Sweetie You Had Me

“Uh. Well, two things actually…” he trailed off, twiddling his thumbs a bit, “I kinda need a favor from you guys.” Jon said. Pete gave him a look.

“Yes, well, spit it out,” he said, involuntarily tapping his fingers against the armrest.

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve heard Julie’s story but-” Pete interrupted Jon, speaking bluntly. Julie couldn’t tell if he was being rude, or if he was just that way all the time, but she wasn’t about to ask.

“We haven’t,” he said, looking indifferent and bored sitting with his ink covered arms crossed.

“Oh well, She’s in this predicament,” Jon paused and looked over at Julie as if asking for permission to be more elaborate. He didn’t know if she wanted everyone to know what was happening with her and Brendon. She gave him a nod of approval and he continued. “William is after her because Brendon likes her, and also because she’s got virgin blood,” Jon finished. The four men sat there looking grim. Silence overcame the room for a moment before Andy spoke.

“Well that…sucks,” he said, pushing his glasses higher up onto his nose.

“Yeah it does, but why are you telling us?” Pete asked.

“Well, it’s hard for her to stay in one place for a long time because eventually William will figure out where she is, he’s not an idiot. If he finds her then she’s going to need another place to stay, so I was hoping you guys could be the back up,” Jon finished, pleading with his eyes.

“Yeah sure. I’d be cool with that,” Andy said. Patrick and Joe nodded. Julie and Jon smiled, but then they turned to look at Pete. Their smiles fell. He looked thoughtful, but Julie wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Pete shrugged.

“Yeah, okay.” He said slowly. Jon’s face lit up.

“That’s awesome. I know she’ll be safe with you guys,” Jon said, smiling. This statement slightly worried Julie, though. It sounded like Jon was planning to get rid of her, like she was a bother. She knew she probably was, but she liked Jon so far, she had already felt like she could trust him and he was sending her away?

“So what else did you want?” Pete asked, tapping his fingers anxiously against the chair. He was making it quite obvious that he would much rather be training then talking. This whole thing with Brendon wasn’t working out so great. He was starting to get annoyed with how long he was taking. While Brendon was out lollygagging around with his girlfriend, people were dying under William’s grasp and that bothered him immensely.

“I was hoping to pick up some of that liquid you got. I’m still trying to wean off of the blood,” he explained, looking at Patrick. Patrick nodded.

“Kay, follow me.”

For the next hour or so, Julie and the other guys watched Patrick show Jon how to make the red blend. Julie felt lightheaded and a bit nauseous after she had seen everything that was put inside of it, but she eventually clamed down. Patrick gave Jon the recipe and a water bottle full of the concoction that they had just made before they said their good byes and traveled back to Jon’s house, with a backpack full of Patrick’s “science experiment”.

As the little apartment appeared before their eyes, they found themselves standing in the shadow of Jon’s bedroom door. Jon placed Julie back on the ground and the two of them walked out of the room. Julie wiped herself off a bit as she exited the bedroom, walking over towards Macy as Jon put away the liquids into the fridge. Julie placed herself onto the couch and patted the little dog as she came and rested her head in Julie’s lap.

A few minutes later, Jon came back and sat next to her on the couch.

“Hey,” he said as Julie continued to pet Macy. Julie looked over at Jon with a small smile.

“Hey,” she repeated, looking at the man questionably. “What’s up?” she asked, sitting up straight in the couch looking over at him with her hands in her lap.

“Listen, I swear I’m not trying to give you away or anything,” he paused, obviously speaking about the nervous thoughts Julie had been having earlier. “It’s just, I have this feeling – A vampire’s intuition, I suppose – that something,” he paused, thinking about his next words, so that he wouldn’t scare her.

“That something is what, Jon?” Julie asked, looking at him expectantly.

“I just have this feeling that something is going to go wrong,” he finished with a sigh. “I don’t know what it is, but something is going to happen,” he said, looking at her with sorrow in his eyes. Julie was silent for awhile, idling petting her dog as she thought over Jon’s words.

“I just want to make sure you’re safe,” he said, after a long pause before slowly getting off of the couch. Julie watched the spot where Jon sat even after he left. She knew he wouldn’t purposely try to scare her, but she just didn’t feel right about anything anymore. She was so confused and needy, needy for answers. She wanted to know that everything was going to be alright. She wanted reassurance and good news. Why hadn’t she gotten any good news in the past month?

She sat in silence for what seemed like hours until she heard a noise from the door. Her head shot up and looked at the off white wooden structure. The noise definitely wasn’t a knock. It sounded like something had been thrown at the door. She was a bit startled, but she slowly arose from the couch, placing Macy onto the floor. She took a peak at the clock on the wall, seeing that the hands were pointing at 7:34. She walked over to the door and placed her open eyeball on the peep hole, looking out onto the terrace, but she saw no living creature. She looked behind to see if Jon was there, because for some reason she felt like she was doing something wrong. Seeing that he wasn’t there she placed her hand on the door handle and slowly turned it, pulling the door out of its original place. Julie peeked her head out of the apartment to look around but only saw the houses and buildings surrounding her. Stepping out of the apartment completely, she closed to the door behind her and looked around. She still saw nothing. About to take a step forward she picked up her foot, moving it in front of her, but instead of the terrace ground, she had placed her foot upon a piece of rolled up paper. Cocking an eyebrow she removed her foot from the paper and picked it up, unrolling it as she did so. It was a copy of that day’s “Chicago Tribune“. Julie looked around one last time before walking back inside, scolding herself for getting worried about a newspaper hitting the door. Julie placed herself back on the couch and began to flip through the articles. She passed the sports section and the world section until she stumbled upon the local news, and what she saw completely astounded her.

On the front page of the local section, in large bold print were the words, “YOUNG WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN LOCAL CLOTHING SHOP” and underneath the large bold words was a picture of Marissa with the inscription, “LOVE, WB, JULES” on her throat, but the only thing Julie could do was scream and cry, ripping the pieces of paper to shreds as she did so.