way of obtaining the layout of wherever they were hiding on such short notice. So we would be going into this part of the plan blind. Once we had a location, we were to wait for the entire group to get there. Everyone was heading in together.

We would need scout the place quickly and quietly, try to locate any exit points because we don't want to rush the front door and have all the vampires run out the back door and get away. With all known exit points covered, we would descend on the vampire nest.

I felt butterflies in my stomach, I was nervous about today and excited. I glanced over at Emma and nodded towards Matt. Trying to gesture that she needed to speak up and tell him. Emma tilted her head watching me, she didn't quite get it at first. When she did she cleared her throat.

"I'm coming with," she said to Matt.

He looked over at her with surprise, "You're sure?"

Emma nodded.

"Alright then," Matt nodded. "Our surveillance should be three teams of three then. I don't want anyone out on their own. Emma can join Jeremy and Tori. I'll be with Simon and Kyle. Chloe, Derek, and Liz will be the third team. Sound good?"

Everyone agreed and we split up to ready. Matt said we had forty-five minutes max. I saw Jeremy pull Emma aside and used my werewolf hearing to listen in from where I was sitting. I pulled out my phone to make it look like I wasn't listening in. I don't normally like to eavesdrop but I wanted to make sure Jeremy wasn't going to lecture Emma about going.

"What is it?" She asked.

Good she was initiating the conversation for once.

"I wanted to talk to you privately," Jeremy said. "I wanted to know how you were doing with…"

Jeremy must have gestured at something.

"I… I'm ok…"

"You know I'll do it for you again."

"N-no. I'm fine."

What were they talking about? Was Jeremy trying to feed her blood again? Liz interrupted my wandering thoughts.

"I'm so glad we got paired up today," she smiled. "Feels like we haven't talked much in a bit. I've been catching up with Tori so much."

I smiled back, "Yeah, I'll be fun."

Everyone came out to the car on time.

"I've made an adjustment to the car to make things more comfortable," Matt said.

We were all curious what that meant, the car looked exactly the same.

"Ever seen the tent in Harry Potter?" Matt smiled at me and opened his door to get in.

We opened the other doors and started sliding in, there was a third row of seats now so we wouldn't be cramped. Everyone was excited.

One team at a time we were dropped off around town. Liz, Derek, and I were designated to scout the south side of town which was mostly residential. It wasn't likely that we were going to find their hideout here but there had been reports of lots of attacks around the homes.

"How does it feel being back?" Derek asked Liz as we walked down the sidewalk.

Liz smiled, "Oh its great to be out of those pajamas, they were starting to get annoying. I missed wearing jeans."

I chuckled, the things that we take for granted every day like pants.

"So how exactly do we find these vampires?" Liz asked. "Are we just waiting to stumble on an attack in progress?"

Derek nodded, "Pretty much, there's practically no way we could identify them without them doing something vampire like."

And so our stroll around town began. Watching every person we passed and listening in on every building for something suspicious.

Matt's POV

I pulled up to a fast food parking lot and parked the car. Turned to Simon and Kyle and said, "Alright now it's our turn to join in."

"How likely is it that we will find them?" Kyle asked.

I got out of the car as I answered.

"I think our chances are pretty good considering that they like tormenting the town during the day."

I watched Simon out of the corner of my eye as we began walking down the sidewalk. Don't get me wrong, I liked the kid. But that does not mean I can automatically forgive him for harming Chloe. That was going to be a sore spot for a while. Tess trusted me to take care of her. This was my chance to make up for my mistakes with Lydia and I was failing. There was nothing I could do to help Lydia now but I could still keep Chloe safe.

Emma's POV (I cannot wait for you guys to see Emma's next POV:D)

I kept glancing back over my shoulder. Being out in the open like this was taking a toll on my nerves. It had been years. I kept expecting my captor vampires to appear and take me away from these kind people. Or that I'd wake up and they were only a dream. This was just too good to be true. I couldn't let myself believe it would last for long.

"What do you keep looking at?" Tori asked me.

"Nothing," I answered.

Simple quick answers were all I had been allowed for years. It wasn't easy to break the programming.

"Please don't give her a hard time," Jeremy spoke up. "You can't expect her to not be on edge after all she's been through."

Tori was looking away from me but I'm sure she rolled her eyes. She seemed like the snotty type.

I thought back to a vampire Tori reminded me of. Her name was Abby. Abby was probably the reason I was still alive. These vampires experimented on so many of us for so long and no matter if the experiment was successful or not, they were almost always killed. But Abby had a fascination with me and never let the others kill me. She tortured me and studied me almost every day but never let me die. I almost think it was her twisted way of showing love. But it was probably just her way of being fascinated. I was one of two werewolves allowed to live.

Abby acted a lot like Tori, snippy, judgmental, demanding. I grew to hate how she loved to hurt me. And now I found myself glaring at the back of Tori's head, as if she were Abby.

Jeremy saw my expression and reached out to comfort me. Probably thinking I was mad about what she said. He was so kind. I felt bad that in the back of my head I was always trying to figure out if he had other intentions. It was so hard to believe someone was just nice and nothing more.