Bound to You

When Johnny got to the grocery store, he walked in and looked around for an employee, finding no one immediately. He sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. He didn’t have time to lose, and he needed every second he could get. Just as he was getting ready to walk towards the door to leave and find a phone somewhere else, a girl with red hair walked over to him, smiling cheerily.

“Can I help you?” She asked him, before frowning at him. “Do you need a doctor or something? You look kinda rough, no offense.”

Johnny chuckled, looking at the girl as he watched the emotions play out on her face. He may have been dubious about the old man’s directions, but the girl was innocent. He found that her mind was easy enough to look into, and saw that the only things she was thinking of were her worry for his appearance and the end of her shift, when she could go home and sleep.

“No, but I could use some gauze and a phone.” He told her, facing her.

She nodded, walking towards the second aisle in and leading him halfway down it before stopping in front of some medical supplies. She grabbed two boxes of gauze off of the shelf, standing on her tiptoes to reach them before handing them to him.

“And you can use the phone at the till.” She smiled as she walked towards the till. Johnny followed her, walking towards the till and putting the boxes on the scanner. She rang them up, and read him his total.

It was only then that Johnny realized his wallet wasn’t in his pocket. He sighed. “Sorry, I must have forgotten my wallet at the hotel.”

“It’s okay.” She said, pulling a wrinkled five dollar bill out of his pocket, paying for it anyway. She put the gauze into a bag and handed them to him. “You need it more than I need the money.”

He smiled at her and grabbed the bag, wondering what her name was. He looked at the till’s computer screen, wondering if her name was there, and sure enough, it was. Leigh.

“Thanks.” He told her. “I’ll make sure I come back sometime to pay you back.”

Leigh blushed, but didn’t say anything else. There was an awkward silence for a few seconds before she coughed and pulled the phone off of it’s hook, handing it to him. Her blush deepened when Johnny’s fingers just barely brushed hers and he smiled.

“What’s the number?” She asked him, unable to meet his gaze. He rattled off Zacky’s phone number to her. She punched in the number sequence, and then stood there quietly while he waited for Zack to answer the phone.

When Zack answered, they said a few hushed things, Johnny saying nothing too detailed on his end so that Leigh wouldn’t hear anything she shouldn’t know, before he looked at her, a sheepish grin on his face as he covered the receiver with his hand.

“Sorry to be such a pain in the ass, but do you know the name of this town?” He asked her. She giggled under her breath before speaking. “Elee,” She told him. “Elee, Nevada.”

Johnny nodded and said thank you before telling Zacky the name of the town and the state he was in.

“I’m sending Jimmy and Brian now.” Zack said on the other end of the phone. Johnny nodded.

“Okay. I’ll hang tight ‘til then.” He said before handing Leigh the phone. She hung it up and he sighed, looking at her. “Thank you for all your help, Leigh. By the way, my name’s Johnny.”

“It’s no problem.” She said, clearing her throat. He looked into her mind again, just to see what she was thinking, and saw that she thought he was hot. He chuckled under his breath, shaking his head. Sometimes the perks of being a vampire far outweighed the bad, even in situations such as the one he was in now, with Sean.

“Maybe we’ll see each other around sometime, yeah?” He said as he walked towards the door, waving at her friendlily.

“Maybe.” She replied, watching as he walked out the door. As soon as he’d gotten across the parking lot, however, he saw two figures dressed in all black walking quickly towards the grocery store. Johnny’s eyes narrowed as he crouched behind a small bush, and he realized that the old man had been a setup. He cursed under his breath when he heard a loud scream come from inside the grocery store, and surveyed the parking lot for any other people.

There were none. It was only Leigh and the two people Sean had sent in there. She didn’t stand a chance against them on her own, and he couldn’t just let her die. He ran towards the door again, feeling in his pocket to see if he had any weapons. When he didn’t find the pocketknife he usually kept, he cursed again under his breath. When he reached the door, he punched his hand through the glass, shattering it and grabbing one of the larger pieces in his hand before going inside. He found one man holding Leigh in the back room, the other one holding a knife to her throat.

“We know he came in here, little girl.” The one holding the knife sneered. “Which way did he go? Just tell us, and you’ll go unharmed, for the most part.”

Johnny stood behind the shelf, watching the scene play out for a few seconds as he tried to figure out a plan to get Leigh out of there without getting her hurt. Obviously he’d have to take out the one with the knife first. Leigh’s eyes found him and she immediately started struggling against the men.

The man with the knife growled impatiently before pushing the knife just tightly enough against her throat to draw a small amount of blood before he pulled it away.

“I’m not kidding. I’ve killed before, and it wouldn’t make me lose a bit of sleep to kill you.”

Johnny knew he didn’t have anymore time to waste, and decided to go without a plan. He ran at the one holding the knife first, slicing his arm deeply with the glass in his hand before the man dropped the knife. The man holding Leigh let her go.

“Get out of here!” Johnny screamed at her, cursing under his breath when the second man hit him in the back with a blunt object. Leigh didn’t move, but instead stood there paralyzed. She was in a state of shock, and incapable of moving.

Johnny threw the man he’d sliced roughly against the concrete wall, earning a grunt out of his mouth before he quickly turned around and kicked at the other one, scanning the ground with his eyes to find the knife that had been dropped. He found it by Leigh’s feet, and moved over to her, grabbing it and pushing her towards the produce cooler he saw.

“Go in there and stay. It’ll be easier for me to keep you safe if you isolate yourself.” He told her quickly before one of the men ran at him. Johnny pushed the knife into his arm and Leigh quickly got into the cooler, pulling the door shut behind her.

The man he’d thrown against the concrete wall was starting to come to again, and he realized that he was far outmatched and that he needed to get rid of one of them so that he would at least stand a chance. He was already weak as it was because he hadn’t had blood, and this fight was starting to tire him out.

He ran at the man against the concrete, seeing the opportunity to kill him. The man couldn’t put up a fight as Johnny pushed the knife into his heart, killing him immediately. The other man saw him and pushed him over, grabbing the knife and lunging at Johnny. Johnny winced in pain as he felt the tip of the blade stab his arm before it was pulled out, being directed at his neck this time. It came within a few inches of hitting his skin before Johnny grabbed the man’s wrist, fighting him off as best as he could. He kneed the man between the legs, but it didn’t work this time and the man exerted more pressure on the knife, getting it even closer to Johnny’s neck.

It hit his skin just enough to draw a fine line before Johnny suddenly managed to get the man off of him, moving to his feet immediately. He took the opportunity that throwing the man off of him had given him and grabbed the knife, shoving it into the man’s neck, leaving him immobilized but not dead. He pulled the knife out of the man’s neck, knowing that he’d die within a few minutes before he moved towards the produce cooler, opening the door.

“C’mon.” He told Leigh, reaching for her with his hand. She shakily took it, trying to look past his shoulder at the two men. He stopped her from looking at them by standing in front of her. “You don’t want to see that. Trust me. Let’s go.”

“W-where are we going? Who were they? What do they want with you?” She asked him, her words coming out as a jumble of incomprehensible jibberish. He touched his hand to her elbow calmingly before leading her towards the back exit, knowing they couldn’t use the front one. He kept her from looking at the men, both of them now dead, and pushed the door open.

“I don’t know where we’re going for now.” He told her quietly as he led her towards an alley. “And I can’t explain that to you now. The only thing you need to now is that you’ve just been pulled into something that’s going to change your life forever.”

Leigh didn’t say anything as she and Johnny walked down the darkened alley towards nowhere in particular, wondering what the hell was going on.