Chapter Three

When Alex finally woke up the next morning, she was full of hope that the other night was just a bad dream. To make sure, she opened her phone to check for a Grant in her contacts list. Sure enough, he was there. She sighed in defeat and got ready for the day. When her shift finally rolled around, Alex headed for work like any other day, trying to play things cool. At first, Alex's anxiety was through the roof. She was afraid that Grant's plan wouldn't work, or something would go wrong, but sure enough Leon and the other two goons walked into the bar. Leon made direct eye contact with Alex then made a signal to the other two. However, they didn't approach her at the bar table. Instead they started causing a commotion in the crowd. Keith caught on just as Alex did and he nodded at her to go take care of it. She walked over to Leon and tried her best to appear unfazed and unafraid.

Up close she could really see how tall he was; her eyes came level to his shoulders. Alex hated having to look up at him to make eye contact, but she needed him to know she meant business.

"What do you want?" Alex said in a surprisingly clear and unshaken voice. Leon smiled that evil grin of his.

"Jus' meet us quietly oytside whean yer shift is over an' we'll leave everyone in 'ere alone," he said. Alex's heartbeat was all over the place, something about Leon was unsettling. She couldn't figure out if it was his smile or the fact that she seemed to always freeze in fear when their eyes met.

"Fine," she agreed. Slowly, Leon shook his head in disapproval.

"No runnin' off, oi will know an' we will 'unt you down," he said. "We jus' need to talk aboyt yesterday then ye can go aboyt yer way". Alex nodded and they walked outside. She knew the truth though; they weren't planning on letting her go. They needed her for something... but what?

After her shift, Alex did what she was told and walked out the front door. She rounded the corner and they were there, patiently waiting for her. Leon opened his mouth to say something when a car pulled up behind Alex and a strange man in a sleek black suit dragged her in the car. She screamed and tried to fight him off but he was so much stronger. Meanwhile, Grant jumped off from a fire escape hidden in the shadows. He landed on the younger thug, Xavier with a kick and used the momentum to launch a punch towards the other older one, Jonathan. Leon jumped into the car, leaving his goons to fight off Grant. He slammed the door as the man in a suit pinned Alex in the seat and began tying her hands behind her back. "Jus' come quietly," Leon said "We aren't goin' to 'urt ye, jus' need to brin' ye to the boss," he said stuffing a gag into her mouth and covered her eyes with a blindfold.

Suddenly Alex was struggling to breathe, her breaths became short and she felt as if she was suffocating. Her body began trembling against her control. She felt like she was drowning, being held underwater by some unknown force. "Not again," is the only thought that would form clearly in her head. When the car finally stopped the feeling had passed. The man in the suit untied her hands, took off her gag and blindfold and together they wrestled her out of the car. The first thing Alex saw was a sign in bright red neon lights that read, Red Velvet. It was a club a couple miles out of Meadow Lakes. The man in the black suit opened a side door and two other men in black suits held Alex's shoulders and followed behind Leon as he walked in.

As soon as they walked in, there was a burst of sounds and smells. The bass of the music gave the room a heartbeat that Alex could feel in her own chest. The large room was lit up in different flashing colors, as crowds of people danced all packed up in the room like sardines. A lot of people in the crowd seemed to be couples, rubbing up against each other, and making out. In the way back of the club was a gated off section, where a fairly tall man dressed in a white suit with dark hair that came to his shoulders, was surrounded by women. They were dancing and tending to the young man, but something was off about the whole scene. Before Alex could make anything else out, she was shoved into the sweaty crowd. The two men in black suits guided her through the mass horde of moving bodies, still following Leon. The crowd began to clear the closer they get to the VIP section. This is when Alex realized what was off about the dancing women; they were where wearing silver chains on their hands and feet.

What am I getting myself into... she thought to herself. In front of the entrance, there was a big buff guard.

"VIP only," he said nodding toward the sign. Leon sighed and rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tattoo. It was very similar to the symbol of the Egyptian goddess Isis, except the cross arms had been turned into bat wings, and the bottom of the cross was the end of a sword. Seeing the tattoo the guard stepped aside to let Alex and Leon in. The young man shooed away the doting girls, got up from his seat opened his arms and said,

"Welcome my friends!" while eyeing Alex. Then he pointed at her and did that come here thing with his hand. Leon pushed Alex forward and she turned around to give him a glare before she cautiously walked toward the young man, with his hand outstretched toward her. He put his arm around Alex and guided her back to the couch he was at.

"I'm sorry if they were rough with you," he said apologetically. He took her hand in his, with her palm up and he asked: "Do you mind?" Before she could give an answer, he used his nail and pricked her pointer finger. Blood sprang free but before it could fall to the floor he brought her finger to his lips and sucked the blood from it. Alex's stomach turned in disgust as she sat there with her mouth agape in shock.

"Mmmm," he said with his eyes closed and Alex's finger still in his mouth. She tried to pull her hand away but he had a grip on her wrist. When he let go of her hand, she examined her finger and there was no sign of where he pricked it, just like before. She gaped at him in amazement and he grinned, showing his teeth. He now had a pair of finely pointed fangs. She gasped and backed up to the other end of the couch. He laughed venomously at her reaction.

"Your blood is sweet, just as Vampirian's blood should be, however, it's not the same as a Vampirian" he informed them, before retracting his fangs. "She is human, but a valuable human," he said looking at Leon. "It would be easy to mistake her blood for a Vampirian" he finished looking back at her. Alex could feel her face turn white.

"Y-you're a vampire," Alex said hesitantly. She felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner. Of course as far as she knew vampires were a fairy tale, but it explained everything that was going on around her. He smiled at her again.

"Correct," he said scooting himself closer to her. She tried to back up but was already at the very edge of the couch, her back against the armrest.

"What do you want from me?" She said glaring at the vampire, her voice commanding and unwavering. He laughed

"How much do you even know about vampires?" he asked mockingly, putting his legs on either side of hers to get closer. As he reached for her, she went to slap him when just like before with Leon; the young man caught her by the wrist. Now he was straddling her, using his weight to pin her to the couch. With his other hand, he moved her face around examining her from different angles. She tried to move her face in the opposite direction just to spite the vampire, but he was too strong. Again his mouth curled into a smile before he let her face go. "I like her," he said to Leon while looking at Alex. She looked back at him with the best glare she could summon at the time. "What's your name?" he asked her, leaning so close that there was barely a sliver of air left between them.

Before she even had the chance to answer, the buff guard walked up to them.

"Sir, a guardian has crashed the party and is making a scene out front." The young man sighed and got up from on top of Alex to go tend to the situation. Just before he left he turned around and said,

"Don't go anywhere," with a wink. He grabbed his white fedora from a chair, set it on his head, turned back around and with the two others, walked back into the crowd. Alex was frozen from head to toe, not from fear but from shock. Suddenly she got up and was about to run off to find an exit when she heard a soft Psssssst! Alex looked up to see Grant hanging from a rafter. He hopped down to the ground, grabbed Alex's hand and dragged her towards the entrance.

Grant led her through the crowd to better blend in as they made their escape. Off in the distance, one of the vampire guards made eye contact with Alex and she saw him pull out what looked like a walkie-talkie.

"Grant," Alex said, trying to get his attention as they made their way outside. "Grant I think one of them saw me". Grant took a look around them.

"Crap, you're right," he said as three guards and the vampire from before surrounded them. Quickly he slipped Alex a sheet of paper and whispered into her ear. "Run, I will hold them back. Go to the address on this sheet of paper, it's my safe house and it has protection spells to keep vampires out. You will be safe there." Before Alex could answer the three guards and the vampire jumped into action.

"Get the girl!" the vampire leader yelled. Alex closed her eyes and ran as fast as she could to get away from the scene. She stopped at an old antique shop to hide and catch her breath. One of the vampire guards walked right past the store. Alex held her breath until she was sure he was gone. After peeking out the window one last time, Alex sighed. She opened her clench fist that was crushing the sheet of paper, to look at the address. 1223 Green Grove, Meadow Lake it read. Under that, it had directions on how to get there from Lake's Edge bar. Alex sighed in frustration; she didn't even know where she was exactly.

"Can I help you ma'am?" came a raspy voice from the counter. It was an old lady, probably the owner of the shop. Alex briefly wondered why the old lady was still in the store at this hour. It was probably 4 or 5 in the morning.

"Oh, well actually I was wondering if you could tell me how to get back to Meadow Lake from here?" Alex asked. The old lady grinned politely and pulled out a pen and sticky note to write down the directions.

"So you don't get lost," she said handing it to Alex. Alex smiled, took the paper and turned to leave.

"Might want to watch you're back with all these vampires running around," she said waving goodbye to Alex enthusiastically. Without turning back Alex ran out of the store.

The sun began to rise before Alex arrived at the safe house. The place was a small one-story house with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, and a small living room. One of the bedrooms had been repurposed as a study and was filled to the brim with books and notes. Amidst the clutter was an old desktop computer covered in sticky notes.

"First things first," Alex said out loud to herself as she turned back towards the kitchen. She put her long dark red hair into a bun and walked into the kitchen to settle her growling stomach. After she ate Alex pondered on what to do next.

What if Grant doesn't show up? What if he took on more than he could chew, then what do I do? she thought frantically. Grant had seemed to be her only ally in this mess, even if he did get her captured. Alex shook her negative thoughts away and decided to take her mind off of the subject with some informative reading. She dove head first into Grants notes and books on vampires and the paranormal.

Alexandria awoke with a start to the sound of glass being smashed. She looked into the living room to find that one of the windows had been smashed. Lodged into the floor along with glass was an arrow with a note tied to it. In old cursive handwriting, the note read,

We have your guardian friend; if you want him to live come alone to, Meadow Lake Pentecostal Church at midnight.

Lloyd H. Cornelius 

After reading it and rereading it a couple of times Alex decided there was no way around it. She would have to go and give herself up. There was the possibility that they were lying about having Grant but he would have returned by now. Then there was the possibility that they were lying about keeping him alive. Somehow she needed to make sure that they let him go before she gave herself up. She pondered the idea when suddenly it hit her. In one of the books she had been reading it stated that there was an oath that vampires could swear where they had to do whatever promised. She could make them swear the oath before the tradeoff. Alex took out a sheet of paper and wrote down what she wanted the vampire to swear.

When she was done checking the rules of the oath a couple more times, Alex decided that it was as full proof as she could make it. She took out her phone and hit Grants name. One of the guards picked up the phone on the fourth ring.

"Hello?" answered the guard in a confused gruff voice.

"Give the phone to Lloyd," Alex demanded. The man on the other end paused.

"This is Lloyd," he replied.

"No it's not, give the phone to Lloyd," She demanded again. After about a minute and a half, there was a familiar voice on the other end.

"Who might this be?" the vampire from the club, Lloyd asked amused. Alex had guessed right.

"Exactly who you are looking for," she replied. "There is only one way I will agree to your little hand off."

"And what condition is that?" he inquired, clearly enjoying himself.

"You have to swear under the oath, that you will not pursue him in anyway nor will your men pursue him in anyway after the exchange." She said as calmly as she could. There was a long pause on the other end.

"What makes you think I would ever do a thing like that?" he said. Alex could practically hear the grin on his face.

"Because if you don't then you will never get what you're looking for, and I won't agree to the handoff unless I know for a fact that it won't be pointless."

"I could just kill him now if you refuse."

"Killing him gives you no benefit. If you kill him then there is no point in handing myself over, I just won't show up at all, and good luck getting in here."

"You need to give me something better than that" Lloyd teased. "You'll have to leave eventually; you'll die if you don't eat."

"I'm not afraid of death." She could hear him laughing on the other end. It wasn't a mocking laugh though; it was more amused than anything.

"Fine, but I need your name to swear the oath," he said amusingly.

"Alexandria" she replied. Again she could practically hear him grin through the phone.

"Alexandria, what a pretty name, just rolls off the tongue," he said. "I Lloyd swear, after Alexandria exchanges herself for Grant, I will not pursue him in anyway nor will my men pursue him in anyway unless he should return to take what was rightfully exchanged, or may the angels chain me to hell," he swore after adding his own little bit. "Looking forward to seeing you again, sweetheart," he finished before hanging up the phone.

Suddenly everything that had happened in the past three days hit Alex like a blow to her stomach. She collapsed on the floor with her back to the ground and stared at the ceiling fan as it slowly turned around the room.

What happened to my life? she contemplated. Alex thought back to the bar, Bloody Mary must have been a code name for a vampire drink. She thought of all the people who went in and out of that bar. How many were not even human? she thought. Then her thoughts jumped to Keith. That would mean Keith knows about vampires... She wondered if Keith was a vampire himself or if he just served them alcohol.

"Keith!" she suddenly said out loud, sitting back up. "What am I going to tell him? He's going to be pissed if he found out what kind of trouble I have gotten myself into," she said, coving her eyes with the palm of her hands. She thought about what Grant had said the night he snuck into her apartment; about how she could endanger Keith. She didn't want him to get hurt, so in the end she decided that it was best to keep him out if it until she got things sorted out. Alex continued to lie on the floor in silence and deep in thought, until the sun began to fade. When she was finally able to get on her feet, she pulled up the address for Meadow Lake Pentecostal Church on Grant's computer and headed out.

Alex found her way to the church and took a seat on a bench right outside. Light illuminated her face as she checked the time. It was ten minutes until midnight. She sighed as she put her phone away and stood up to look around. Although she didn't know what she was looking for exactly, a group or just one guy with a knife to Grant's throat? "This is the kind of stuff that only happens in movies and anime, not real life" she sighed. After checking her phone again she decided to walk around the church and stretch her legs. The church was one of those old churches, the long kind with stain glass windows and a single steeple in front. Alex walked behind the church and found row after row of tombstones. She laid her hand on one of them when there was a flash of light followed by thunder behind her. She whipped around and saw them, a group of vampires. There was a man she'd never seen before standing in front of the group. Leon was in the middle of them holding Grant to the ground and the rest surrounded him.

The strange man walked towards Alex, away from the group. To meet him halfway Alex hesitantly walked towards him. His golden eyes were on hers the whole time, watching her every move. The man's silver-blond hair waved in the moonlight as he walked towards her. When they met each other in the middle, he stuck his hand out to shake hers.

"Name's Claude, I'm Lloyd's right-hand man," he said waiting for her to shake his hand. She looked at him suspiciously, as he expected her too.

"And where is he now?" she queried.

"Waiting for you ma'am he apologizes for not being here himself, but he had other businesses to attend to." Finally, Alex shook Claude's hand with lingering regret.

"A pleasure doing business with you Alexandria," he said as he shook her hand.

"Yeah...," Alex mumbled in reply. What would become of her? What was it these vampires actually wanted from her? Grant never did tell her. Alex nodded her head towards Grant.

"Let him go," she said to Leon firmly. Leon looked back at her for a second before finally letting Grant go. As soon as Grant got back to his feet, the group shoved him away, cursing and yelling at him. Before he walked off he turned towards Alex and mouthed "I'm sorry" before he walked away, like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Author's Note

Hello~ My name is Camille Rowe! I'm just spreading my writing to get as much feedback as I can (if any). I have 6 chapters of this book ready and I will be posting them all at once, but after that, I will only be posting once or twice a month.Thanks for taking the time to read my story! Feel free to leave some feedback or just say hello in the comment section below~
Thanks again and see you next chapter!