Guilty As Charged!
1601 Words
* Claire's POV *
I have absolutely no idea who or what exactly left the note for me. I search around the house, but there's no one else there apart from Sarah and I. Still, it doesn't make me feel any better. After last night, I just don’t feel safe anymore. I constantly feel like we’re being watched, and I find myself peering out the window several times, waiting to see if I can find someone watching us from afar. But Manhattan is as mundane as it always has been, and I doubt anyone will be able to spot us when we’re so far up. Still, I cannot move away from the windows, and I can’t shake this dreadful feeling in my chest.
Thankfully, Jakob arrives soon afterwards, and I no longer feel so afraid anymore. His knock causes me to jump, even though he announced his arrival on the security system. I rush over to the door and yank it open, and he smiles at me with his eyes crinkled in the corner.
“Am I to assume that you’re happy to see me?” he asks, noticing how relieved I look.
“I’m just happy for the company, Jakob,” I said. “Come on in.”
He draws his bag in, and I shut the door behind him. He looks different than the last time I saw him, and I’m not really sure what exactly has changed. Maybe it’s something he has done with his hair, or maybe it’s something in the clothes he’s wearing. His beard is fuller and thicker than before, and he seems like he had grown slightly larger. Ever since William named him as his beta, Jakob has been incredibly helpful in making sure that everything runs smoothly. While William and I have moved back to New York, he has been taking care of everything back in LA, making sure that the rebuilding of the pack house is going on smoothly. With William away, everything that goes on around the pack naturally has to go through him, and so far it has proved helpful to William, who has to juggle being the Alpha, the CEO of Orion Industries as well as the head of the council. Not to mention the fact that taking care of Sarah is a full-time job in itself.
“I’m sorry I got here late,” he says. “Alpha William has informed me already of what happened last night. I can’t believe that one of them came so close to hurting you.”
“I’m as shocked as you are,” I reply walking over to the bar and pouring him a drink. It’s not midday yet, but Jakob always likes a scotch as soon as he arrives, even if it’s very early in the morning. “I didn’t know that the vampires have grown so bold that they would dare to attack us in our home.”
“It sounds like the work of one man who I’m not sure whether you’ve heard of,” he says. “Has William ever mentioned a man called Lucius Callahan?”
“I don’t think so,” I reply as I pass him a glass, wracking my brain and trying to remember if he has ever mentioned anyone like that. The name sounds familiar, but I’m not sure where exactly I hear it from.
“Lucius Callahan is a very dangerous man,” he says. “He’s the oldest vampire alive, at least on record. We’re not exactly sure how long he has been here, but we know it’s over a thousand years ago. We used to not have a problem with him when he was on the other side of the Atlantic, until about fifty years ago, when he decided to migrate over to American soil.”
“What exactly does he want?” I ask.
“Hard to say,” he replies. “Lucius is the leader of a secret society who call themselves the League of vampires. They operate mostly in the south, and their cruel ways are known to most people in the country. They believe that they should be allowed to feed however they want, and that is what drives them to attack anyone they come in contact with. Their thirst for blood is unparalleled, and even though vampires have been forbidden from feeding on human blood, it is believed that they still continue to do so. Most of the missing person cases you hear these days are because of them. And perhaps the most gruesome act of theirs is the fact that they are believed to capture and imprison humans, solely keeping them for the purpose of producing blood. And for the women, they mate with them so that they will give birth to their offsprings. But a human and a vampire were never meant to mate, because their offsprings are monstrous hybrids who develop and unquenchable thirst for blood. They are impossible to control, and a hundred times more powerful than a normal vampire.”
A chill runs down my spine as he speaks. I cannot believe the extent of these vampire’s cruelty and how remorseless they are. Lucius has to be stopped, and it doesn’t matter how it happens. I know William will be doing whatever he can to stop him, and I must make sure that I do my part as well. I can’t stop thinking about how close Lucius had gotten to us last night. If I wasn’t awake at the time, who knew what he could have done.
Perhaps the most surprising thing is the fact that I wasn’t even afraid for my own well-being as I was for Sarah’s. Even now, I don’t know what I would do if he somehow found a way to hurt her. The overwhelming urge to protect her and keep her safe is something that still surprises me, and I find myself thinking about all the possible ways I can take care of her and eliminate any new problems or dangers which might come into her life.
“So what is being done to stop him?” I ask. “Surely William must have spoken to you about it.”
“Not yet,” he replies. “Dealing with vampires is a matter which the council will have to look into. Border disputes have been going on for decades now, and unless the council gives the order to retaliate, then our hands are tied. But the fact that William is the head of the council means the matter should be taken seriously. After all, an attack on him is also an attack on the entire council. I’m sure that they’ll be discussing this at the next meeting.”
Sarah begins to cry from the bedroom, having woken up from her nap. I immediately head towards the room, and Jakob chuckles as he downs the contents of his glass.
“Motherhood suits you,” he says.
“Trust me, it’s not as easy as it might look,” I say. “You think taking care of an entire pack is easy? Try taking care of a child who cannot even tell you what the problem is.”
“I’m sure you’ve got everything under control,” he says.
I shake my head, and I open the door to check on her, but I stop dead in my tracks when I realise that someone else is already in the room, peering into her cradle. My blood turns to ice, and for a single second, I’m frozen in terror. But then my brain kicks into gear, and I spring forward and immediately summon the blade to my hand, pointing it directly at the person.
“Get the hell away from her,” I growl, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. My grip on the sword is so tight that my knuckles turn white, but I’m ready to drive the sword through whoever it is.
Slowly, the person turns around, and I’m immediately taken aback when I realise who it is.
“Gina?”
She lowers her hood, and I’m so shocked that I don’t even know what to say. She looks exactly the way she did the last time I saw her was on the night of the battle, back at the hotel when she came to apologise.
“She’s a cute one,” she says. “Sarah, right?”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask.
“We need to talk,” she says, turning to face me properly. I don’t like how she blocks Sarah from my view, so I skirt around her and place myself firmly between them.
“So you were the one who left the note?” I ask.
“What note?” she replies, raising an eyebrow confusedly.
“Never mind,” I say. “What do you want?”
She walks over to the seat beside the window and slowly sits down, with great difficulty which she tries to hide. Maybe it was the way the light bounced off her figure, or maybe it was the way she seemed to cradle her figure delicately. But I noticed the slight bump of her belly, and the way her fingers looked slightly swollen.
“You’re pregnant,” I say, more of a statement than a question.
“Guilty as charged,” she says with a half-smile. “That’s actually why I’m here.”
“Please don’t tell me….”
“It’s William’s,” she says, and I feel my whole world collapsing with just that sentence.
*
- Writer
