Elena.

Before the car had come to a complete halt at the side of the road, Kadin was already out and opening the backseat. I eagerly jumped out of the car and went to go kneel beside Kadin. As he’d turned to let me see Ryan, Kadin went to the trunk. A soft cough came from the backseat.

Like Kadin’s cut, Ryan’s wounds had healed through but he was still drenched in blood.
I whispered his name and stroked his hair until his eyes opened. He looked up, and then adjusted his sight on me, forcing a small smile.

I went on to help Ryan out of the car and take him to the side of the road where we’d park to a river nearby, so he as well as I could clean up the blood. Ryan had needed help get out, but he could walk. Kadin had gone to the trunk to get the two pairs of clean clothes. If he’d helped me carry him out as well, he would have had to stay covered in blood as well, and although it was black, it would draw attention when we got to the nearby town.

The blue haired boy handed me the pair of clothes he had, and handed the other pair to Ryan. I went around the corner of the river, and Ryan the other, to clean ourselves. We burned our blackened clothes after-wards, for obvious reasons. The commotion that would been made by humans or other vampires was unimaginable. Finding clothes in the forest drenched in black, non-human blood would not look good no matter what the circumstances.

“Ryan,” I said while watching our clothes burn, “what happened?” I heard him clear his throat uneasily, as he stood by my side.

“I-I honestly don’t really know what happened,” he replied, kicking some dirt to put out the fire that had finished burning the clothes and had just started to burn everything else, “but I think I had an idea to what did…we better get going now though.”

We got back to the car, almost bloodless from the looks of it. Kadin had been cleaning it when we were away. Ryan had started walking to the driver’s seat but Kadin blocked his way.

“I’ll drive.” He said rather darkly. Ryan looked at him, his expression still calm, as he looked across the car to see my confused expression. He smiled at me and shrugged.

“Okay then.” Ryan replied, getting in the backseat instead.

I got in the backseat and adjusted my seat belt. Something was going on.

“Where are we going?” I asked Kadin, who had just strapped himself in. He said were going to a hotel, a couple miles away. I knew this was to refuge ourselves from the sun, deadly to both the driver and the person in the backseat, which would come over the horizon any moment.

Sure enough, the three of us got upstairs to an available room. We rapidly ripped the sheets off the two beds to cover the windows to block the future sunlight.

The car ride was strange to say the least. Kadin hadn’t said a word, and kept his eyes on the road. Ryan told me what had happened to him when he had gone to look for my missing friends back at home, who had disappeared days after I’d run away.

Thankfully, Ryan had begun to hear rumors that those that were missing had left the town in search for me, meaning they hadn’t believed my mother’s claim of my untimely death. Weeks later, he was able to confirm the rumor was true when they had all returned, with very bad news for us, and good news for the people that I’d run away from; she told the town that an elderly woman had told the searchers that she’d given me a ride to a hotel.

This meant two very bad things of course; one, my mother’s lie wouldn’t keep everyone from looking for me, and two, my mother and Mrs. Goodman now had a place to start looking for me again.

He said he'd tried to reach Jerry multiple times to tell him all of this, but he couldn't reach him. Ryan assured me that it was probably because Jerry was already under much supervision from Mrs. Goodman that he didn't want to risk contact with him.

Ryan said that the information that came after-wards wasn't that helpful so being there became useless and a dead end, so he came back with Kadin to come get me.

This came back to my burning question as to what had happened. We got to the hotel just then, so it got postponed…until now.

I sat on one of the bare mattresses and Ryan on the opposite. Kadin was in the bathroom taking a shower.

“So where was I?” Ryan said casually, studying his hands.

“Shouldn’t we wait for-?”

“Nah,” Ryan said, waving his hand towards the bathroom door, “he already knows, and don’t look so surprised…you already know too.”

I looked away from his intense green eyes and brushed my hair out of my face with my fingers, my mind going miles a minute.

It couldn’t be Leverett.

“He wouldn’t…” I said sternly, more to convince myself than him. But he shook him head and grabbed my hands.

“He would. And he wasn’t able to finish killing me because you came, so he fled.”

“Why? And what would he care if I was there, and not kill me too? This doesn’t make
sense.” I mumbled, pulling my hands away from Ryan, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Isn’t it obvious?” He asked, pulling me into his arms. I would’ve struggled but I needed to hear what he had to say.

“He wants you. All to himself,” he said into my hair, “I knew that the moment I spoke with Molly on the phone to tell her I was coming to get you.”

“What did she say? He could barely stand me.”

“…she didn’t have to say anything in particular for me to know. And you’re wrong about how he feels about you, and you know it.” He whispered, letting go of me.