Alex had spent approximately the last fifty-three hours talking herself into then out of and back into dating Emily. She was confused, to say the least... Did she have genuine feelings for Emily? Yes. But Emily seemed to be a vamp hater and she just couldn't date someone and keep her identity a secret. She had to come clean. She had to break it off.
Reluctantly, she'd driven to the book shop...but upon arrival, she'd stalled. She wasn't sure how long she spent sitting there, wringing her hands as she stared at the shop window, trying to work up the courage to go inside.
As she sat there, though, she noticed something odd. At first, she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was...then, she realized there was blood smudged on the window.
Panic burst in her chest, fearing the worst. Without second thought, she was out of her car and bursting through the door of the shop. In that moment, the scene before her seemed to freeze: a man wearing a ski mask was behind the counter stuffing money in a duffel bag while Emily slumped on the floor, bleeding from a gash in her forehead.
"Alex, get out of here," Emily hissed. There was genuine fear glinting in her eyes, but it seemed more borne of concern for Alex than any concern for her own safety.
Alex ignored her pleas – she knew that unless the burglar was a much older vamp, she stood a pretty good chance of overpowering him. "I'm going to give you one chance to put down the gun and get out of here unscathed..." she warned the burglar.
The burglar scoffed, gestured with his gun. "Get on the floor with the other bitch and I won't have to hurt you." Clearly, he hadn't yet realized he was about to be on the losing end of this fight...
"I warned you..."
"And I told you to put your hands in the air and get on your fucking knees!" he snarled.
Emily tried to mediate the situation then, climbing to her knees and looking at Alex beseechingly. "Alex, it's okay," she assured her, begging with her eyes that she just cooperate. "Just do what he says."
"Shut up!" the burglar howled, before pistol-whipping her, knocking her to the ground again. And that's when Alex saw red... In the next moment, she'd crossed the store in the blink of an eye. She wrested the gun from his hand and, with one blow to his chest, she sent him flying through a bookshelf.
Again, time seemed to stand still briefly. There was silence but for the crashing of books raining down from disturbed shelves and Emily's pained whimpers. Alex panted slightly – she may not have adrenaline anymore, but she could still feel her nerves fraying slightly in the aftermath.
Then, Emily groaned as she got to her feet and time started again. Alex moved to her side, gently easing Emily into a nearby chair. "You're bleeding pretty badly – you'll need stitches," Alex observed. "You probably have a concussion too."
"How... How did you do that?" Emily stammered, gaze darting to the unconscious man splayed out in the wreckage of the shelves.
"Physics?" she lied.
Emily gave her a skeptical look, clearly not buying the excuse. She watched as Alex dabbed at the blood with her sleeve, hands trembling slightly with the effort of maintaining control. The scent of so much blood was overwhelming her senses, but there was no way she was going to lose control in front of Emily.
Emily was watching too closely, though, to miss the reaction and she put two and two together. "You're...a vampire, aren't you?"
Alex winced, eyes never meeting Emily's. "I'm afraid so," she mumbled. She seemed to forget all the things she'd come here to say. "Sorry about that shelves..."
Emily didn't seem nearly as concerned about the shelves as Alex was. "Were you ever planning on telling me?" she asked instead.
"I was..." she said slowly. "Eventually. But first I needed to figure out if you're a vamp hater. I was going to tell you that night at the diner, but then Jordan showed up and there was so much hostility between you and, well, I assumed..."
"It was because she's a vampire?" Emily finished for her.
She shrugged. "Well...yeah."
Emily shook her head in frustration. "I can't believe this," she said. "I can't believe you really think so little of me that you believe I'm prejudiced against people based simply on the fact that they're undead."
"You have to understand, I've only been turned for three years, but I've already seen how horrible people can be," she said meekly. "I got accosted one night by a group of teenagers in an alleyway – they doused me in holy water and took turns burning me with wooden crosses. I'm not saying you're like that, but you have to understand where I'm coming from."
Emily stammered for a few moments, then whispered, "I didn't know that."
"I don't talk about it much," Alex said with a shrug. "Mostly because I don't talk about being a vampire much...when I do, people usually only see me as that. That's not what I want my identity reduced to. It's not even the most interesting thing about me..."
With a quirked brow, Emily couldn't resist asking, "What is the most interesting thing about you?"
She just mimed zipping her lips.
For several moments, silence fell between them, not uncomfortable, but unsure.
"What now?" Emily asked at length, breaking the silence.
Alex chewed her lip briefly, then sighed. "I'm sorry I made assumptions about you," she apologized. "And I'm sorry for demolishing your store just a little."
Emily laughed. "I needed to renovate anyway."
With a playful little grin, Alex suggested, "Now that we've aired all the skeletons in the closet, can we start over?"
Playing along, Emily reached for a handshake. "Alex, is it? I'm Emily. I finish work at five, if you'd care to join me for a drink."
