In the morning, Michael was still there, still holding my hand. I slowly withdrew it.

  “Hey, you’re up.” I could hear the smile in his words.

  I looked up to see that smile and was not disappointed.

  “Coffee?” he asked, an arm extending toward my bedroom door even as he sat on the bed.

  “Mmm,” was all I could manage this early in the morning.

  By the time I came out of the bathroom, the coffee had been poured and mine awaited on the counter next to Michael. He handed it to me, our fingers brushing.

  No, body. Too early for feelings. Quit it!

  I took a sip, “Thanks for getting the coffee going.”

  His eyes smiled down at me as he said, “No problem.”

  His phone started ringing and, as it does, my body tensed up, fearing the worst. Michael answered it nonchalantly, apparently not affected by the same fears. I saw Antun’s name flash on the screen as Michael lifted his phone to answer it.

  He put it on speaker. “Hello?”

  “I feel so stupid,” was the first thing Antun said.

  “Good morning to you too,” Michael said, looking at me with question in his eyes. “What makes you say that?”

  “Nikola Sokoli.” I nearly dropped my mug at the mention of his name.

  Michael looked at me with concern and said aloud, “We don’t know that it’s the same person.”

  “Yeah, but we also don’t know if it isn’t. I pulled some strings at the DMV, got a printout of a guy with a Washington driver’s license named Nikola Sokoli. I’m bringing it to you now to have Drew ID him.”

  This was important, I knew that, but my hands started shaking. My whole body trembled. This time, I did drop my mug. It shattered, full of coffee. The liquid splattered across the kitchen floor.

  Both the men exclaimed, “Are you alright?”

  My voice was surprisingly steady, even though my hands were shaking so badly.

  “I’m fine, really. Just got a little surprised, that's all.”

  Michael used some paper towels to clean the worst of the spill and picked up the broken ceramic. I looked at my cupboard, realizing that now I only had three mugs, no longer a whole set. I grabbed for another mug, willing my hands to be still.

  Michael beat me to the cupboard.

  “I don’t think so. You go sit, I’ll bring it to you in a cup with a lid.”

  I glared at him, embarrassed and angry. “I’m not a child.”

  He lifted his hands, “That came out wrong, I meant like a thermos cup, easier to hold when the coffee is hot.”

  The silence was awkward as Michael poured me a cup of coffee with a lid. Even Antun said nothing, as if he could feel the tension from wherever he was driving from. Michael set the coffee down on the table in front of me, stepping away as if I were a ticking bomb.

  Good, I feel like one.

  I took a sip of my coffee, glaring at nothing in the middle distance. I was brooding, and I knew that I was. I knew and I didn’t care. I just hated feeling fragile. But I was tired of being afraid.

  Antun cleared his throat, “If everything is alright now,” he paused as if giving us time to dispute, “Drew, if you are not ready for this, I completely understand. I will stop where I am and go on home if you tell me to. If you want to do this though, I’ll keep on driving to you. It’s all up to you.”

  I thought about it. Nikola had been haunting my dreams more and more as of late, feeling more and more real all the time. I needed it to stop.

  “Bring the photo, I’ll see if it’s him. I want to be done with it. With him. And we can’t do that if we can’t find him.”

  I wanted it to be over. I wanted my life back so that I could try to enjoy it now that I…

  “I’ll be there in another fifteen minutes, Love. See you soon.”

  Michael and I stared at each other for a moment. “Drew, are you sure–”

  “Yes I’m sure, Michael. I want to find him so that we can stop him. Then maybe I can have some peace at night.”

  The understanding in Michael’s face hurt. I didn’t want his pity.

  But what do I want from him? What am I willing to let myself ask for?

  I got up, leaving my coffee on the table. “I’m going to finish getting ready, Antun is going to be here soon.”

  ? ?? ?

  A knock sounded at the door. Antun. Michael let him in.

  I was sitting at the table, my hands clasped tightly together in my lap. I tried to keep them from shaking as Michael closed and locked the door behind them.

  Antun gave my shoulder a squeeze before walking around and sitting down in the chair across from me. He had a blank yellow envelope in his hand.

  The ID picture must be in there.

  I tried not to quake. Michael sat down next to me, his arm automatically wrapping around my shoulders.

  “Here it is,” said Antun, and he held the envelope out to me. I took it, my hands still shaking.

  I opened it, fumbling as I did so.

  Ow!

  I got a papercut along the pad of my finger. I stuck it in my mouth, not even thinking. Then the thought occurred to me… I was in a room with two vampires, with my own exposed living blood.

  I looked at Michael, his eyes wide and darkening against his will.

  I looked at Antun. His eyes had gone from pink closer to red, but he didn’t act any different.

  “You okay?”

  I looked at him confusedly. “Yeah, I got a papercut.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “What? No, I didn’t notice anything.”

  I scrunched my face. “Liar, your eyes are dark red.”

  “What’re you talking about?” He looked genuinely confused.

  I looked at Michael. “Does he not know that his eyes go darker when he smells blood?”

  “Our eyes do what now?” Michael ran to the bathroom, saying something about weird vampire bodies. “Whoa!” we heard from the other room. He opened an eye with his fingers as if he could get a better look at the phenomena.

  Antun looked at me, then followed him. Antun repeated Michael’s exclamation, also intrigued by this new discovery.

  “Did I really not tell you, Michael? I really thought I had mentioned it,” I said as they came back out, their eyes already returning to normal.

  He shook his head and sat back down next to me, his eyes still wide with surprise. But not nearly as surprised as Antun. He sat there, his face shocked.

  “I’ve been a vampire for 500 years, and I never, never knew that my eyes did that. Just how many poor people have I frightened because my eyes did this and I had no idea?”

  “No one ever said anything?”

  “No! Not a word. Guess even I have stuff left to learn about being a vampire. Still, wow!”

  I smiled at both of them before I remembered what was in my hands. They saw me look at my hands and their faces went solemn too.

  “Right, I was doing this.” I took a breath and put my hand inside the envelope to grab the page. I hadn’t finished pulling out the paper before I saw the face that had been haunting my nightmares for weeks. I squeezed my eyes shut and set everything face down on the coffee table. “That’s him,” I confirmed.

  Michael took the paper, needing to see him.

  He sounded confused, “He looks so… normal.”

  And indeed, he did. His photo held no smile, but that didn’t matter. The photo wasn’t proof that he was a monster, but I didn’t need proof. I knew what that smile looked like, I ran from it every night.

  His dark hair was parted and combed to one side. He had on a white button down shirt, the top button undone.

  “Eyes: Brown, Hair: Black, six feet tall, 180 pounds. He looks like any regular old Joe off the street.” Michael looked at me. “And he took you.” He wrapped me in his arms in a full embrace.

  I hugged him back, my arms moving on their own. I needed a hug. After seeing Nikola’s face, I needed something to ground me to the here and now.

  “Okay, we have something to go off of now. I’ll have my PI buddy take this and do his thing, find out everything he can about this guy.”

  He pushed the paper back into the envelope, none of us wanting to see that face any longer than we had to. Just that one small thing made my heart rate start to slow back down.

  Michael noticed and let go of me, looking into my eyes to see that I was alright.

  I tried to give him a look that answered no, but I will be.

  He smiled, the message received.

  ? ?? ?

  We all got together again three days later at my apartment.

  “Here’s what my guy got for me about Nikola. He lives in Bellevue and works here in Seattle. He’s a voice actor, does commercials and announcements on the radio from time to time. I looked up a few clips with him in them, audio clips anyway. My buddy and I could not find any video of this guy at all, and in the stuff he was in, for whatever reason, his face is never fully visible.”

  I shivered, not wanting to think about how awfully fast he had moved in the cell.

  Michael put a hand on my knee, not taking his attention off of Antun.

  “Here’s a clip from a radio show he was on about six months ago.” Antun pushed a button on his phone, and Nikola’s low, melodic voice filled the room.

  I was so focused on the audio that I hadn’t noticed Michael freeze. His hand slipped from my knee, as if the voice drew something out of him. His voice was barely more than a whisper as he gasped, saying something under his breath.

  Antun paused the audio file. “Wait, what did you say?”

  Michael looked from Antun, to me, then back at Antun. Louder, he said, “Nikola’s voice. That’s the voice that offered me life!”

  “Are you sure? It could be that you’re remembering hearing his voice from somewhere else here in the city,” Antun gave.

  Michael’s voice was steady. “More sure than I’ve been about anything, Antun. That’s the voice!”

  I didn’t know what to think. The vampire who had kidnapped me and wanted to steal my energy was the same vampire who turned Michael last year? My mind went blank, as if all thoughts except that one echoed in my head.

  Nikola turned Michael.

  “If Nikola turned you, then this isn’t just about Drew anymore. This is personal. For both of you.” Antun’s trademark humor was nowhere, only a stoic, serious face.

  Nikola turned Michael.

  My captor, the one who took my blood, had turned my best friend.

  A new thought started bouncing around my head: Michael is my best friend.

  When on Earth had that happened? But it was true; he had, over the course of these couple of months, become one of the most important people in my life. As much as I wanted all this Nikola stuff to end for my own peace of mind, I also wanted them to end so that Michael could have his own answers.

  Why did he turn Michael, of all people? Was it random, a mistake… or was there more to it?

  “Drew!” Michael was waving his hand in front of my face.

  I pushed it out of the way, “Sorry, what?”

  Antun leaned forward, “You were zoned out there for a bit. We were trying to come up with ideas on how to find this guy.” Right, Nikola was still out there, and we still had no idea whether or not I was his target, and now we had even more reason to find him.

  “What do you got?” I leaned forward myself. I needed to focus. My life was possibly on the line.

  “We need to find where his voice is right now, if we can. I’ve got a small tech team I can ask to run a voice trace. Broadcasts, radio clips – anything public.”

  Michael and I looked at each other, then at him sidelong.

  “I’m sure they can put together an algorithm to search Seattle’s various public broadcasting networks for his voice, or his face, or both. I mean, it’s worth asking, I think.” He nodded at us for our opinions.

  “I suppose…” I was still wrapping my head around just how many different kinds of people Antun knows.

  Michael asked, “What all was your PI friend able to get on Nikola as far as his habits or places he went?”

  “Here’s the trippy part. Troy, my PI, was able to find a home address for Nikola so he did a stakeout, as one does,” Antun implied as if going on stakeouts were a regular thing for him too. “It took days for Nikola to show up. He was only there for a few hours before leaving again in different clothing. Troy tried to follow him but almost immediately lost sight of him.

  “Quote, “He just vanished in front of me, no trace of nothin’. Was real creepy.” He asked me if he was going crazy and I assured him he wasn’t, that I was just trying to find a slippery person.”

  My hands were clammy, and I couldn’t stop fidgeting with the drawstring on my sweats. Michael’s knee knocked against my leg, drawing my attention.

  “We’ll fix things. I don’t know how yet, but we will.”

  Determination and… something more, was in his eyes as he looked at me. All I could do was nod, hoping that he was right.

  ? ?? ?

  I was brewing the morning coffee the next day when Michael came into the kitchen. “Got a text from Antun, said his guys got a lead on Nikola.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. I nodded my acknowledgement. “Where are we headed?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “I really don’t know if you should come, Drew. It could be more dangerous than any of us anticipated.”

  I furrowed my brow, giving his comment some serious thought. It was a good point. Both Michael and Antun were vampires who could probably hold their own, and I was just a mortal with no chance of survival without them. But…

  “I still feel like I’ll be safer with you guys. If you both go after him, then I’m wide open. Sure, I’ve got pepper spray, but I kinda doubt that I’d be faster than him.”

  Michael smiled and nodded, holding out a hand. I took it in one of mine, looking from it up to him.

  “You may be right. But I need you to know that no matter what, I will do my best to protect you.”

  He lifted my hand to his heart. No beat. “It really is the strangest thing, huh?” He looked down at his still heart, my hand resting atop it. “It definitely feels strange to me.” He looked back to my face. “But beat or no beat, it's yours.”

  My hand slid down and off his chest, coming to rest at my side. “We’ve only known each other a few months, Michael.”

  “I don’t care.” He lifted a hand to my cheek, stroking it softly with his thumb. I couldn’t help but lean into his touch. “Looks like you don’t, either.” I grinned. “You are so beautiful.”

  I sat up away from his hand and scrunched my face in disbelief at him. He chuckled, “It’s true, you are. I’ve always thought so. Certainly prettier than Sarah.”

  A laugh poured from me before I could stop it, my hands clapping to my mouth. Michael smiled and put his other hand to my face.

  “You have the best laugh. You laugh like you’re safe here. I love that.”

  When had we moved closer to the counter? With my back to the counter, my hands fell from my mouth and found their way back to Michael’s chest as he held my face. I looked at his, so close but… I wanted him closer.

  As if reading my mind, his eyes looked down at my lips, his parting slightly. And a notification on my phone went off. We stopped moving, my eyes widening before narrowing in frustration. I pulled my face out of Michael’s hands as I took my phone out of my back pocket.

  Antun: My computer guys have an update on Nikola. This guy moves around.

  “It’s Antun. Said that there’s a new update on Nikola.” I swallowed and sighed.

  Michael grumbled, “I can think of a couple things I’d like to say to Antun the next time I see him.” I laughed, covering my mouth with my hand. “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?” I asked, confused. I hadn’t done anything, I’d just laughed.

  “Cover your smile when you laugh? It’s your best smile.” I looked down, shy about my face at his comment. He hooked a finger under my chin, lifting my face toward his. He placed a gentle kiss on my forehead.

  “I’ll kiss you properly when we have more time.” My blush could have put the reddest roses to shame.

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