Don't Be so Scared

Both of their faces softened, almost in the same instant and they met.

“Jae?” Bill asked as he took his hand from her throat and caressed her cheek.

She simply nodded as her hand dropped from his throat as well.

“What’s going on?” He asked her softly.

“Don’t worry.” She said moving her hand to his cheekbone. “I know exactly what to do.”
She moved away from him and looked toward the little crowd of her friends.

“It was the bartender. We get to her we get to the bottom of this.” She said strong and confidently.

“Told you she’d know.” Mike said with a huge smile.

Half the fight was over, they knew how to fix everything and their friends were back.

“How are we supposed to find the bartender?” Tony asked logic seeming to come to him the easiest.

What if the half of the fight they just finished was the easy part?

“Don’t worry I’ll find her.” Jaedyn’s voice sounded menacing enough to be Johnnie Blood’s.

“How do you plan on doing that?” Tony asked skeptically.

“I know where she’ll be. Somewhere that she can see all her hard work.” She smirked confidently. “Cobra you guys have done all you can do. Leave this to the folks in costume.” She instructed Cobra knowing that this was going to require more than average “humans” and she and the guys in TAI were the only ones prepared that fit that description. “If everyone in your crew is safe and sane get on the road like you planned. We got this.” Her confidence didn’t fade as she began leading the way out.

She led the crew out of the venue back onto the streets. William kept his distance from Jaedyn, staying toward the back of the group fighting with his thoughts.

Jaedyn who stood front and center playing confident and strong was having the same inner turmoil battling with what made her human; her feelings.

She guided them through the city remembering the building she saw as Johnnie Blood.

It was the tallest building she remembered seeing.

She remembered it was surrounded by zombies too. They looked prepared to attack you for stepping too close.

She looked to the guys around her.

“Ready boys?” She asked putting on a smile as they came to a stop in front of the building looking at the zombies who were looking at them too with their glazed eyes and jaws hanging slack low rumbles coming from their throats almost like a warning.

They all nodded preparing themselves to fight off these things.

“Try not to kill anything. These are people just like us.” She said turning preparing to go then something else came to mind. “Just to be on the safe side don’t let them bite you.”

She turned back to the building and led people into a fight for the second time of the night.

She started the fight too, amazing the guys with the moves she used on the zombies guarding the doors.

She was fighting like Johnnie Blood the experienced vampire. Her moves almost to fast for them to follow with their eyes and the strength she was using they could tell it was immeasurable.

The guys knew they’d have to get in touch with their costume to do this well.

Chiz was the second one in there battling it out like these were The Joker’s flunkies.

They all followed assuming their roles and assaulting the zombies.

Once they were all temporarily demobilized Jaedyn hit the door.

“Come on!” She called for them to follow her into the building that may have held more perils then they’ve already seen that night.

Through the doors were more zombies just waiting to go against them.

They fought hard but the zombies were strong. The fact that fell in their favor were the zombies moved sloppily, clumsily taking their swings at our protagonists.

Jaedyn looked over her shoulder even as she threw a punch at a beast attacking her. She spotted the elevator.

“Guys! I need some cover!” She shouted as she bolted in the direction for the elevator hoping a few of them would follow.

She ran into the elevator quick enough to have no time to stop causing her to slam into the mirrored back wall. Of course so did everyone else that followed her in. She felt their bodies slamming into the wall and into her.

She didn’t even look back to see which of the guys had followed her. She knew they all couldn’t have gotten on to the elevator. She just stayed there with her forehead pressed to the glass breathing deeply.

“Which floor?” Butcher asked her after hitting the ‘close door’ button enough to make the doors finally close.

“The roof or as close as we can get.” She said still unmoving.

The elevator began it’s ascent moments later.

Jaedyn was worried.

If that woman was powerful enough to do this to everyone in the city wouldn’t she be powerful enough to stop the handful that come against her?

Everyone on the elevator with her stayed silent feeling her apprehension.

She felt the elevator begin to slow.

She clamped her eyes closed preparing again to use Johnnie Blood to her advantage.

Ding

The elevator sounded off. Speaking in it’s only tongue telling them the doors would begin to slide out of their way.

Jaedyn launched herself from the wall and ran out crashing into the three other bodies that had been on the small elevator with her still not taking notice of who followed her.

More zombies came in contact with her fist as she continued moving as quickly as she could to get to the woman who leaned lazily on the edge of the building not even flinching as she heard the sounds of the fight.

Jaedyn forced herself through the throng of zombies and got merely a few feet from the woman before the woman spoke stopping Jaedyn dead in her tracks.

“Well Jaedyn I didn’t expect you to actually do anything. You had all those chances to stop me and you didn’t. You could have stopped all this by simply not drinking the shot I gave you but you didn’t because your friends convinced you that you were just imagining things. I needed the ten of you to ingest that for the spell to work. If only one of you hadn’t it would have stopped.” The woman just drawled on in the accent that was unidentifiable to Jaedyn about what she needed without even turning to look Jae in the face as she addressed her.

“Stop it now! Reverse this!” She demanded the fiery haired woman.

The woman just laughed and turned to Jaedyn. “Why are you giving me orders girl? You think you’re tough because I made you a vampire?” She laughed but every word dripped with venom. Then the laughter stopped and her voice was just straight spit venom. “I made you that! Remember that girl!”

Jaedyn stood her ground. Played unafraid.

She knew this woman had to be strong and could probably kill her but she was stubborn and wouldn’t show the woman she was afraid of her.

So she began to step forward. To threaten at close range.

The woman narrowed her eyes at Jaedyn and mumbled a few words that Jaedyn heard loud and clear but didn’t understand except for “Diem” the Latin word for day. She knew that thanks to “The Dead Poets Society”.

After the words were uttered she felt like she was on fire.

She fell to the ground and screamed in agony.

“You are a vampire now. This is what it would feel like if you stood out in the sun. It’ll kill you. How are you enjoying it?” She asked Jaedyn vindictively.

Jaedyn let out another scream in response.

“Johnson!” Chiz screamed out trying to go over and help her but was kept back by the zombies he was fighting.

Butcher was in the same position.

“Now little girl,” The woman growled, “You know better than to-” That was followed by a chocking sound as William’s skeleton hand wrapping around her neck.

Instantly after the woman’s focus was taken off of Jaedyn the pain stopped.

Jaedyn still lay in in ball on the ground though.

He lifted her off the ground as her hands attached to his trying to pry his fingers from her throat.

“Leave her alone!” He screamed and launched her over the side of the building.

He leaned over and watched her as she fell to her death. The rest of them just listened to the screams.

The zombies stopped. Just stood there for a moment before just walking off like they were done.

“William what the hell did you do? How are we supposed to turn back now?!” Butcher screamed at Bill after the zombies walked away and he and Michael began walking over to Johnson and William.

William ignored him. That was the furthest thing from him mind right now.

Instead he looked to the sky noticing dawn was fast approaching but he wasn’t thinking about that either.

He turned back around and walked over to Jaedyn and extended his hand out to her.

She looked up to see him holding his hand out to her and she meekly reached toward it and he helped her to her feet.

“Are you ok?” He asked with more concern than he’s ever used.

“Fine.” She mumbled not really ready to talk to him after the “big reveal” yet.

He put his hand on her cheek, the cool bone feeling excellent on her skin after what she‘d just endured. “What Butcher said that brought us back to ourselves is it true?” His voice soft.

“Duh.” She mumbled like she was mad at him even though it was really herself she was mad at. “But we can’t-” She was about to rattle off the same old excuses when his index finger came to her lips.

“Don’t be so scared.” He whispered as he pulled her closer tilting his head down to lean his forehead on hers.

“It’s harder for me.” She whispered back against his finger. This almost had her in tears you could hear it in her voice.

The sun started peeking over the horizon. Beams began hitting the city.

“Shh.” He mumbled comfortingly for a moment before following his instinct to pulling her in for a kiss.

Even though he was really just pressing his teeth to her lips but she felt it too and kissed his teeth regardless.

She felt the sun’s warmth on her skin, not the burn that a vampire would feel because of the sun, that gentle tingle the sun sent through a human’s skin.

Lips began separating her from his teeth and moving with hers.

William’s flesh began regenerating, from his lips, up into his face, then down into his neck and traveling from there.

Her arms wrapped around his neck as the kiss truly became a kiss, feeling his hair as it began falling over her arms as it grew back.

She was once again a woman in a sexy nurse costume and he was a lanky man in a skeleton costume, face covered in make-up.

They pulled away from each other and couldn’t stop themselves from smiling.

Even Jaedyn who fought hard this whole time not to let how she felt for William get the better of her. She’d finally let go and let her heart go as it willed and smiled at her lipstick smeared on his teeth.

He laughed at the black and white make up that had been his skeleton’s mouth smeared halfway to her chin.

“Finally!” Butcher called out now back to a man covered in bandages.

Jaedyn looked over to him taken by surprise.

“Jaedyn get a clue! When we broke up it was because we weren’t lovers, we were friends! I saw plain as day that you and William were made for each other three months in. Why’d it take you so long to get the memo?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m going to have to fire my secretary for missing that memo ok.” She joked.

***

They all arrived back at The Academy Is...’s bus looking a little worse for wear.

That’s where they found Jack sitting - still in costume - hand to his head like he had a headache. “Hey guys,” he greeted weakly. “What the hell happened last night?”

Jaedyn and Bill - who had his arm casually draped over Jaedyn’s shoulder - looked at each other than they chorused with everybody else, “You don’t want to know.”

The two walked back toward the bunks together Jack’s eyes following them.

“Are those two together now?” He asked while they were still in earshot.

Butcher smiled and responded. “There are more things on heaven and earth than we could ever understand.”

“Ok guys. We’re really behind make sure you get everything you left inside the venue. We’ve gotta get this show on the road.” Tony announced.