Page 9 of Midnight Dream

How could a man be so charming one minute, and so sinister the next?

Sprinting out of my car, I ran up to the door and knocked furiously. I needed to know they were alright. I needed them to know I was here for them.

“Hey! I’m coming,” a muffled voice called from inside the home through the door.

I stopped banging and waited. A few seconds later, the door opened, and Susie stepped into the night air.

She looked me up and down for a second before she spoke. “Yeah? What do you want?” She greeted me coarsely, and then started reading the screen of the small cellphone in her hand.

Susie was Jeanette’s sixteen-year-old sister, and had every bit of the teenage attitude a person of her years would have when they’ve never faced real adversity. She had the same light brown hair as her sister, but it rested on a petite frame with a cute face. She was definitely going to be a heartbreaker once she fully unleashed on the world of men.

“Susie Mae,” I shot back, using her first and middle names to assert my authority. “I’ve known you since the day you cried into this world. Don’t you give me that attitude young lady.”

Susie pursed her lips and blew out an audible breath before she stepped to the side to allow me to enter. I brushed past her and entered Jeanette and Jake’s home and spun on my heels. Susie shut the door behind me, locked it and went back to whatever messaging on her phone was so enthralling.

“How are the twins?” I asked.

“Fine,” she countered.

“And the baby?”

“Sleeping.”

“Susie Mae.”

“Look,” she said and looked up from her screen and to me. “The girls are fine, the baby’s fine, everyone’s fine. They’re all sleeping. You don’t have to worry, I got this.”

I stepped into her space and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know, you got this. I just wanted to make sure they were safe after I heard what happened. For my own piece of mind. Can you understand that?”

Susie rolled her eyes, but nodded her head.

“Good. I’m going to stay here for the night.”

“Dream!” Susie’s mouth flew open.

“Not because you can’t handle it, Susie, but because I’m tired and it’s too late at night for me to drive home. Plus, this way when Jeanette calls, she can update us both at the same time without anyone having to relay messages. Fair?”

Susie nodded and walked down the hall into the kitchen.

Probably to get away from me,I surmised.

Jeanette’s home was old with old-fashioned kitchen and one large bathroom. It had a comfortable living room, four bedrooms, a small dining area, a library and a modest storage room. It was quaint and it was charming. It was every bit of Jeanette, able to accommodate an extra body if need be, while still making them feel like they weren’t intruding.

Jeanette and Jake stayed in the master bedroom of course, while their twin girls stayed in one room. The baby had a nursery, and Susie had taken the spare bedroom. Which left me the couch in the living room. I was perfectly fine with it, and as I crashed into it and drifted off to sleep, the entire night’s events washed over me in waves and brought with it no answers.

What the fuck am I going to do now?

#

DUSTIN MUNOZ

I watched her back away and drive her car out of the parking lot.

What the fuck am I going to do now?

All I was doing was passing through. I had no preconceived plans of staying. But the more I inhaled her, the more I tasted her, the more I wanted. She put on the airs of someone experienced in the ways of the world, but I could smell the innocence on her like her perfume. She knew nothing of the real world, at least, nothing of my world. Like the flower she named her car after, she’d burst forth and clung to the sunshine, while I was the darkness below the surface.

And yet somehow, when I’m with her, she’s able to get more from me than anyone else, including my sister. I need to be careful. I’m the Vampire. I hunt. I’m not going to let a woman make me soft. It’s the number one rule in the game.

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