I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Please excuse any grammar mistakes.
Disclaimer: I do not own My Babysitter's a Vampire.
Eden, Betty, and Rosy sat side by side on Eden's living room couch, their eyes glued to the TV. The lights were turned off to give the room the same ominous mood that emitted from the screen.
"This is the unholiest abandoned veterinary hospital I've ever seen," whispered Dani the Scare Finder.
The three girls absolutely loved her show, The Scare Finder! In each episode, she hunted the paranormal and supernatural. Her adventures were exciting, thrilling, dramatic, and all of the above.
Thirty-one-year-old Dani Falconhawk continued to quietly narrate to the viewers as she roamed through the halls of a dark, abandoned animal clinic. She had a night vision setting on her camera for the audience's convenience. She focused in on an empty dog cage covered in spider webs. "I'd put the chances of seeing Cancus Spectralis—ghost dog—at a total max," she muttered.
Through the TV, the girls suddenly heard a glass shatter.
"Something's here." Dani crept toward the noise. As she reached out her arm to open a strange door, there was another sound. A crunching sound.
Eden and Betty turned their heads to Rosy as she loudly chewed on her potato chips.
"Rosy!" Eden scolded in a whisper. "Vampires don't even need food!"
"You know I'm a stress eater," she defended.
Eden and Betty decided to do their best to ignore it and returned their attention to the TV.
"Scare Finder Rule number eight," declared Dani. "Don't be afraid of scares."
Betty spoke up. "Dani's fearless. She's like a machine designed to delete fear from itself."
Eden and Rosy nodded their agreement. Although, Eden wasn't entirely sure that made sense.
The setting of the show changed from the prerecorded shots of the animal clinic to a live broadcast of what appeared to be a neighborhood. "Hey, everybody! We're live coming up to the door of this year's Day with Dani winner!" Dawn was announcing.
Day with Dani was an annual contest the show held. The name was pretty self-explanatory. The winner was given one day to spend with Dawn to learn everything about how she operated and even hunt for the supernatural alongside her. Eden, Betty, and Rosy had all entered, but Eden already knew their chances of winning were three in a million.
"Whoever won this has crazy luck!" said Rosy.
Betty groaned. "I'm so jealous! This jerk should be me, and they aren't."
Just as they watched Dani push the doorbell to the winner's house, Eden heard her doorbell ring.
She slowly looked at Betty. "It couldn't be, right?"
"There's no way," Betty replied.
Rosy wasn't following along. "What are you talking about?"
When Eden's doorbell rang a second time, Betty and her sprung over the back of the couch to check. They fought over the doorknob for about eight seconds before Betty gave in. Eden threw open her door.
"Hey, there! Name's Dani Falconhawk!" greeted Dani.
Eden was at a loss for words. Betty was close behind her, leaning far over her shoulder to gape at Dani in awe. "Are you Eden?"
"Eden!" Rosy yelled from the other room. "You've gotta see this! You and Betty are on TV!"
Eden stood in between Rosy and Betty in her room. Each of them had on mesmerized grins as Dani Falconhawk examined the posters she had of her. Dani smiled at them. "I dig your decorating style."
As always, she was wearing her trademark look: cargo pants, matching vest, a maroon shirt with The Scare Finder logo across the front, crossbow strapped to her back, and a blond mullet for an edgy touch.
"Ow, ow, ow," Betty was mumbling.
Eden turned her head to see that her friend was pinching her arm over and over again. "It's real. This is real. This is a thing that is happening," she whispered to Betty.
"This is off hook. Several hooks," Rosy squealed.
Eden panicked when she realized that Rosy was so happy, she had started floating. She quickly yanked her friend down before Dani saw. Just in time, too, because as soon as Rosy's feet touched the floor, the scare finder turned around.
"There's an action figure of me?" she asked Eden, holding a miniature version of herself that had been resting on Eden's bookshelf.
"Uh. . .yes," Eden lied.
Betty, being clueless—well, not as clueless as Rosy, but still—immediately contradicted her. "No, they don't. Eden had to make that out of other action figures."
Eden slapped her arm. "Are you trying to make me look like a geek?" she quietly chided while her friend rubbed at the sore spot.
"You are!" Betty whispered back.
"She doesn't have to know!"
Dani set the action figure down next to the vampire doll Eden had of Jakeward from Dusk. "Now, tiny Dani can kill a vampire."
Eden's eyes widened in realization.
Wait! Dani was a paranormal investigator. She hunted everything supernatural. As as much as she wanted it to, that did not exclude vampires from the mix.
Eden pulled Betty and Rosy into an emergency huddle. "Guys, I know this is one of the most awesome things to happen, but this is also really bad."
Betty scoffed. "What?! You couldn't name five reasons why this is bad!"
Eden accepted the challenge. She held up her hand and, starting with her thumb, counted off the problems. "Dani hunts paranormal stuff." That was one. "Rosy's a vampire." Two. "Sam's a vampire." Three. "Eric's a vampire." Four. "And you're an idiot."
"That's five," said Rosy.
"Four and a half!" protested Betty. "That last one's debatable."
Eden turned to Rosy as Dani skimmed through one of her books, 101 Quotes from The Scare Finder. "Rosy, I know how much you admire Dani, but you have to stay away from her."
She frowned. "Are you kidding? Eden, you worry too much. I'll be fine. And when am I ever going to get the chance to hang out with Dani Falconhawk again?"
"You'll never get the chance to do anything again if Dani finds out you're really a vampire."
"That won't happen. And if it does, I can protect myself."
Knowing how stubborn Rosy could be, Eden relented. "Fine. We'll hang out with Dani, but no matter what, we can't let her know about Rosy, Sam, and Eric."
"Right!" her friends said in unison.
It couldn't be that hard to keep their secret. Could it?
"Did you turn eleven last night? What's with the juice box?" Eric asked Sam as he walked toward him with his eyebrows raised.
Sam was standing in front of the school. He continued to drink for a few more seconds before answering back. "It's a blood substitute. Betty's grandpa gave it to me."
"Looks like he's too used to packing nerd lunches," said Eric, referring to the juice box and bendy straw.
"Yeah, I guess."
Eric sniffed the drink in Sam's hand and cringed. "It smells like my old, sweaty shoes."
"Doesn't taste much different."
"That bad?"
"It's not terrible. But it also has side effects. Like. . ." Sam turned the box to read the disclaimer on the side ". . .nausea, dizziness, irritability, bloating, and sleep drooling." Sam took another sip. "So lucky me."
"If you knew how delicious real blood was, you'd never settle for that."
"Good thing I don't know then."
The boys looked from the fake blood to a strange van, unknown to them called the Vamp Camper, they noticed parking itself in the school lot.
A woman with a bad haircut hopped from the vehicle onto the ground. Unexpectedly, Sam, Betty, and Eden were following her lead. They were all wearing a matching set of weird clothes.
"What are they doing?" Sam asked.
Eric started walking away. "I don't want to know."
The three girls stepped out of the van. They were all wearing a Scare Finder uniform. Aside from the mullet, Sam, Betty, and Rosy were dressed exactly like Dani.
Eden smiled excitedly. "I can't believe we got a ride to school in the Vamp Camper!"
"I can't believe you guys had your own uniforms," replied Dani.
The uniform only consisted of a Scare Finder shirt, a vest, cargo pants, and boots. It wasn't as if assembling a set had been difficult. Eden would have worn it during their experiences with the paranormal in the past if she knew Sam wouldn't call her an geek. She was too pumped up to care today, though.
"Let's hit it!" Dani declared.
Soon after they paraded into school—Dani had permission from the principle to be in the building— a few of their classmates crowded around her with their notebooks and pens. They were eager for her autograph. As she happily went about signing her name, Eden noticed Sam and Eric lingering by the water fountain. Sam was waving her over.
"Uh. . .guys, you go ahead and get to chemistry," she said to the group.
Once she had casually made her way to Sam, he told her, "This new blood is awful! I need another one before I start throwing it up."
Eden didn't know how to solve Sam's problem at the moment, so instead, she decided to warn him. "Look, Sam, you have to stay out of that lady's sight. That's Dani Falconhawk."
"Is that that night vision poser from that show you nerds like?"
"Poser?" Eden echoed in offense.
"What's she going to do if she sees me?"
"Put Sam on her show?" laughed Eric. "You know, on second thought, you should be worried about her, Sam. Because if she gets in my way, she's my lunch."
"For your information, Dani is awesome!" Eden corrected them. "She's like Batman, all four Ghostbusters, a scientist, and a motorcycle gang enrolled into one. And if she spots you, you won't stand a chance."
"I'll bet," Sam laughed. "Anyway, since Betty's grandpa is out of town at that sorcery convention, can you and Betty get together and make a better tasting blood substitute than this?"
"Well, that would take a lot of time."
"So? It's not like you guys have a life."
Eden crossed her arms in annoyance. "So. . .I won the Day with Dani contest."
"You're kidding," Sam scowled. "Your seriously more worried about hanging out with a poser than helping me?"
Okay, it sounded bad when he said it like that.
"I thought you were a better friend than that," Eric commented.
"I don't want to hear that from you." Eden turned to Sam and said, "I'll talk to Betty about it."
The irritated look on Sam's face did not disappear, but he accepted that before he headed to his class.
"Rule number one: scares don't find themselves!" Dani explained to Eden's class, standing at the front of the room. Since he was a fan, the teacher had agreed that she could speak for the first ten minutes of the period. "You have to make them come to you with the right bait."
She grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote Ghost Bait in large letters on the dry erase board. Her handwriting was a lot neater than Eden would have thought. Dani underlined it in one swift motion. Beneath those two words, she listed four substances. "Aloe. Musk. Saffron. Pepper," she voiced while writing them. She placed down the chalk and looked at the class. "A recipe for wicked ghost action!"
"You should add in vervain, Dani!" Betty loudly suggested, a bag of vervain in hand. "It's also a sweet vampire repellent. Well. . .I mean. . .I've heard that."
Dani nodded with intrigue.
Rosy, who sat next to Betty in chemistry, suddenly yelled as she fell from her chair. Right! The vampire repellent must have been effective.
"You're not one of them, are you buddy?" Dani kidded.
Eden flinched at the joke.
There was a chorus of chuckling. Eden, Betty, and Rosy forced themselves to laugh. Though, Rosy was too obvious and loud about it.
When Dani went on with her lecture, Eden quietly moved from her seat to her vampire friend. "Hey, Rosy, I'll bet Dani could really go for a latte right now." Eden had to convince Rosy to leave. It was too risky for her to be here.
"A latte? Like a coffee?" asked Rosy.
"Yeah. That's the kind of thing a great assistant would fetch. I think a place on the other side of town sells them."
"Okay! I'll get one. Thanks, Eden!" Rosy gathered up her books and asked the teacher if she could be excused, pretending to be nauseous so the teacher would allow it.
Now, if only it took Rosy the entire day to grab that latte, their problems would be solved.
It had not taken the entire day. In fact, twenty minutes passed when Rosy returned with the latte. Eden tried to keep her away by sending her on errands for Dani, but being a vampire with super speed, Rosy finished tasks quickly. At the moment, she was off buying them donuts.
Once they were dismissed from school, Eden and Betty followed Dani to the Vamp Camper. Dina showed the girls souvenirs from her adventures, including a sasquatch footprint, a jar of ectoplasm from a ghost sasquatch, and a werewolf claw. Dina threw the werewolf claw to Eden. She closed her eyes and waited for it to trigger a vision but nothing happened.
Eden examined the claw closely. Was this real? She had read online that a werewolf's claw should revert into a human hand when detached from its owner. Maybe Eden didn't understand werewolves well enough. She considered asking Dani but didn't want to question her.
"Is this an undead detector?" asked Betty when Dani handed her a small gadget that looked similar to a walkie-talkie.
Dani smiled wide and nodded.
Wow! An undead detector! That was so cool!
The device began beeping.
"It's picking something up!" yelled Dani in excitement. "Something's close. Gear up!"
As she ran into her van, the steady beeping became rapid. Betty and Eden looked around for something unusual.
"Hey, guys!" said Rosy from behind them. She was carrying a box of donuts, having just returned from the shop.
Betty pointed the antenna at Rosy and the beeping only accelerated.
Betty whipped around to Eden and mouthed. "It's her!"
Eden panicked. She snatched the undead detector from Betty and banged it against a nearby rock until the beeping stopped.
When she saw Dani stepping out of the van again, she jumped to her feet. "Oh, Dani!" she exclaimed. "It stopped beeping. I guess it's broken."
Dani threw the Scare Finder helmet she had grabbed down and sighed. "Bummer."
"Here, Dina. Want a donut?" Rosy offered.
She happily accepted one. "Thanks, dude."
"I'll take one!" said Betty, seizing the entire box and proceeding to gobble down a donut with chocolate glaze.
As Dani took a bite of hers, she told Rosy, "You've been grabbing a lot of stuff, huh? The latte, the biscotti, my dry cleaning. . ."
She saluted her. "Yes, Sir!"
At the title "Sir," she gave Rosy a look. "I appreciate it. But stay close by from now on. Or you'll miss the action."
"Okay!"
Eden inwardly groaned.
After Dani drove the girls to Eden's house in the Vamp Camper, she went to the stove to cook her specialty, The Falconhawk Forest Fry. She was adding in more ham when Eden's phone began ringing. "Sam? What's up?" she asked, stepping away for some privacy.
"This junk tastes like a punch in the mouth. Did you and Betty come up with something?"
"Uh. . ."
"Eden." There was a warning in how he said her name.
"I kind of forgot about that."
"What?!" she heard him shout.
"I'm sorry. With all the excitement, it just slipped my mind."
"I'm over here starving, asking you for help, and you couldn't care less!"
"That's not true, Sam! I do care!"
"If you cared, then you would be helping me."
"Sam—"
He cut her off. "I guess everyone just wants me to go eat rats again! Fine, I'll go eat rats in the graveyard! Like a loser! A loser like you!" Eden became confused when she heard him yelling, "What? You heard me! I eat rats! Keep moving and mind your own business!"
"What?" she asked.
"Not you. This random guy who was passing me by on the street. Nevermind. Forget I asked for your help! Go play ghostbusters with Miss Mullet."
With that, he hung up.
Eden, feeling guilt-ridden, walked back to the kitchen island where her friends were sitting at. There were only two chairs, so Eden had to stand.
Dani spooned a glob of her food into three plates each and served the girls the dish. "This is what I dig into whenever I'm in a bush looking for a chupacabra. It has canned spam, canned beans, and canned pineapple chunks."
The Falconhawk Forest Fry reminded Eden of dog food, but that was what made it Scare Finder material. It tasted interesting, both sweet and meaty.
"Wow! The pineapple junks are wicked caramelized," Betty said. She high-fived Dani.
Rosy looked to be enjoying herself. Her portion was gone in a matter of seconds.
"Eat up," Dani told them. "You'll need the energy for an all-night terror stakeout."
Eden was spilling over with enthusiasm. "Stakeout? Really?"
"I'm not just here to cook. We're gonna find some scares."
"Where?" asked Rosy.
"Rule number six: where bodies lay, scares will play. We're going to the graveyard."
Eden's smile fell. The graveyard? Not good! Sam was drinking rat blood there! "Wait! No!"
Everyone stared at Eden with confusion. "Why not?" asked Dani.
Think, think, think, think. "Uh. . .because. . .my house is haunted."
"It is?" Betty, Rosy, and Dani said together.
"Yeah."
Dina dropped the ladle into the pot of Falconhawk Forest Fry. "Well, you're in luck."
Funny. It didn't feel like it.
Sam slumped to the ground, discouraged and hungry. He rested his back against a tombstone.
He had spent the last half hour trying to catch a rat, but his efforts were a waste of time and energy.
He couldn't believe Eden. How could she choose some want-to-be ghostbuster over him? He had thought that she would be ready and waiting to help him. Maybe they weren't as close as he thought.
Sam listened to the crickets chirping. It was getting late. He would have to give up soon.
He angrily yanked out the blood substitute and stabbed at the top with the straw. When it refused to pierce through the box, Sam threw the drink in frustration only for it to be caught by Eric. He wasn't here before. He must have decided to come see how Sam was holding up with no blood.
"Your littering? That's not the goody-goody Sam I know."
"I don't think I was ever a goody-goody. This slop is driving me crazy. And it's making me slow. I can't even catch a rat."
"Did Eden and Betty get anywhere?"
"They're too busy hunting for zombies."
"Well, go bug them until they science you up something."
Sam didn't reply, but he figured he would think about it.
"Is your house really haunted?" Betty asked Eden as Dani set up special laser beams in her living room.
"What do you think?"
"I think a haunted house isn't out of place in this town. And if you're house is haunted, you should have told me. I'm your best friend!"
Before Eden could confirm to Betty that her house wasn't haunted—not to her knowledge anyway— the theme song to Dani's TV show started playing.
Dani withdrew her cellphone from her pocket, and Eden realized it must have been her ringtone. "Boo!" she yelled into the phone. "Scared ya! Hey, Jerry! How's the best producer in the world? Hold on."
She pressed a button then looked at her three fans. "I'll let you guys listen in on some show biz talk."
Eden, Betty, and Rosy perked up.
"Makowski!" shouted her producer. "The ratings on your last episode were like a disease! You're putting people to sleep!"
The girls frowned. What was he talking about? The last episode was great!
Eden saw that despite her producer's harsh words, Dani was still smiling. It was as if the shock had frozen her face.
Jerry continued his rant. "It's all, 'Ooh, what a squeak that floor made!' or 'Oh! I hoped that table didn't move!' Unless the Scare Finder actually finds something this week, you can kiss your joke of a show goodbye!" A loud click signaled that Jerry had hung up.
"Your show's in trouble?" Eden immediately asked, alarmed and dismayed. "But it's awesome!"
"The last episode rocked," Rosy confirmed.
Betty seemed about ready to puke from disappointment.
"It was weak," Dani confessed, her cheerful grin now gone. "It's always weak! I've never actually ever seen anything. And this ghost grid—" She gestured to the red laserbeams "—it's never found a ghost." She pushed the button to turn them off.
"Uh. . .why did he call you Makowski?" Betty questioned.
She sighed in defeat. "My real name's Dina Makowski. Falconhawk is made up. I used it because it sounded cooler."
At this point, Eden and her friends were silent as they struggled to process what their icon was telling them.
Eden was searching her brain for words of encouragement, something uplifting, when the doorbell rang.
"I'll go answer that," she said while Dani absentmindedly pulled one of her supernatural hunting devices from her bag to sadly fiddle with.
As soon as the door was an inch opened, Sam came barging in. "I need blood. I don't care if you have to put off looking for werewolves or mummies or whatever. I need help."
"Sam," Eden whispered urgently. "If you're here, Dani might find out that you're a vampire."
He rolled his eyes. "Oh, no! I'm paralyzed by terror," he deadpanned, walking to the living room.
"What good is a camera that sees vampires when there aren't any vampires to see?" Dani was complaining to himself as she peered through the camera.
Hearing that, Betty pushed Rosy so she fell behind the couch, out of view. Before Eden could hide Sam, Dani was focusing the camera on him.
"Holy cow! A vampire!" she shouted.
"What, no," Betty denied.
"This is just my little brother's babysitter," said Eden.
Sam was staring at Dani. He was cool, calm, and unimpressed.
"He was just leaving." Eden pushed Sam back toward her front door.
Sam easily shook her off. "Give me a break!"
To everyone's horror, Sam bared his fangs and hissed at Dani.
Dani dropped her camera and ran out of the room, screaming, "A vampire! A vampire!"
"Some hero of yours," Sam said. "Now, can you science me up some new blood!"
Eden could not believe how casual he was acting about this situation. He practically waltzed into her house with a huge sign that read, I am a vampire! Come kill me! "Sam, she saw you!"
"Yeah, and she really looked like she was going to do something about it."
Sam's sarcasm was interrupted when an arrow was suddenly fired at him. He managed to dodge. The arrow embedded itself into Eden's wall. Her parents wouldn't be happy about that.
"A real vampire!" Dani smiled sinisterly, a crossbow in hand.
Sam, finally realizing the Scare Finder was the real deal, bolted out the door.
"The haters on my blog can eat it!" Dani yelled, running after Sam.
"Sam's in trouble," said Eden, stating the obvious.
Rosy stood up from behind the couch. "Dani is awesome!"
Yeah, but that wasn't important right now.
The girls hurried to the Vamp Camper.
Dani had been wearing her Scare Finder helmet that had cameras built into it, which meant there was a high possibility she was taking this hunt live. Betty turned on the monitor in Dina's van and pulled up the live feed of The Scare Finder on the screen.
"This episode's going to be awesome!" Betty remarked eagerly.
Eden shook her head. Couldn't her friends take this seriously?
"Oh, there's an audio feed." Betty turned one of the knobs to increase the volume.
"Okay, Makowski." Eden recognized that voice. It was Jerry. "We're going live with this. But it better be ratings gold. We're interrupting Biggest Bravest Babies for this."
"This is huge, Jerry!" Dani was speaking in between breaths as she ran through their neighborhood. "The world's first televised vampire kill! This bloodsucker's dead. . . again!"
"Guys, we have to do something," said Eden.
Betty no longer seemed excited. Instead, she looked nervous. "Do you think Dani would . . .kill Sam."
Sam dead? Because of Dani? Someone she admired? The irony of it was cruel. "Even if she doesn't, the whole world will know he's a vampire. And this town will be crawling with people like Dani. Plus, spooky government scientists."
"What do we do? Dani's our hero," Rosy said.
"Yeah," said Betty, "and I don't really want to use my magic to turn her into a slug or blind her or anything."
"Yeah, it's a good thing you're bad at magic."
Betty glared at Rosy.
Eden thought for a moment. A plan came to her. "If Dani wants a show about vampires, we'll give her one." Now she was the one with the sinister smile.
Sam hid behind the dumpster of an alleyway.
Dani was closeby. Sam could hear her rambling on as she searched for him. "White Chapel, the sleepy little town where the horrors are wide awake."
Sam had to admit that was a clever way to describe it. And it was accurate.
"Rule number five! Nightmares don't dream. I am the Scare Finder! I'm on the trail of a real vampire, an undead abomination. . ."
Undead abomination? That was offensive.
". . .who brazenly attacked me only moments ago."
Brazenly attacked? Okay, now she was just lying. Who fired an arrow at who again?
"But he forgot one thing. Uh. . ." She paused, as if she hadn't planned what she was going to say. Finally, she finished her thought ". . .you never hunt a hunter."
Sam peeked over the dumpster in time to see Dani trip over a garbage bag.
He was relieved when his friend, Eric, was suddenly at his side, having used his vampire speed to stealthily dart next to him. "I can't believe you are running from this moron," he said. "Why don't you just take her out?"
"I'm too weak from this fake blood. And I'm not a killer."
Sam felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Eden had texted him.
"Meet me at the warehouse," he read aloud.
"She texted me the same. For your sake, I hope she has a plan. But if it fails, I'll be your plan B."
"Does plan B involve eating her?"
Eric smirked. "Think of it as a last resort."
"I'm sorry. What do you want us to do?" Eric asked.
Eden showed them their costumes. "We need Dani to think she was wrong about what she saw. So we're going to do some Dusk reenactment."
"I don't follow," said Sam.
Eden handed Sam her dad's leather jacket and a pair of fake fangs. To Eric, she gave plastic werewolf ears, a strap-on nose, and a bushy wig.
"Why?" was all Eric said in response.
"Sam's going to play Jakeward and you're his rival for Rochelle's heart. I know you read the book and watched the movies, Eric."
"I am not doing this." Eric dropped his costume.
"Really? Sam's life is kind of at stake here. I would think you'd want to help."
"Why don't you do it? You're a geek. Roleplaying is probably one of the few things you're good at."
"Come on! What's more important? Your friend or your pride?"
"I'm not dressing up like an idiot!"
"I thought you were a better friend than that," Eden shot back with the same words Eric had used on her earlier that day.
Eric sighed and gathered up the parts to his werewolf outfit from the floor. "If I have to look like stupid for this, it had better work. Who's going to play Rochelle?"
Rosy walked up from behind the boys. She had on a dress from Eden's closet—it was one of the two fancy dresses Eden's mom had bought her— plus the old toy tiara Eden wore as a little girl and a wig. The dress was a little too small for her, but that wasn't important. "This is exciting!" Rosy grinned. "I've never had boys fight over me before."
"I was going to be Rochelle," said Betty, who was standing by the shelves of the warehouse, "but Rosy really wanted to do it."
"You've got to be kidding," Eric groaned.
At the sound of Dani's monologuing, everyone assumed their positions.
Betty quietly cast a spell on Doug's crossbow to freeze the trigger in place, rendering it useless.
Now, the love triangle would commence.
Eric half-heartedly growled as he stepped into the Scare Finder's line of sight, his werewolf gear on. The others stayed hiding.
"Holy cow! A werewolf!" Dani aimed her crossbow only to realize it didn't work.
"You dare to trespass human," Eric said dryly. Eden slapped her forehead at how unconvincing he sounded.
"I'm tracking a vampire! Your eternal foe!"
"You mean me?" announced Sam, entering the scene. "I came here to steal back my love from the likes of this werewolf."
"Wow, this is just like the movie. But worse acting," Betty whispered to Eden.
"She loves me," Eric said. "We are eloping tonight."
"Well, we already have an arranged marriage," said Sam.
That line was their cue to begin circling each other like lions.
"Now, Rosy," Eden signaled.
"Right." She walked out from behind the shelves. "No! Stop this madness!" she cried with much more vigor than Eric and Sam had. "Please, don't make me choose between my forbidden love with a werewolf and the super ancient tradition of our fellow vampires."
Sam ignored her pleas as per the script. "I challenge the werewolf to a fight!"
"I accept." Eric grabbed Sam by the shoulders and pretended to throw him to the ground. Well. . .he was supposed to pretend, but Eric didn't know his own strength.
"Dude, that hurt!" Sam yelled.
"Suck it up!"
While they battled for her love, Rosy ran to Dani. "Please, sir. I beg of you. You can't let them kill each other. You're the only human that can help."
Dani pondered this. "Do I keep my hunter's instincts in check and play peacemaker? Or do I bag myself a vampire and write my name in the history books?" She hummed for a moment before deciding, "Yeah, I like that second option better."
Dani hit her crossbow until the ice fell from the trigger and pointed the arrow at Rosy.
"Duck!" Eden shouted.
Instead of ducking, Rosy kicked her. She flew several feet before dropping to the ground. "Oh, sorry, Miss Falconhawk!"
Eden and Betty figured now was a good time to show themselves.
"Eden? Betty? What are you doing here?" Dani asked.
Rosy removed her wig.
"You, too, Rosy? What's going on?"
This was awkward.
"Uh. . .well. . ." Eden dreaded having to explain this.
"I'm really sorry, Dani," Eden apologized for the fourth time as Dani packed her hunting equipment into her truck, still parked outside Eden's house. Eden, Betty, Sam, and Rosy watched her shove her helmet in a duffel bag. Eric had left the second they were found out. "But when you showed up, we thought it would be cool to be on TV."
"I was live!" she yelled. "I'm ruined! How could you do that? I just wanted to make a fan's day. Not get punk'd by a Dusk convention. Why would you want to destroy your own hero just to get on TV? Dressing up as monsters? Rigging my cameras?"
"I'm sorry, Dani. I don't know how else to apologize."
"Don't apologize! Apologies don't get me my show back!"
"Back off," Sam said in Eden's defense. "Your show was lame, anyway."
"That show was my livelihood!" She grabbed her mullet and, to their shock, yanked it off to reveal it was a wig. Her actual hair was short and dark. "You might as well keep this," she sulked, handing it to Betty whose mouth had fallen open in appallment. "I think I need a rule number eleven: some scares just aren't worth finding." Dani gave them one last look of utter disappointment before closing the back doors to her truck and walking away.
If only Eden had never won that stupid contest in the first place. She had ruined Dani's show, her life, her career. . .At least Sam was still alive and not some story on the news.
"Thanks for helping me, Eden," Sam told her, resting his hand on her shoulder. "Even though it meant embarrassing Dani. You did the right thing. Your a better hero than her, anyway. And a better scare finder. . .or whatever she calls herself."
Eden's cheeks warmed. She smiled slightly. "Thanks, Sam."
"What about us?" Rosy said. "We helped. Right, Betty?"
Betty had yet to turn her depressed gaze from Dani's wig. "I can't talk right now. Everything I have ever believed in. . .was a wig."
"You geeks are pretty cool, too. Kind of," Sam said. "But you know what would make you even cooler?"
"What?" asked Rosy.
"Making me some new blood already!"
"Oh, right." Besides Dani, there was someone else Eden needed to apologize to. "I'm sorry for not helping you with that earlier."
Sam shrugged. "I'm sorry for being impatient about it. And for calling you a loser." He smirked. "Even though, you are a loser."
"Oh, really? Now I'm a loser? You just called me a hero."
"You're both."
"Well, you're a jerk," Eden retorted jokingly.
"I won't deny that. But I'm nicer than Eric."
"Yeah, and I can't deny that."
Hope it was okay.