Chapter 63: Live Fast Die Young

"So who's Mr. Money bags? Oh my God, is he famous?" Dawned asked while applying mascara in a moving vehicle like a pro.

Olivia had told them her scheme and made it very clear tonight wasn't going to be the usual gig, but she didn't tell them who it was just yet. If there was any chance they wouldn't recognize him and remain blissfully ignorant as to who they were blackmailing, Olivia was going to take said chance.

"He's not the cool kind of famous," Olivia answered honestly, mostly because she was distracted. Her eyes scanned all the dark shadows of the suburban streets, looking for anyone or anything suspicious. She could not fuck this up.

"I'm not gonna have to put out, am I? Cause I'm having mad period cramps today, y'all," Crystal whined from the back seat.

"No," Olivia told them quickly. "It's not like that."

It just has to look like it was exactly that.

At the club, Dawn lent her a tiny lilac satin slip dress with dainty rhinestone straps and Crystal did her hair. It was incredibly nice of them, but it was strange to feel genuine kindness from others. Olivia just wasn't used to it. Dawn wore black tube top dress, and Crystal was wearing a skin-tight snake print matching skirt and crop top set. There was no denying the three of them looked beautiful, but they also looked like a southern knock-off of the Charlie's Angels. What surprised her even more was how willing the two of them were to work on this assignment, knowing it was going to be shady as hell. But at the end of the night, they were strippers at a vampire club, so maybe their bar for shady business was incredibly high.

Olivia repeated her plan in her mind over and over again, rehearsing how the night would go. The girls didn't seem to realize Olivia was driving in circles.

"What happened to your Corvette?" Dawn asked, adding lip-gloss.

"It drew too much attention," Olivia said, still scanning the mirrors. No suspicious cars or pedestrians. The house was unguarded and they were about 90 minutes early according to schedule.

"Well, yeah. That's kind of the point."

"Not everyone likes that."

"Everyone likes being seen," Dawn disagreed.

Eric's eyes popped into her mind. She liked how he saw her, with desire and hunger. Shaking that very distracting thought off, Olivia finally parked the car one street over from their destination.

"Remember it's a surprise, so we have to go around the back," Olivia told them when she turned the car off, parking by a set of azaleas bushes separating two properties. Despite what Dawn believes, it was essential they weren't seen.

The suburban streets were eerily quiet. Every house was a McMansion seemingly designed by the same uninspired architect, because they all more or less looked exactly the same. In a town like this, this neighbourhood felt oddly out of place, and for whatever reason it freaked Olivia out even more. Nothing Liv told Dawn and Crystal about tonight would fall under 'good idea' in the common sense guide, but none of her ideas ever did. Olivia just asked the first two dancers who arrived for their shift tonight, and both Dawn and Crystal agreed. They actually seemed excited.

"Take off your shoes and follow me," she told the girls.

"Why?"

"His house is behind this one. We're gonna have to sneak through the neighbour's yard," Olivia said, holding her shoes in one hand and walking barefoot around the car.

The duo stared at each other and then at Olivia who was standing halfway across the manicured lawn.

"I ain't sinking my new heels into the grass," Crystal said, finally following suit.

Dawn rolled her eyes and took off her shoes without questioning. These girls were insane. The three women, all wearing short dresses and plenty of body glitter, tip-toed between the suburban bushes, staying in the shadows like sneaky teenagers. They avoided the neighbour's windows, walked around a pool, and climbed on top of a shed to jump the fence.

"I know you said this was a secret party, but this is fucking ridiculous," Dawn whispered from the shed's roof, awkwardly falling to Crystal's arms. The three of them were athletic on a pole, but climbing on a shed and jumping down a fence? Only Crystal made it look easy. But she wasn't exactly human after all.

Olivia shushed them, trying to see or hear any movement in the dark backyard. Now would be a terrible time to discover he had dogs. But his yard was serene and quiet. It was perfectly landscaped with trees, flowers and bushes, and a large stone patio with a really nice looking outdoor furniture next to a stone fireplace. Liv added an outdoor fireplace just like this to her retirement dream home wish list.

The trio approached the double French doors off the kitchen and Olivia uncovered a flowerpot next to it, searching for the key she knew would be there. That same morning she dropped off a proposal to the Mayor's office, but her main goal was to linger at the reception area reading Janelle's thoughts. Liv begged her to hand deliver the envelope to the Mayor who was 'home sick today', and Janelle's mind went straight to this flower pot. It was all she could do not to ask Pam to hound the poor woman again. It was certainly traumatic enough the first time around, even if Pam made her forget the encounter.

After unlocking the door, they slipped inside. A beeping noise immediately went off from a small panel on the wall the second they entered. A security alarm. Janelle didn't think of any alarm-

"Fuck," she hissed under her breath, her heartbeat suddenly skyrocketing to a thousand bpm. She did not anticipate this very important detail.

Dawn stepped in front of her and typed in six digits into the keypad. The panel let out one long beep, then it turned itself off. Olivia shot her a very confused look.

"I had a boyfriend who installed these. all over this subdivision. Most people never reset the manufacturer's password, which is 123456," she shrugged.

Olivia relaxed, finally catching her breath. Dawn was getting a big ass tip tonight.

"Holy shit, this place is fucking nice," Crystal said, admiring the open concept kitchen and family room. They had high ceilings, real hardwood floors, a 60-inch TV, ornate vases with fresh flowers, marble countertops, custom-made curtains, designer furniture and expensive appliances. Even a real barista espresso machine, which Liv knew was at least a couple of grand. None of this was bought with his salary, she could tell you that much.

Now that they made it inside, it was time for phase B. "Alright, go nuts." Olivia told the girls.

First things first, they located the expensive liquor cabinet and raided it. Dawn helped herself to Patron and Crystal opened a 20-year-old Macallan whiskey. Olivia wasn't going to start celebrating just yet, so she just stuck a bottle of Krug Clos du Mesnil Champagne in a bucket of ice. Next, Crystal set her iPod into the stereo dock and started blasting Ne-Yo at top volume. They spend a good part of the next hour judging the contents of the fridge, what magazines they subscribed to and the clothes in the wife's closet as if this were some weird interactive reality TV show.

At this point, the girls fully knew why they were here. They just didn't realize whose house they were in, but Olivia told herself it didn't matter. What did matter to her, however, was the realization that their willingness to commit to this insane plan was due to the fact that Dawn and Crystal trusted her. Her stomach knotted itself tighter, afraid of what would happen to them if this went wrong. Olivia reminded herself who she was doing this for.

The girls were now drunk dancing in the kitchen, each holding an open bottle of wine and singing to each other both loudly and badly. Sitting in a leather armchair by the TV, Olivia flipped through their correspondence. Gym membership, car insurance, fundraiser invites and some random Asian couple had a baby. Their lives were kind of boring.

Olivia was having so much fun she almost missed it, the moment when he walked in. Her eyes looked up when she heard the echoes of his dress shoe coming down the entryway almost too late. He followed the music promptly and almost dropped his briefcase and blazer jacket on the floor at the sight of her sitting in what she now figured was his chair.

"Welcome home," Olivia smiled seductively at the Mayor. He turned his head, only noticing her after she spoke. "Are you ready to play my game now?"

His mind spiralled out in loud fear, almost fracturing. The thoughts in his head were only second to the power of his high-end stereo playing club music. Joshua Peterson's wife Sarah was going to arrive from her work trip at any second, and she was going to walk into a scene of their past. This would not have been the first, or the second time she caught old sport here partying with high-end girls in her absence. He knew Sarah would leave him this time around. He would lose the house, the car, and all the elite connections his lawyer wife from a rich family had and he would never be able to fundraise enough money for his next electoral campaign. He would lose everything.

Joshua stared at Dawn and Crystal in a confused daze, watching them giggle themselves silly in the kitchen whispering about their guest of honour. Even with his whole life at stake here, he still couldn't help but picture the girls on his knees, blowing him. This man was pathetic.

Dawn and Crystal stayed put in the kitchen as instructed. Olivia made it clear they were to avoid interaction, only leave at her signal and let her do all the talking.

"What the fuck are you doing in my house?" Joshua yelled over the music.

"Oh, loosen up, Josh," She laughed, throwing his mail onto the coffee table. "May I call you Josh? Actually, it doesn't really matter what I call you-"

"How did you even get in here?"

"Like you said, I'm not a vampire."

But he did not have the patience to play her little game."You have to leave now." He ordered, dropping his work baggage onto the side table and making his way towards the kitchen.

"You're gonna have to catch us first!" Dawn laughed, and the girls pranced away, laughing out of the kitchen and up the stairs towards the bedrooms.

"No! Hey!" He awkwardly tried to catch Crystal, which was a poor decision on his part. She moved quickly, avoiding him like a big cat.

Joshua looked back again at the door then at his watch, beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead. The safety of his home and his whole life had been violated by someone he despised. He considered calling the police and having them all arrested for trespassing and breaking and entering.

"Tsk, tsk," Olivia shook her head. "Are you sure having the cops escort strippers out of your home is a good idea? Imagine if the media found out?"

Joshua bared his teeth, looking intently at her. "Do you think this is some sort of joke?"

"Au contraire. I hope you take this as seriously as your impending divorce, which will surely happen when Sarah walks through that door and finds not one but three beautiful women in your home while she was out working to pay for this lavish home. She has great taste in decor, by the way."

"Fuck you," he spat out.

Olivia stood up and walked toward the Mayor slowly. "Oh, I'll gladly fuck either of them in your bed while you watch if you want."

He puffed up his chest, his own thoughts betraying him. "I have a whole security detail, you know? I'll have them throw all of you in the back of the car and drive you very very far away. Who knows what will happen then?"

Olivia clutched her imaginary pearls, knowing he was bluffing. His schedule stated his bodyguard was to drop him off at home and pick up his wife from the airport. There was no one outside. "I feel a bit offended that you wouldn't rape me personally. Do I have to be a vampire for your dick to get hard that way?"

Joshua stiffened like a board on the spot. It was always fascinating voicing out people's darkest fantasies out loud back at them. He wasn't the first man she'd encountered who had violent sexual fantasies and probably wouldn't be the last. The way he wanted to hurt Pamela still ignited sickness in her core, and she was sure he would no longer have a penis if she told Pam what the Mayor dreamed of. But there was something useful about men like this: they were weak. Easy to break.

"I won't be threatened in my own home. Who do you think you are?"

Olivia pressed the volume on the stereo at the table, turning it uncomfortably loud, pure adrenaline rushing through her veins. Dawn and Crystal shouldn't hear this conversation. "I told you who I was."

No one in the whole entire Earth hated Olivia more than Joshua Peterson did right at this very instant. The images in his head made her skin crawl, and she had to flex every muscle in her body not to wince. Would he do it? He wanted enough. Who would stop him?

"When you and Sarah fight, do you want to do those things to her too?" Olivia asked out of the blue. Joshua took a step back but said nothing. "Or is she somehow different than the rest?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he gritted his teeth, frozen in place. He now thought of his wife.

"Is that what holds you back? The look on her face if she found out what you really are-"

"What do you want?" He asked loudly, louder than his fear. Joshua Peterson was a strange type of monster.

She won. "The Casino. Let it happen."

The longest silent pause went by. They glared at each other for what felt like three lifetimes. When she peeked into his thoughts, he was choking her to death with his bare hands. She hardened her face, keeping it as stoic as she could. It would have been wise to raise her mind shield, to look away from the despicable gore. She didn't have to see it.

But in the event that this motherfucker had to die, knowing his idea of having control was fantasizing about raping and killing women made her feel incredibly light about it.

"Fine," he muttered. "I won't stand in your way."

Nothing about his tone made it believable. "Your secretary dropped off a proposal. Do you have it?"

He scrunched his brows, his gaze piercing right through her. He didn't have to say it out loud, it was on the dining room table. Olivia walked straight to and tried not to laugh when Joshua asked himself if she could read minds.

"We're turning the luxury condo on Main Avenue into a Casino. We'll need some standard construction permits and a hotel license," Liv waved the envelope she had given Janelle earlier.

Joshua glanced at the window, knowing the clock was ticking without stopping. "What? Am I supposed to just roll out the red carpet for your boss?"

"Yes, if you don't mind," she smiled, now hoping Sarah Peterson would walk through that door. He deserved it. "Sign it."

A car approached the street, making Joshua squirm. It ultimately drove past the house, but the sweat on his armpits was noticeable now. He did not want his wife to see this.

"Fine! Fine! Jesus-" he hissed, frantically looking for a pen through the pockets of his blazer puddled in the middle of the floor.

After opening the envelope, she spread the pages for the permits and licences they would need to start breaking ground. It wasn't all they would need to finish the Casino, but it was the start. She watched Peterson sign everything without reading it.

"Keep up the good work Mayor, and you won't need your wife's money," she said, happily gathering all the documents. "I can get you where you want to go."

"I'd rather die," he hissed.

"That can also be arranged," without breaking eye contact Olivia put her index and her thumb on her lips and whistled loudly once.

Soon, the girls walked downstairs, booze bottles in hand and walked right past Joshua. Dawn even flicked his tie, playfully.

"Come see us at Fangtasia sometime, would ya?" She winked.

Crystal took her iPod off the stereo and the house fell into silence once again, as if a spell had been broken. Papers under her arm, Olivia made her way to the kitchen following the girls towards the back door. As she passed the kitchen island she pulled the wet champagne bottle off the ice bucket, taking the well-deserved prize with her. Her blood felt like pure oxygen and adrenaline. No matter how crazy her plans are, there was really nothing she couldn't do. No one she couldn't defeat. Nothing she couldn't get.

"So is that it?" Joshua spoke again before she joined the girls in the dark backyard. He looked defeated. "Your master tells his Pitbull what to do, and you just do it?"

She thought of Eric and felt that tightness in her chest again, that odd feeling of as if she had forgotten something. She knew it wouldn't go away until she was in his arms again. Until she embraced that ancient tall body that ripped and shredded men with unimaginable easy and unadulterated violence. He had killed for her. Not one, but dozens. He would go to the ends of the Earth to protect her and keep her safe. All she had to do was to be his.

What a funny thing that was. To be his. She fought it for so long, and now here she stood, craving it.

"That's where you have it wrong. I am not his Pitbull," she looked up at the dark moonless sky, feeling the chill breeze of the dark on her bare legs. "He's mine."

She stepped into his dark yard, closing the door and disappearing back into the shadows like a ghost. Dawn and Crystal were drunk as hell and were less than quiet or athletic in helping her hop the fence. Olivia's legs were dangling on top of the neighbour's shed when she heard a feminine voice call out Joshua's name. She watched Sarah Peterson arrive with her little carry-on suitcase and say hello to her husband by giving him a peck on the cheek. He looked tense but smiled normally. His life came so close to ending right then and there.

They made it to the car after what felt like a full working shift later. She swore the neighbour's yard was not that big on the way there. Dawn and Crystal decided to go clubbing afterwards, to celebrate the easiest paycheck they've ever gotten. They invited Olivia, but she respectfully declined. She had too much work to do in the next few days, and she desperately needed a big bowl of pasta and 10 hours of sleep.

After dropping the girls off at the country bar near downtown, Olivia drove back to Fangtasia to give Pamela an update and to get a few files she would need to bring Portia tomorrow. She was strutting across the dimly lit employee parking lot out back, still riding the high of fucking over the Shreveport Mayor. But then thunder came down, rolling across the air angrily. No lightning followed, but it smited her all the same.

Before she could turn around, a cloth covered her mouth drowning her with a sickly sweet alcohol.

The darkness came for her. But it wasn't the one she loved.

Her hands felt like TV static, choked by the restraints on her wrists, mushing her bones together. Her body felt weird as if it were unnaturally too heavy.

"Wake up!" A voice growled at her, the grating sound sending a splitting wave of pain through her head.

It was nothing compared to the blow that hit her stomach when she did not answer the voice. It knocked the wind out of her lungs, but it seemed to have kickstarted her heart once again. Olivia gritted her teeth, trying to contain the pain that burned through her body. She opened her eyes, everything was swaying strangely around her. The bones in her spine felt strange.

"Not such a tough bitch without the vamps, are you now?" The man laughed.

It took her several moments for her to understand where she was. It was some kind of barn, the cement ground was covered in dirt and dry hay. It also smelled like livestock and farm animals, in that gross but yet comforting way. It was dark out, and only a few dusty light bulbs lit the place. It was impossible to know how long she'd been here, or how far they had driven from Shreveport.

She finally was able to zero in on the man talking to her. He was several inches shorter than her. No-

He was several inches below her. Olivia was tied at the wrists and hoisted up mid-air on a wooden beam at the center of the old barn, legs dangling at least two feet off the floor like a hung deer ready for gutting. No wonder her bones felt they were made of lead.

She blinked several times, trying to recognize the man, but nothing came to mind. She'd never seen him before.

"Who are you?" Olivia croaked, her mouth felt as if it was full of dust.

The man grinned at her. His mind was agitated, and his body twitched in either excitement or pain she couldn't tell. He had a scraggly beard, beat-up jeans, muddy work boots, and a red Bud Light beer t-shirt that had been through the wash ten too many times.

"I'm the one in charge, you fangbanger. I ask the questions," he barked out, pacing around her. Trying to move her head to follow the man's movement made her dizzy. "Where do you keep the V?"

Olivia was still trying to puzzle who this man was, and how the hell she got here. She couldn't remember what happened, or how they kidnapped her. "The what?"

"The vampire blood you dumb bitch! Where is it?!"

Those words rang a few alarms in her head. She dove into his mind, but it was a turmoil of fog and dark clouds. This man was a wolf. "Why do you want vampire blood?"

His fist made another full impact on her stomach, making her body spasm and sway while she was dangling by her wrists. God, they better not be broken.

"I said I was the one asking the fucking questions!" He yelled.

Olivia focused on getting her diaphragm to breathe air in, but it took her several tries to fill her lungs with oxygen. The barn door opened with a loud creak and another man walked in, stepping into the dim light. Fear struck her when his eyes landed on her. The second man had red hair in a military haircut, but still only dressed marginally better than the one who kept punching her poor organs. Still, she could feel the evil his thoughts harboured, and it made Joshua Peterson look like a saint.

She wished Eric was here to save her. Then, she hated herself for wishing so.

"Hey numbnuts, I told you to get me when she woke up," he yelled.

The two men stared at her for a second, looking up at her like an unfortunate piñata. It was clear they were going to keep swinging at her until she cracked up.

"Where do you keep the vampire blood?" Bud Light asked again. "I know you move hundreds of pints of it a week. Where do you get it? Who sells it, and to who?"

Her mind jumped to Lafayette's house. He had a large beer cooler set up on his porch for anonymous drop-offs, and he checked for deposits every night, multiple times a night. Eric and Pam recruited vampires who they trusted and wanted to make some easy cash. They drained themselves into sterile blood bags, and each of them labelled their blood with a code. Lafayette then texted the codes to Olivia's burner phone, along with the quantities. Each code corresponded to a bank account of the donor, and she wired them money so the suppliers got paid first. Lafayette then divided the pints into dozens of small vials, mixing it with his specialty drug cocktail mix to preserve them and break the bonds. He then filled the orders from the Silk Road, and he dropped them off at random post offices past the Louisiana border.

Customers used cryptocurrency to pay for the product online, which Olivia then sold for real-life money, and bounced it through a dozen offshore accounts before re-entering the country via shell corporations. Eric withdrew the cash slowly and brought it to the club for Olivia to wash with the club money, and mix it with the rest of their portfolio. She made real ledgers and fake "official" ones in case they got seized in raids. All the money was then deposited back into Eric Northman's account. Finally, he wired the Queen's weekly allowance.

Olivia was thankful these men could not read minds.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she whispered, anticipating another blow to the stomach. There was no chance in hell she was going to tell them a single word about any of it. She had Lafayette to protect. And Eric.

"You sure you got the right chick?" The redhead asked Bud Light. "You sure she ain't a stripper?"

Ah, well. At least that was a compliment. She was still wearing Dawn's lilac slip dress, which was definitely ruined and felt far too breezy with her dangling there. She never prayed before, but she was sure as hell praying now, hoping neither of her captors were sick like Joshua Peterson was.

"Yeah, I'm sure. This is the chick Alcide was talkin' about," Bud Light said.

"Alcide put you up to this?" She blurted out without thinking.

He raised his fist and she flinched away anticipating his knuckles meeting her organs again. "No questions!"

"Where do you keep the blood?" The redhead asked again, more firmly. "We know all about it. Vamps have been selling this shit for years, and all of the sudden you show up and it vanished from the fucking streets, but Northman's business took off."

"I'm just their accountant. I keep their books and I file their taxes. I don't know shit about what else they do," she lied.

She needed to come up with an exit plan. Would Thalia find her? Or maybe Pam? Would she even bother saving her ass? Or would she do it because it's what Eric would have done?

She knew she shouldn't, but she started praying Eric would come home.

"Cut the bullshit," Bud Light snarled. "Alcide told us a lot about you. And what he didn't, Debbie filled us in."

Debbie Pelt?

"Oh yeah, that got her attention," Red grinned at her reaction, getting closer. "I'm gonna guess she's the one who did this number on you."

He raised his hand and grabbed her left thigh, examining the faint lines of her scar closer. It was Debbie's final parting gift when her back claws dug into her flesh as Olivia tried to get her off Chow. It was a permanent reminder on her skin of what happened when she failed to save herself.

Her hands twisted and her fingers held tightly to the rope holding her as if she had chosen to be hanging there, giving her the illusion she wasn't entirely helpless. She had hardly any sensation on her fingers, and the rope barely felt real. His warm touch made her skin creep, but it also allowed her to dive into the man's mind. She tried not to look at him and just listened.

This man was Cal Myers, and the Bud Light tee guy was Arthur Herbert. They both had blue-collared jobs, but used to deal drugs on the side in the biker gang at the Rose Crown under the Furman leadership. But ever since Alcide became their Alpha, he banished all kinds of illegal activity in the Long Tooth pack, and that pissed several wolves off. There were talks of mutiny amongst the ranks, but Alcide had brought so many outsiders to join their pack it was hard to know who to trust.

Cal had been secretly in love with Debbie for months, and Arthur knew Debbie since they were kids. The three of them hung out at the bar often, and she had told them all about Olivia over many pints of beer and lines of cocaine. But the version of the story Cal heard was a weirdly remixed version of what Olivia knew to be true.

"Your plan won't work," Olivia whispered. "Alcide's not in love with me."

The realization tasted real fucking bitter in her mouth. Cal and Arthur didn't kidnap her to extort Eric. They kidnapped her to extort their own leader. The mention of his Alpha's name made him let go of her leg.

Debbie believed Alcide fell in love with Olivia in the short time he pursued her to become his informant. She was beautiful, confident, drove expensive cars and wore expensive clothes. She had the balls to work with vampires and tell them what to do. Olivia wasn't a wolf, but she could still give Alcide a werewolf heir to continue their line. Her friends had told her how Alcide looked at her at the Gala. Debbie's jealousy filled her with so much pain and anger it drove her almost mad. Olivia made Debbie too self aware of all her own failures and shortcomings and confirmed the doubts she had her whole life - that Alcide Herveaux was not her soulmate. And in the end, she couldn't take it.

Except, that wasn't entirely true either. Olivia didn't know how, but she knew Eric had killed Debbie for what she'd done to Chow. An eye for an eye was his rule and he didn't break his code for anybody.

Arthur stared at her angrily. "Then how the fuck you explain him protectin' you all this time? Huh?"

It was true Alcide and Olivia had a glimpse of a moment together in Baton Rouge. It was true they had hot, sweaty, steamy sex once. It was also true Alcide wanted to repent his own guilt for failing Debbie Pelt in every way possible by saving Olivia from what he believed would be a worse fate. But none of that was love. Debbie's fears were completely made up, a creation of her own insecurities. And on the other side of this shitty coin, we have Alcide who is incapable of seeing either Debbie or Olivia as naturally flawed people.

Alcide Heveaux wanted to be the hero because that's who he was raised to be. He was raised by an Alpha wolf, to be an Alpha wolf. The fate of everyone around him was always in his hands. Their failures were his failures. Debbie had a disease, Alcide was borderline narcissistic and Olivia was just a lonely person who lacked morals and got caught in between. But how the fuck do you explain any of that to two drug-dealing werewolf hillbillies?

"He's not protecting me. Let me guess, he's trying to go back into the police force? He still wants to see Eric Northman brought to justice?"

The two men glared at her. "After what he's done to the Long Tooth pack, he will be brought down."

Something told her several Long Tooth pack members wanted his blond head on a spike, not his ass behind bars. It would be a cold fucking day in hell when Olivia would allow for either to happen.

"So what do you two dimwits think will happen?" Olivia asked, annoyed at herself for ever getting involved with the wolf in the first place. "You'll extort Alcide and he'll agree to look the other way when you trade bags in the Rose and Crown parking lot? That he will protect bike gang members when they inevitably get arrested? Are you really that fucking stupid?"

This time Arthur pulled out a knife from his back pocket. "Fuck you bitch!"

Olivia's legs instantly started flailing in fear as Arthur walked in closer. He swung his arm, and the sharp edge caught her right thigh. The cut felt hot as if the air was burning her flesh. She cried out as she saw the blood gushing down her leg.

Arthur seemed to like that and he cut her again, and again. "Where's the V?" He asked, but all Olivia could do was scream.

"Where is the fucking vampire blood?!"

Tears were running down her face, and she felt the heat of her own blood drip from her feet and paint the floor like Jackson Pollock. This was it. These men were going to kill her with a thousand cuts, and it wouldn't matter what she told them or didn't. It would matter that she was going to keep the little integrity and dignity she had left before she died. You're immortal, not immune to death.

His gift, she wouldn't even get to use it.

"Stop!" Cal demanded, and the slashing stopped.

Her limp body gently stopped swaying from the beam, and she was able to look at her captors once again. Their pupils were tiny dots in a pool of bright amber, and their backs were hunched forward like half-animals. The hair on their arms stood up straight, their nostrils flared wide and their movements were barely human.

"What are you?" Cal asked, watching the blood drip down her legs.

Arthur brought his knife to his lips and tasted her blood.

Oh shit.

Before the wolves could approach her any further and actually devour her, Olivia grabbed on the ropes as tightly as she could and with all the strength she could muster, she pulled herself up then curled her legs upwards as if she were inverting on a pole. Her hips were now above her head, in a perfect aerial invert. You don't fuck with pole dancers.

The men growled with long skinny teeth, confused and angry at Olivia's sudden movements. She hooked her bloody legs on the beam supporting her and tucked the rest of her body around the rope, so Cal and Arthur couldn't reach her. Without the weight of her body putting tension on the knot, she slipped her raw and sore wrists off the rope. The relief of having her hands free again was immediate, but it didn't make her heart pump any less adrenaline.

"Hey!" They shouted. "She's getting away!"

Awkwardly she pulled herself on top of the beam like a scared wounded animal escaping the claws of her predators. The men were halfway through transitioning into their wolf forms when the barn door opened once again.

A dark tall figure entered, with perfectly blown out blonde locks. "Ah! There you are." Pamela said, looking up.

Cal and Arthur leaped at the vampire and it was over in a flash. She broke their necks faster than Olivia's eyes could follow, and their dead bodies fell on the dirt floor with loud thumps.

Once it was over, Pamela looked at the bottom of her pumps. "I swear if I stepped in cow shit to save you, you owe me new shoes."

Olivia was still hugging the beam with all her might, too afraid to move, breathe or say anything. Pam slowly got closer, smirking up at her and probably thinking of a thousand jokes. She calmly extended her palm forward and caught a drop of her blood in midair. She watched the red liquid running down her palm with utter fascination.

"So this is what the fuss is all about," she muttered to no one in particular.

She didn't know if Pamela would dare taste it, but a little voice told her Eric would not like that. But he wasn't here, was he? What would happen if Pamela developed an insatiable thirst for her like Sophie-Anne had?

"How did you find me?" Olivia whispered, her body starting to shake as it hugged the beam.

"Luck. I was in the office and I saw their truck fleeing the parking lot on the monitor. I rewinded the video to see what they had stolen, and I figured Eric would be pissed until the next fucking century if I didn't get you back."

Her body relaxed a little, and she scooted slowly to the center column and made her way down but not landing at all gracefully. Her torn legs were jelly beans at impact. Now under the dim barn lights, they both got to examine the damage. Olivia's eyes welled up with tears again. Tonight had been far more than she could bear. She had flown too close to the sun.

Pamela stiffened, eyes fixed on all the blood. It was impossible to tell if she felt disgusted or delighted.

"They did this to you," she said coldly. "And you told them nothing."

She looked up at the vampire, brows creasing. "How long were you standing outside?"

"Long enough to find out if you were worthy."

"Of what?"

Of being alive?

Of him?

The worst of all was that Olivia couldn't even bring herself to be mad at Pamela for letting this happen to her. She didn't fully understand their relationship, and she probably never would. But she could imagine how hard it must be to be with Eric for over a century and suddenly not be his favourite. Pamela only loved Eric, and no one in the world would ever compare to him. It would be understandable if she had allowed Olivia to go through a trial by blood and torture to prove herself worthy of the man who gave her everything. She just hoped she had passed. She had nothing else to give.

Pamela rolled her eyes and raised her chin. "Let's go fairy fucking princess before this barn smell seeps into my hair."

Slowly, Olivia stood up. She had no idea where her shoes had gone, but she was thankful she didn't have to manage walking in high heels right now. She followed the vampire outside, leaving behind bloody footprints.

The moon hung low in the sky, and other than the shapes of crops and trees, there wasn't much of anything here. The breeze felt overwhelmingly freeing. Maybe it was because Olivia would most certainly be dead right now had Pamela not stopped them, but she felt tears in her eyes again. For someone who went 12 years without shedding a tear, she had been crying a lot lately.

Her steps were short and wobbly, and the skin on her thighs and shins still stung and bled. Pamela was already waiting in her wine-coloured Porsche SUV. She had laid down a clear tarp over the back seat, and Olivia wasn't going to ask why Pamela had a plastic tarp stored in her car.

Olivia quietly scooped herself into the back seat, her body feeling heavy and slow splayed itself across the seat. The swaying of the car on the road was lulling her into a dangerously deep sleep.

"It was supposed to be you that night, you know?" She muttered. "Not Chow."

Images of that night spurted in her memory. The night where she blew up at Eric and offered herself to Pamela and Chow. She thought of that night more often than she'd like. The pain and anger Eric had caused her only happened because even then - even without admitting it - she already loved him.

"I heard you coming down the hallway, but I didn't know you weren't alone. And now Chow's dead. And Debbie is dead. And so many wolves are dead. And people too. The bodies just keep piling up and I can't stop it."

"Everyone dies, Olivia," Pamela said matter-of-factly, and then nothing else.

Pam just looked at the road far ahead in complete silence for the rest of the drive. Despite not being actually related, her cold blue eyes sparkled just like his in the dark. Olivia faded in and out the entire time, hypnotized by the lights outside. Starlights, moonlight, city lights. When Pam stopped the car, she was parked right out front of the gates of her house - just like that other fateful night after visiting Bill Compton. The night Pamela betrayed them. The night Debbie and Chow died. The night Olivia became Eric's, and Eric became hers. The night had truly sealed all their fates.

She had to fight the looming feeling her life kept repeating itself, over and over again, on a cursed loop.

Olivia slipped out of the car, fighting the tarp that was stuck to her skin. Once free, she strolled into her own home like a ghost. Everyone dies, Pamela said.

Because of you, was what she was kind enough not to.

AN: Hello!

I MADE IT! And I only re-wrote it twice this time lmao

But this chapter was hella fun, right?! I had a blast

Thank you for being so patient with me in this schedule-less story. I'm doing my best I swear! My goal is to be done by Christmas, but we'll see if I can emotionally let go that soon.

In the meantime, if you are on tumblr you can find me at spice-honey tumblr . com (it may have 18+ content, depends on the mood)

until the next time xoxoxoxo drop me some luv in the comments