Out of the Night

“You don’t really want to hear this.”

“No. But I need to know where your common sense went.”

An irrational anger rose up in Olivia at Mindy’s tone, but she took several breaths to calm down. The sooner she just spilled everything, the sooner they could move on and forget about it.

“His name is Campbell Raines.” She hesitated, wondering at the wisdom of a full confession. “I was as surprised as anyone that we actually found a lot to talk about.”

“Such as?” Mindy’s voice cracked like a whip.

Olivia looked at the order form Mindy had slid onto the counter and went about pouring pancakes onto the grill. “For instance, did you know there are different kinds of vampires? Souled and Soulless?”

At Mindy’s confused look, Olivia relayed all that Campbell had told her about the “good” and “bad” of the vampire world.

Mindy stood with her arms crossed and her expression full of doubt. “Sounds like a story concocted to make you think he’s a good guy.”

“He is.” Olivia was surprised by how much force she put behind her words then felt the need to backtrack. “I mean, he seems as if he might have been despite some rough edges.” She glanced at Mindy, wondering if she should go on or quit before she made things worse. But she had no one else to talk to about what Campbell had told her, no one with whom to ponder if any of it could possibly be true. “I know how crazy this sounds, but I got the feeling he missed being human, that if he could undo being a vampire that he would.”

“Listen, no one knows better than me that the vampire mystique can be alluring. At least it was when we didn’t know they were real, life-sucking monsters. But this vamp is playing you....” Mindy’s voice trailed off in such a way that Olivia made the mistake of making eye contact. “Just which one of the vampires is this?”

Olivia knew what Mindy was asking, and there was no use in trying to hide the answer. “He’s the head of the V Force team that saved me.”

Certainty slid into place on Mindy’s face. “The one who attacked you.”

Olivia lowered her gaze and flipped the pancakes. Her stomach grumbled at the smell, and she realized how long it’d been since she’d eaten anything.

“The AB-negative monster who nearly killed you?”

It sounded so awful when she said it like that. Who was Olivia kidding? It was awful. He had almost killed her, and given the chance, he might again. Might succeed the next time. Had said so himself.

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s taking Stockholm syndrome a bit too far, don’t you think?”

Olivia flinched at how Mindy’s words echoed her own thoughts. She scooped the pancakes onto two plates and placed them on the counter next to Mindy. “It was one conversation. I was safely inside my apartment, and he was on the other side of the glass, unable to get to me.”

“He was here?”

Crap, how did she manage to step even deeper into this uncomfortable conversation?

“He found my cell phone, so he brought it by. And...he apologized for what happened.”

“For almost munching on you.”

Olivia’s nerves finally snapped. “Yes, Mindy. We’ve established he was a victim of bloodlust and just about did me in. I was there, remember?”

“A victim? Now, there’s a term I’ve never heard used to refer to vamps.”

Olivia stared at her friend, not wanting to hurt her but needing to make sense of the past thirty-six hours. “What would you call it when your life is ripped away and you’re condemned to roam the earth forever drinking human blood and never being able to see the sun again?”

Silence fell on the kitchen. Mindy looked as if Olivia had slapped her.

“Vampires don’t have feelings,” Mindy said. “They are predators, and you are the prey he’s very, very good at luring in. You know the AB-neg vamps are the most aggressive because that blood supply is the lowest.”

“I know. Really, I do. And I’m not going to do anything stupid like invite him in.” Beyond talking on the phone with a vampire who made her pulse quicken and wishing he was a flesh-and-blood man.

The sound of more people coming in the front door drew Olivia’s attention away from her thoughts.

Mindy threw up her hands and moved toward the dining room. “I can’t listen to this anymore.”

“Mindy.”

She stopped and looked back toward Olivia, though she seemed reluctant.

“I’m sorry I brought it up.”

A momentary look of pain flitted across Mindy’s face before she turned without a word and walked away.

For several seconds, Olivia sat staring at the spot where her best friend had been standing. She couldn’t help but feel she’d made a colossal mistake in confiding to Mindy. The irony of Mindy’s situation was that she’d once been the biggest fan of the vampire genre you’d ever meet. Buffy, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, every book series she could get her hands on. But that was before she’d come home to find her mother and younger sister drained and left on the front porch steps of their house.

The cruelest part? The fact that they had survived the global virus outbreak only to die one day before the official word went out that vampires were real and that people should stay indoors after sunset. Mindy’s mother and sister hadn’t even known they needed to protect themselves.

Throughout the rest of the morning rush, Mindy refused to meet Olivia’s gaze. Olivia hated that she’d brought back bad memories. And if Mindy was that worried over a phone conversation with a vampire who couldn’t even come inside, how was she going to take the news of the new human threat? Because Olivia had to tell her so she’d know to protect herself. As a type O, she might not be in as much danger, but any danger at all was too much.

But maybe that information would be what convinced Mindy that Campbell wasn’t like any vampire she’d imagined. He’d have no reason to warn her about daylight dangers if he weren’t truly trying to keep her safe, right?

Doubt warred with a need to believe in something good until a headache started forming between her eyes. She silently cursed whoever had stolen her car. If the thief had kept his grubby fingers to himself, she would have arrived home safely before dark as she always did. She wouldn’t have been attacked, kidnapped and terrified to within an inch of her life. She wouldn’t have met Campbell Raines and spent the dark predawn hours talking to him about the nature of vampires.

And she wouldn’t be having thoughts that could lead to her death.

* * *

Campbell threw the dart with enough force to impale it halfway through the dartboard.

“Dude, you know you don’t get extra points for doing that, right?” Billy said.

Campbell gave him a hard stare.

“Be careful, Puppy,” Colin said, using the nickname they’d given Billy because of his relative youth. “He’ll impale you with the power of his mind.”

“He’s just feeling cooped up,” Len said as he sat shaving new wooden stakes to a fine point. “I can relate. Sometimes I want to go out and dare the sun to burn me up.”

“Another of your spectacularly smart ideas,” Kaja said as she strolled by wearing a new black skirt and heels.

“Yeah, about as smart as buying clothes like that.”

“At least I care what I look like.”

“My clothes were fine when I was alive, so I don’t see any reason to change now.”

“Ditto.”

Campbell left the familiar bickering behind as he retreated to his room. Privacy didn’t alleviate his caged-up, edgy feeling, though. The smaller, windowless room just made it worse. He’d never liked windowless rooms when he’d been human, and having to exist with them all the time now was his own private torture.

He eyed the phone but resisted the urge to call Olivia. Sure, he was worried about her, but he didn’t want her to think he was a crazy stalker. He flopped onto the bed that was there mainly for rest, though he had no need for sleep anymore. That was another thing he missed, the oblivion of sleep. Those few hours when he didn’t have