Serum

-Twenty-Five-

“I knew it!” Daniel howled jubilantly from the door-way, and was promptly chased out by Conner.

When I finally got the guys calmed back down, feeling very much like a mother-hen trying to gather up her chicks, I pried Daniel for more information. Not about his celebratory exclamation, but about the reason he had come to us for help. Though I desperately wanted to ask how he knew Conner might be in love with me. In fact, I wanted to explore that conversation more with Conner myself. Maybe not entirely in words. I just hadn’t had the chance, what with one thing and another..

“We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with, how many there are, what exactly happened, and anything and everything that you can remember.” I told Daniel, trying to bring everyone back on track.

“Uh, about what? Oh the guys who chased me! Ok,” Daniel waffled about for a bit before he started to talk. A part of me realized he was probably still thinking about Conner’s confession, and my cheeks burned. “You know the night of the pool party we all split up and went in different directions to hunt if we needed to. Well I went with Tara and Tod, we headed down the other side of the street where all of those old abandoned businesses are. Anyway, apparently we weren’t the only ones out on the hunt that night because we kinda stumbled across a group of like biker-gang-hippy-redneck-yahoos or something. Well, they wolf-whistled at Tara a bit, but we just kept going, you know. I mean, we’re more dangerous than practically anything else we’re going to stumble across..” He gave a halfhearted chuckle, but Conner and I just waited for him to continue, so he cleared his throat nervously and shrugged. “Well, we were all three kinda hungry, but there had to be at least five of those guys and we really didn’t wanna take down a big group like that on our own.. because you never know what can happen with weirdo’s like that... So we kept going and left those guys down the road, or at least we thought we did.” 

“Anyway, it wasn’t long before we came across a few people and we took turns hunting and feeding. We hadn't hunted long though, when we heard them going crazy. Those crazy guys, I mean. We looked up and they were right there! Who knows how long they had been tagging along behind us, following us around, and who knows what they saw! They were probably just after Tara at first, but now I think they were after our blood! Or are, once they found out what we are! And the bad thing was that I let Tara and Tod feed first, so by the time we realized we were being followed, I was the one on the hunt and it was ME they stumbled across as I fed! Of course they yelled out and scared us off. I can only imagine what they think and I know they were waiting on me down that alley because I heard one of them say something like “hey isn’t that one of those kids we caught the other day?” before they started chasing me. But the problem is that I think they told some of their nutso friends or something because there were MORE of them today than the other night! I think they’re getting together to hunt us down!” Daniel was practically shouting by the time he finished his story. He’d stood and begun pacing back and forth, like his nerves just couldn’t be contained anymore, and I was tempted to urge him to sit.

“And so the hunter becomes the hunted.” I commented quietly, then turned back to address Daniel. “Daniel, I can tell you almost exactly what they were thinking. They saw you with your mouth on someone’s neck, teeth sunk in, and worse, when caught, you jumped away like you were guilty, leaving a bleeding wound behind. I’m sure they ‘saw’ your crazy red eyes, slobbering, blood-dripping fangs and everything. I’m sure that there was a whole discussion about what everyone saw. If more than one of them agreed that they saw you attacking that person, then in their eyes, you’re either a lunatic, a demon, or the obvious choice, a vampire. In short, they think you’re a monster, and they probably will hunt you down. If it’s the type you’ve described them to be, they will gather more of their groupies and come looking for all three of you in force, intending to ‘do a good deed’ and get rid of you. The people here.. they’re not like others. They don’t call the cops or act in a logical way. They take matters into their own hands. In some ways, they’re still stuck in the past. This won’t end well.” I shook my head, thinking of the gun that had just recently been fired at me.

“Thanks for comforting me.” Daniel stated morosely and offered me a shaky laugh.

“I just wanted you to know what kind of trouble you’ve probably got yourself into and realize the gravity of the situation.” I tried to tone back my scolding tone. “I’m not trying to be mean, but understand me on this: you need to be more careful.” I considered for a brief moment telling my own tale, but discarded the idea.

“That’s more or less the point I was trying to make to you.” Conner put in. “I guess I’m just a bit rough about it.”

“Rough would be an understatement.” Daniel’s shaky smile disappeared quickly, as if he was unsure whether the joke would be taken appropriately.

“Either way, we need to go and see about Tara and Tod.” I stood, throwing the comment over my shoulder at Conner and Daniel as I started towards the door and my coat and sunglasses. Conner had started to look worried again.

“We need to get those two out of school. Now.” Conner replied urgently, but he still hadn’t moved.

“Well come on, we can’t do anything if we just sit around here all day.” I pressed.

“Adrian, you’re not thinking this through. Look at us both. We look like the average junior or senior in high school, and Daniel can’t leave this building. Besides, the only people allowed to check out Tara and/or Tod would be their parents. I can’t return to the vampire community because of what happened before. Daniel can’t leave because of his being followed, and you don’t know the way.” Conner’s voice had started to sound desperate.

“Well can you tell me the way? Show me? Anything? Those two are in trouble! We can’t just sit here!” I had begun to shout. Conner winced, but had slowly started shaking his head.

“No, I can’t tell you or show you, I can’t even give you my memories so that you can find them on your own because of you previously being hu… because of your past. I think they might notice, and they definitely wouldn’t trust you unless you were brought in by someone trustworthy. Someone not me.” Conner responded with bitterness. “One slip of my name and they’d either throw you out or rip you to pieces.”

“But…There’s got to be some way…Something…They couldn’t know…could they?” I stammered.

“You remember our discussion about smell? Well, you don’t quite smell like other vampire’s, Adrian, you have another odor on you, almost like a mingled smell, almost…” Conner was cut off by Daniel.

“Almost human!” Daniel piped up. “Or at least part human, you have a very lovely smell, it’s delicious.” Daniel shivered at the last word, but shut up quickly at an evil glare from Conner.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude on your new girlfriend.” Daniel grumbled under his breath, only to flinch as a cushion flew through the air at him from Conner.

“And you kinda smell like me as well, or at least some of my scent is on you where you live here and all…” Conner mentioned as the cushion came whizzing back from Daniel.

“Guys! Seriously! What are we going to do? This is incredibly dangerous for all of us.” I cut in harshly. Conner heaved a deep heart-wrenching sigh.

“There’s only one thing to do.”  Conner took another deep breath before meeting my gaze solemnly. “Lana.” He stated with all the cheer of a funeral announcement.