When she wakes up, he's gone.

If it weren't for all the data she had collected and the various COMSOL windows open on her laptop, she would have been convinced that all of yesterday was a concussion-fueled dream. Sophia takes out the first aid kit from the bag and unrolls it to take out the ibuprofen. Once the medicine is down the hatch, she begins working on breakfast.

There are so many other things she wants to test (like the durability of his skin, for one), but with the werewolf still at large, his cousins and him evidently had different priorities. Could I help? As a human with absolutely no background knowledge of these wolves, taking down one equaled a death wish.

Leave it to the experts.

Demetri probably had ages of experience fighting these things - this must be like a routine sort of project to him. Still, that thing killed Gemma, and she wants some part in ending it. That leads to her calling her vampire friend. "Hello."

"Good morning - what new questions do you have for me today?" He sounds amused.

"I want to know about the wolves." A pause.

"Do you not have any more questions about my morphology?"

"Those can wait. I want to know about that thing, and if you don't tell me, that's fine. I respect that, but I'll also find out somehow."

A sigh. "Well, I'm not going to test your bluff at such a moment - meet me at the woods behind the tennis courts." Well, that worked out quite well.

"I'll be there in half an hour." Her hair smells fine and so does the rest of her body, so she quickly applies some deodorant, throws on a fresh pair of clothes and darts out the door with her backpack.

Halfway down the stairs her shoulder bumps with someone, and her foot loses its spot on the stair. She'd be on her behind (and possibly on her backpack) if the person hadn't pulled her by the shoulder. "I'm so sorry," he starts mumbling profusely, then takes off without a second glance. God knows what that dude was worked up about - classes, probably. That reminds her - today is a Sunday, the last day she can fully devote to shenanigans before she has to get back in class.

Once she finds a proper parking spot for her car, she walks over to the spot where the four of them are standing. Explanations don't really require people, but whatever . There's a pissed look on the girl's face, and she turns to Demetri, smiling cruelly. He does not look pleased.

"Where have you been?" His tone certainly matches the steely angry look on his face.

"Dude, I got here as soon as I humanly could, okay?" She notices that the younger boy, Alec, is wrinkling his nose at her. So she didn't take a shower, but she sure as hell doesn't smell like a compost pit. "Come on, I can't smell that bad."

Demetri walks over to her and takes a deep whiff, then takes a step back and roams his eyes over her, like some sort of scanner. "Describe the man you bumped into."

No fucking way. "Okay, how in the soggy hell do you know that?"

"Describe him." She would love to argue, but his tone conveys that he's not in the mood to fuck around.

"He was skinny, wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans. Closer to your height than mine; didn't really notice much else."

"This is the right time to find him," Alec says, looking between his sister and Demetri. "Where is he headed to?"

"Let's go. Alec, Jane, you're with Felix. Start off north, I will join you shortly. You," he points a finger at her, "are going back home."

"Excuse me- no- wHY? Is that person the werewolf? Why should I be going back if he was last seen at my apartment? I'd be safer with you guys around." Unless they didn't really care about her safety.

"He's not there anymore," he replies curtly. "You're going back, and you don't leave that place until I tell you to." Except she's not a child he can order around.

"Listen, I will do whatever the fuck I want and if I want to chase some big bad wolf, so be fucking it."

"You're not undoing all my work, and I will not have a human impede my efforts. It is in your best interest and safety to return back." He looks like he's about to add on further, but he just shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, his face relaxing. "Listen, I will bring your friend justice - just, go back. I didn't kill you that night because I wanted to see what would become of you - I won't let you die now because of the same reason."

"Really weird way to tell someone you care for them," she mutters as she walks towards her car, knowing he'll hear. She gets no answer, however, and he is gone by the time she looks back. So she makes her way back home, fingers drumming on the steering wheel as she thinks over her previous interaction. That person she bumped into most likely was the werewolf, given by Demetri and his cousins' extreme reactions. And they're going to get him today . Well, at least she can rest easy knowing that her friend will receive some form of justice. All this had taken her attention away from the road, and she looked up to the sound of a blaring horn, fingers scrambling madly for gears as she turned the steering wheel, the car in front of her careening dangerously in her direction.

When she wakes up, she's not in her car.

The lighting is dim yet harsh at the same time, and the air smells weird. Hospital smell, maybe? Oh, fuck.

She extends a hand to search for her phone, the cool device placed in her palm by even colder fingers. "You're not my emergency contact."

"You are a magnet for danger." His eyes aren't red anymore - they're the same strange muddy brown she had first seen. He's wearing a loose hoodie, sunglasses hooked on the neck. "What the hell happened?"

"I was driving, and I looked up, and then there was this car blaring its horn and coming straight for me, and I tried to turn - I remember nothing after that."

"Why were your eyes not on the road?"

"I was thinking."

"And what in the world occupied your mind so intensely that you couldn't be bothered with your basic safety?"

"I was thinking about today afternoon."

"You mean yesterday afternoon." Oh, shit.

"Fuck, it's Monday - I'm supposed to be in class, what the shit, oh no -" she tries to sit up, only for Demetri to gently push her down.

"You aren't getting released until the next 36 hours."

"How did they even allow you in?"

"I told a nurse I was your friend but she was rather strict, so I charmed another one into letting me stay overnight. And that worked pretty well, so here I am." Don't they only allow family in the wards?

"That shouldn't have worked - I'm pretty it's family only."

"I'm certain that isn't a rule anywhere." Damned fanfics - is anything ever accurate in them?

"The more you know." This bums her out for more reasons that one - first, she's going to miss class; second, she's stuck with more injuries; third, she missed out on all the action she could have been a part of. Which reminds her - "what happened after I left?"

"Well, we failed at the task we set ourselves." She knows this isn't something he can talk about in detail here, so she decides to not push much, just listen. "Weren't prepared enough on some fronts."

"Okay." She just wants to go back home. Which reminds her of another thing. "Do my parents know about this?"

"Not that I am aware of." They sit around in awkward silence for a while, Sophia looking through her phone for any messages or calls from her family. So far, there were none, which was a good sign. She looks out the corner of her eye to find her friend looking at her. "Look, don't tell me to go to sleep, okay? I really don't want to do that."

"Considering you were unconscious for over twelve hours, valid. What do you want to do?"

"I just want to watch Brooklyn 99, or the Great British Bake Off, or Ferris Bueller's Day Off, or any such thing. Anything that makes me feel less shitty and distracts me from all this," she raises a hand to signal at the room. Now that she notices, they're the only two here. "Wait, is this a private room?" He nods. "I can't pay for this," she blurts out. "This is way too much."

"I've covered it." She was hoping he wouldn't say that. "Before you begin to argue, let me make this clear that this is non-negotiable. I feel responsible for your situation," he looks away, fiddling with his shades. "It's only fair that I pay somehow in turn for causing you such harm."

"You weren't behind the wheel, were you? Because I will sue for third party otherwise," she jokes.

"No, but as a friend and as someone who dragged you into this mess, it was my duty to ensure your safe return. And I didn't. I cannot believe I let it slip my memory that you had just recently suffered a concussion."

Another thought comes to her, unbidden, and she feels her face burn from the blood rushing in. "I hope I didn't cause your failure."

He answers instantaneously. "No. I didn't know until we were returning, and I decided to check into your location only to find out that you were in a hospital." That does make her feel a smidge better.

"I'm guessing the others all went off to where you guys are staying."

"Felix took Jane and Alec back to my apartment - Jane is in a fouler mood than before thanks to our lack of success, and me running off to sit by your bed doesn't help her mood."

"She doesn't like me at all, that's for sure." At that, Demetri cracks a smirk.

"Oh, she doesn't like anyone save her brother. She especially despises you because to her, you should not be worth any of our time's, and my attention is hard to earn."

"Oh my god, Demetri has an ego, call the presses," she remarks dryly, rolling her eyes. Even with his generally genial nature towards her, she could tell that this guy had a pretty high opinion of himself from the start.

"Well, it's not like I have a large group of friends, and most women who do interact with me don't do it for the stellar personality and love of movies." Wait, how does that even work? Is he not like super strong and - she cuts that train of thought off, but it's a little late, because the way her cheeks burn are a dead giveaway, and he raises his eyebrows suggestively.

"I was just wondering about how it works," she huffs. "You know what I'm talking about."

"It ends with dinner." Oh my fuck.

"Like the Incubi?" she slowly says. At that, his smirk grows wider.

"I am probably the inspiration around many of the stories."

"No!" He begins to laugh, throwing his head back.

"I may have snuck into nunneries from time to time."

"No!"

He puts his hands up, shaking his head as he continues to laugh. "Look, a lot of them weren't interested in the convent at all and were forced to be there, so I was just doing them a service." She's pretty sure a convent would notice its nuns going missing, especially the young pretty ones. "I didn't take them to dinner, if that's what you're thinking. Just enough teasing and flirting to relieve their frustrations."

"Oh god. Oh my god."

"That's what a lot of them told me in confidence at night," he says with a satisfied grin. Oh hell no, she didn't need to know that at all.

"Eww! What the hell, come on," she swats his arm, making a disgusted face. "How can you just say stuff like that just like that?!"

"Say what?" That innocent look on his face isn't fooling anyone, and his face breaks into a grin a second later.

"So, nunneries."

"Some Italian princesses - a few Medici, a few Borgia."

"Which Borgia?"

"Lucrezia, Giovanni, maybe one of their pageboys, flirted with more maids than I can keep count of." She can feel the tiredness creeping upon her shoulders, but this is getting wilder with every word.

"Who were your favourites?" Demetri chews on his lip meditatively, tilting his head a little as he does so.

"One of the younger princes from the Medici family - smart, quick-witted and sensitive. Such a good conversant, and far more open-minded than I expected." There is a fond smile on his lips, and unless the medication is making her hallucinate, she sees sadness on his face.

"You miss him." It's not really a question, just mere fact.

"Humans, they can't stick around for long," she hears him say through the fog of sleep slowly building up in her head, "so I make the most of what I get, and hold on for as long as I can."

And unless her sleepy mind is deceiving her, she feels his fingers brush her hair away from her face, lingering there for a while before he gets up and leaves.