The next day was dismal for Laura.
She prepared her plan, ran over the motions, and practiced.
Eventually, with a tired sigh, she pulled open her laptop and started the camera.
"Hey, I just wanted to let whoever might see this know: I tried to do it right. I really, truly tried to use reason. If things don't work out, I just want to say I'm sorry."
She closed the laptop and waited, yet again.
Eventually, she heard the sounds of someone at the door. It was distinctly louder than the usual, near inaudible, approach of Carmilla. She just assumed, however, that the vampire had given up her stealthy approach considering it no longer served any purpose.
She swiftly took a position by the door, shoulder down, ready to charge.
The door creaked open.
"AAAHH!" Laura charged, flinging her tiny mass forward and instinctively screaming as she did so.
Almost instantaneously—and well before she had any idea what was happening—Laura felt something hard slam into her face and her body be forcibly flipped over onto the ground.
"Laura?!" A familiar voice pierced her new splitting headache.
"Danny?!" The small girl opened her eyes to see the redhead's Amazonian proportions towering over her.
Danny was holding a bow in one hand and was kitted out in some kind of leather hunting gear. Her face was partially covered in some kind of greenish makeup that seemed to be part camouflage , part ceremonial markings. She was in a battle ready position now with her elbow out, which looked to be what had struck Laura's face.
"What are you doing here Laura? You disappeared days ago. LaF and Perry had me scouring campus for you." She asked with obvious concern.
"I was kidnapped." The smaller girl rushed while standing up. "Which, come to think of it, should probably have been obvious by my abrupt disappearance and shackles."
"Same old Laura." Danny rolled her eyes and helped her to her feet. "Do you have any idea who did it?"
"That's the crazy part. It was actually-" She began to explain.
Her words were cut off however. The only warning was a choking sound, before Danny unceremoniously collapsed to the ground, revealing a grinning Carmilla standing behind her.
"Don't worry, I think she just figured it out."
Laura gasped in shock and horror as the grim vampire paced around her ex-friend's apparently unconscious body.
"I will admit doing that had to be the singular thing in this sorrowful affair that I have enjoyed." Carmilla remarked.
She then placed the heel of one of her feet, more precisely the leather boot she was wearing upon it, onto the small of Danny's back and began to visibly press down.
"Stop it!" Laura shouted.
She was still reeling from all of the shock this had brought. First a seeming rescue, and now a tragedy in the making.
"Why?" The vampire still wore a frustrating smile. "The blow I already gave that poor, enormous back of hers will likely cripple her for life. Don't you think she would much rather die than give up her precious Summer Society hunts?"
"It doesn't matter Carm, because that's not your choice to make." Laura gritted out. "I don't really care about the stupid rivalry between you two, or how you finish it, but nobody is going to be killed because I was foolish enough to let this happen to me."
The two glared at each other a moment. Laura could feel a palpable sadness in the vampire's eyes. She could feel what the typically inscrutable woman was feeling. She certainly knew her well enough even in this short time. The discovery had driven Carmilla even farther, now there was no way to hold things even to the tenuous madness she was balancing on before. The only route left was to let Danny go—ruining everything—or kill her—thus becoming a complete monster in Laura's eyes rather than merely dangerously disturbed for at the very least understandable reasons.
She was very much like a cornered animal.
"What are you going to do about it Creampuff?" The leather clad woman ground her foot deeper into Danny's back. Even considering her less than fond feelings for the tall girl, Laura felt a twinge of sympathy.
Laura had already chosen her course of action. It only became easier when the crumpled redhead blindly snatched one of her spilled arrows and stabbed the vampire in the foot stunning her. Taking the opening, Laura flung what little bulk she had headlong into the unready vampire sending her toppling back into the stake hidden behind the door.
The moment seemed to last forever. Laura watched the blood trickle down her lover, the woman who saved her life many times already.
She thought maybe she saw something like relief in the dead eyes as they finally closed.
Laura sobbed.
And fainted.