Argh! Classes, work, and writers block, thou shalt be the death of me (sorry, we're starting our Shakespeare unit)

Back to Val's POV in this one.

Disclaimer: If Twilight were mine, I'd disclaim it anyways. I also don't own Ripley's Believe It or Not. I just own the OCs and I'm almost certain they aren't happy about it.

Val wasn't a hateful person, but there were some things he couldn't stand. Alcohol came to mind. His job. World hunger. Dictators disguised as bosses. Freeloaders. Vampires who poisoned innocent girls.

And, as of late, Moses. Who was turning out to be at least two out of the six.

It seemed the dhampir wasn't just planning on going along to give directions. The truck's bed had at least seven boxes in it. Moses was using Val for a taxi.

Traveling. With dhampirs it was a curse. And he'd only had Moses in his truck for an hour. There were still six hours and fifty three minutes before they'd stop for the night.

As if that weren't enough, Moses had destroyed Val's GPS. There was no getting rid of him. That GPS was the only thing protecting Val from being forced to have a partner who actually had a sense of direction. Moses had also taken Leah with, and now she was dressed in clothes that weren't blood spattered. Thank God, Val had more than one credit card. He made a mental note to hide the others in a better place. Because, unfortunately, getting rid of Moses was not an option. The man was like a bad movie; you wanted to burn it but it was useful for comedic purposes and it did have a few glimmers of potential.

Example: if Leah's pack even thought that there was the slightest chance she was alive, Val would need the Headless Horseman (and possibly the Headless Horseman's flamethrower) in ways that were probably pathetic.

"This is fortunate. I won't have to take a taxi to Florida," Moses said, his whimpering tone and shuddering suggesting that this was anything but fortunate. He was sitting in the passenger seat with his knees pulled to his chest. Like a lot of older men, Moses didn't trust technology and now he was surrounded by an iphone, a tablet, and was remained of a GPS. To Moses, this must've been special hell.

And what was that about Florida? My lord, this man has it out for me. The company's HQ was in Jacksonville, Val's mother and her wolf pack were probably somewhere around Tallahassee, and Val's father and wife had both died in Fort Lauderdale.

"I thought you said it was—and I quote—'a perfect place'," Val sneered. Moses looked amiable… well as amiable as one could look when one seemed to be on the verge of a panic attack.

"It is. At least Orlando is."

Screw the fact that he was driving. Head meet steering wheel. I'm sure you two will be great together. By this point, Val was beyond caring about his nose. When he straightened up, he noticed Leah's face in the rear view mirror. She was smiling. He hated to ruin her good mood—after last night she certainly deserved to have one—but seeing her reminded him of something.

"So, Leah, are you sure I'm not going to turn on the TV in a couple days and find you on AMBER Alerts?"

Leah rolled her eyes. "No, you can be sure that won't happen. I've been trying to get out of that town since I was twenty."

"Why didn't you?"

"I had a bucket list. Things to do, people to tell off, that sort of thing. I figured it wouldn't mater since I would never come back."

"Don't you have a family? They should be worried sick about you," Moses said. Val knew Moses couldn't bear thinking about someone with no family. It was a wonder he didn't have ten children of his own.

"My brother is in college. My dad is dead. And my mom got remarried to the father of this stupid girl. Can you believe she actually wanted to be a vampire? It totally drove a wrecking ball through everyone's lives."

Val heard Moses hiss. He had nearly been turned into a full-fledged vampire before. Val himself didn't have to worry because mutts weren't deemed worthy enough to be changed. But dhampirs… nobody knew what happened. All the dhampirs were too fast to catch.

"I've met a few," Val answered. "The company has had some serious problems with the lovers of incubi."

"What are incubi?"

"The sex fiends of the vampire world. They especially like young girls, fifteen to seventeen."

Two seconds passed. And then, "I hate vampires. I really, really hate vampires."

Val was beginning to like Leah.

…

He had to hand it to the incubi. They may have been evil and disgusting, but they provided almost two hours of conversation on vampires and why they should be eliminated. In that time, Val learned that Leah's stepsister, Bella, was permanently eighteen, she'd met her husband who was now a hundred and twelve ("They're just children," said Moses, the nine hundred year old dhampir; Val managed to stifle a smile) and he'd wanted to drink her blood despite living in a vegetarian coven. Val wasn't sure how things managed to get from 'I want to kill you so badly' to 'Darling will you marry me?' in the space of a year or two but it wasn't his job to understand vampires. Bella had a dhampir child, whom one of her former love interests imprinted on the day it was born. It wasn't unusual for a mate to be a few years younger then the wolf. Val's father had been two years younger than Val's mother. But never in all his twenty years as the company's bitch had Val heard of a couple being seventeen years apart. It was almost worse than a Ripley's Believe It or Not marriage he'd read about, where a seventeen year old human girl married a human man who was a hundred and twelve. What made it worse was how fast a dhampir aged. If she was five now, she could be married in two years. There'd be more mutts in the world in at least three years. Hell, it would take a miracle for the company not to sniff her out.

He almost felt sorry for the kid.

"What issue did the Volturi have with them?" Val asked. Leah might know. She seemed pretty involved with these beasts.

"They thought Renesmee was an immortal child."

Beck interrupted. "What's a renesmee?"

Leah laughed and tousled his hair. "The unfortunate child of the Cullens. I'm glad I won' know what she'll turn out to be like."

"How did these Cullens manage to survive the Volturi? I've only known two people who have ever done that," Moses said.

"They sent out SOS signals to all their friends. I can only imagine what would happen if the whole army was around yesterday."

Val couldn't help but wonder if the Cullens would send out SOS signals again since Leah was not dead.

"Aha! Now I know why the death toll in Seattle was so high five years ago. Honestly. If these Cullens are really vegetarians you'd think they'd insist that their guests not feed off of humans while staying in their house!" Moses was a bit of a vegetarian himself. He only drank blood once a month and it had to be animal or from a blood bank. Val knew this because of the year he'd spent in London with the man. It was a long, horrific memory of tea, blood, and headless vampires.

"They didn't want them hunting in Forks. I guess they were okay with it as long as it wasn't close by," Leah replied. Moses turned a deep scarlet and seemed to inflate.

"CREATURES LIKE THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST!" he screamed.

"Moses, calm down. You're scaring Beck." Beck actually seemed rather fascinated, but Moses didn't need to know that. "And anyways, that's why we do what we do, right?"

Moses deflated. "Yes, you're quite right, Jeppeson. Forgive an old man of his prejudices, Leah."

Leah was laughing. Well at least she was happy. Maybe he'd let Moses sit next to her for the rest of the trip.

"I wonder, though…" Moses took a sip of his tea. "When they don't find your body, they might track you."

Way to kill the mood, Moses.

"We'll be far enough away," Val replied. "Besides, there are plenty of werewolves and shifters across the states. They'll have to be super trackers if they really want her dead."

And the mood was now deceased. This was going to be a long drive.

...

"Have you ever killed a vampire before?" Beck asked Leah half an hour later.

"Yeah, once, in a fight against a newborn army. Some she-vamp wanted revenge on Edward and Bella."

"So she a created newborn army? My word, these Cullens of yours seem to invite trouble!" Moses exclaimed. Val silently agreed. No wonder Leah didn't want to go back; she had helped her stepsister and her vampire family and in return they tried to kill her. Val had had his share of sorrow in life, but it seemed a bowl of cherries compared to being ignored and abused and left for dead.

"Well… Cecil's probably going to call me in a few hours. If you want, I can get them on the kill list," he said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. If they're a real danger to humanity or the peace of the supernatural world, I can tell Cecil. They'd have a week at the most."

Leah was quiet for a moment. "No, that's okay. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that." She smiled a little. "They've already tried to kill me. I don't need them haunting my dreams at night."

Val knew then that Leah was tough. Tougher than he was, anyways.

He was almost definitely going to like her.

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