Page 39 of Destined to Fight

Of course he would insist. Stubborn vampire. “Right, well, thanks.”

He bowed and turned to go back upstairs.

Kelly followed him up the stairs and then found her way back to her room. When she entered, she noticed her things were on the bed. Fabian must have had someone get them for her, but she hadn’t expected them to arrive already. He and Kade were on another level with promptness. Business or personal, they seemed to make things happen within minutes or hours. Yet another thing for her to get used to, but she was thankful for their actions and precautions, even if they felt overwhelming.

She showered quickly and put on clean clothes and then sat on the bed to call her dad. When she typed in his number, it brought up a contact that had already been entered into the phone. She would be sure to ask Kade how he had her dad’s number; add sneaky to the list of words that described him.

She hit the phone icon to call him and held the device up to her ear. The line rang a few times, making her think he might not answer. She was suddenly desperate to hear his voice and talk to someone who wasn’t showing off a new power every five minutes—someone she truly knew.

“Hello?” came his gruff voice on the other end of the line.

“Daddy!” she said with a bit too much excitement.

“Kelly, hey kiddo. You haven’t called from this number before.” There was a hidden question in his voice.

“Yeah, um, I got a phone. So you can save this number.”

Now he sounded hopeful. “Oh, great. Does that mean your blog took off? Or did you get a job? I haven’t seen you post anything for a few days, so I was wondering what you were up to, but it sounds like things are going well.”

Great, she hadn’t prepared for this. She didn’t want to lie to him and tell him she got a job, but she obviously wasn’t going to be posting on the blog for at least a little while.

“Um, yeah, I got an opportunity to try something new. I don’t know if it’ll work out, but we’ll see.”

Please don’t ask what kind of opportunity, please don’t ask, she thought, knowing better.

“What kind of opportunity?”

Fuck.

“Um, well, it sort of has to do with that big story I was chasing. I can’t say too much about it yet.”

“Uh huh.” His tone let on that he knew she was bullshitting him a little.

She changed the subject quickly. “What have you been up to?”

“Oh, you know, this and that. Trying to get ready for Christmas.”

“Shit, Christmas, yeah. That’s next week.”

“What hole have you been hiding in? Christmas is in three days.”

Apparently, she had been in a hole.

“I guess time got away from me with everything going on.”

“You’re still coming over, aren’t you?”

So much for this being a nice chill conversation with her dad.

“Uh, yeah. I should be. As long as nothing comes up with this new thing.”

“Now, hold on a minute, they better not make you work Christmas. This new trend of businesses not respecting holidays is fucking ridiculous. Why would you want to work for someone like that?”

“It’s not like that, Daddy. You know the news doesn’t stop.”

Oh, good save there! Keep going I want to see where you take this.

And now her inner voice was back. Great.

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