Vampire Meet-Cute

The first thing Elora Haoyu noticed was the voices—soft and murky. The second was the pain. The back of her head felt like it was split in half. She flexed her shoulders, gasping as more pain exploded across her back and down her spine.

Her eyes fluttered open only to see an inky darkness. Turning her head to the side was painful, but she could see a side-table with an electric clock. Digital numbers flashed in bright red: 12:49 a.m. Her eyes wincing as the throb in her head increased.

Where am I? The last thing she remembered was the bus—the bus and lights of the city far away. Chicago.

There were voices nearby. What were they saying?

"You can't keep her."

"Why not?"

What? Keep me? She realized with a fearful jolt that they were male voices. Her stomach churned as a fresh wave of pain came over her like a heavy blanket. For a second, she heard nothing, saw nothing. . . Slowly the voices cut back into her mind. She wiped a rogue bit of hair that had escaped her ponytail.

"Terry, you know why. What are the house rules? No visitors inside. No dates at home. You go to the clubs, you drink there, you come home. That's it."

There were two of them. Two men talking about her. One's voice was gruffer and louder by comparison to the other, which seemed quieter, more childlike. Dazedly, she looked around; she was in a room. For a terrifying minute she thought she was back in her cell, but quickly the panic subsided when she realized she wasn't back there. Her cell had never been this nice—even in the low lighting, she could tell the room was nice.

Clean, modern furniture, sparsely decorated, more like a hotel room. Maybe she was in a hotel. There wasn't anything on the walls, so she doubted it, but it smelled clean, with maybe a bit of dust.

"I don't care if she looks like your mom. I don't care if she looks like your sister or your great-granny's pet dog, no dates at home. The rules are simple." The gruff-voiced person, she noted.

The male, Terry, who had the softer kid-like voice, seemed to make some sort of pleading, but it was too muffled to hear. Louder, he said, "I just wanted to check, but I didn't have time to follow her back and I didn't want to lose her. You understand, right, Ash?"

A third spoke, "Terry, there are rules for a reason." He sounded calm, deep-voiced, adult male.

The other male cut in, "What are you going to do if you find out? Kill her? What if she is related to you?"

"I don't know, it just caught me off guard to see her, I mean..." The voice named Terry paused.

The third person, Ash, spoke. "You need to figure this out. Tonight. By tomorrow she'll be missed."

That seemed to rile up the other guy again. "Yeah, and she doesn't even look like she's of age. Do you know what that means? AMBER Alert. If you had just dumped her that would have been one thing, but a missing kid, everyone gets pissed when a kid goes missing. You should kill her quickly, then dump her in the next town."

Elora lay in the dark, listening to three males talk about killing her. Her stomach knotted, heart pounding. These people were just callously talking about dumping her dead body. Dumping her like trash. Her palms sweat; she didn't know how long she had already laid there, or even how long she had been awake, really. It felt like she was maybe passing out here and there and coming to again. Forcing herself to focus: she was in a home of some kind. There were people talking about killing her. Escape, she had to escape and get out of there.

How did she get there? They must have kidnapped her, but she couldn't remember how.

Assess, she thought. That was her first step. Glancing around, she knew the room was dark, but the window shades were open, and yellow light from the streetlights shone across her stomach. As she bit her lip her breathing sped up; realizations hitting her with stark foreboding. She was lying on a large queen bed, with a soft comforter underneath. However, it didn't seem like anyone occupied this room. There were no personal effects anywhere.

Just one long dresser, two side-tables, and a bed. There were two doors as well, one to her left, one in the corner of the room at the foot of the bed with light shining through the cracks. Elora looked at the light, though it hurt her eyes. A shadow shifted, showing someone was standing right outside.

Fear made her jolt as she tried to move. She wasn't dead, but her limbs were sore, her back ached horribly, like she had a bunch of bruises and scrapes. Feeling around, she was relieved to find she was in her clothes. The straps to her black wifebeater dug into her shoulders, her jeans were snug, and her shoes, too, were still on her feet.

If she could reach the window and climb out, she could escape before they even realized she was gone.

Slowly, slowly, she sat up, trying to be as quiet as possible.

The room spun. Her head throbbed so violently she felt ill, and she fell back to the bed, immediately rolling to her side and retching, a loud groan escaping her lips as she did so.

Then she was dry-heaving again.

The door to the room opened and a searing light blinded her. The pounding in her head increased tenfold as she crumpled into the fetal position, moaning.

"Is she okay?" the voice, Terry, asked. The shortest of the three figures stepped in and in the light, she saw a boy, probably no older than thirteen. He was Asian, like her, with fluffy orange hair.

"What does it matter? We're getting rid of her." It was the other voice, the one that hadn't said their name.

Elora closed her eyes and didn't see what he looked like. Didn't really care, since he was Team Murder.

"Shut up," Terry snapped. Turning, he pleaded, "Ash, please, can you look at her?"

The third one came in and knelt beside her. She opened her eyes and saw a guy, maybe in his early twenties. He was leaning in close.

"Hey, look at me. Let me see your eyes," he said. She did, she looked at all of them, so that she could identify them at the first opportunity. With the blaring light frying her eyes she focused on the man in front of her. He was a little older than her, black sleeves pushed up to his elbows revealed tattooed forearms. One with a complex catholic cross then on the other forearm was a mix of geometric shapes, with some sort of writing on his wrist in a foreign language.

She glared at him, but her bravado quickly faded when she let herself focus on his face. He was easily the most attractive, gorgeous guy she'd ever seen—dirty-blonde hair that fell to the side, kissable jawline with a bit of stubble growing, large expressive eyes. However, none of this curbed her mounting fears, and in fact it was his eyes that had her shaking.

Even with her head pounding, she could see in the light that they were blood-red.

When he noticed, he sighed and grinned with a set of pointed canines. "What's wrong, kitty? You afraid of vampires?"