Blanket of Fear

“You’re sure that’s where he went?” Sean asked into the phone angrily, his voice steely smooth as he stared at the wall across from his desk. When the person on the other end of the phone confirmed his words, Sean’s free hand balled into a fist on his desk and he brought it down hard on the wooden surface. “Thank you for letting me know.”

He didn’t say anything else into the phone before he hung up. He didn’t feel the need to. Sean had never been an overly friendly person and he wasn’t about to start now. He glowered as he slammed the phone on the receiver again, and then stood up, his chair flying backwards and hitting a tin filing cabinet.

He had just been told that Matthew Baker had returned to his younger brother, and had become an ally with him. The insider wasn’t part of Avenged Sevenfold, but he knew enough to know who was within their ranks, and that was precisely why Sean kept his little mole alive.

He growled as he thought about his plans. This was definitely a snag in what he had planned. He hadn’t thought that Matthew would ever return to Zachary. He hadn’t ever thought that loyalty remained with the older vampire after so many years of being a rogue. However, he had been wrong, and now he had to plan out what in the hell he was going to do about it.

Eliza was fundamental in what he had planned. Not because she was extraordinarily beautiful, or because she had a brilliant mind. No, he wanted to exact his revenge on her. His plans for Avenged Sevenfold had been well on track before she had been kidnapped by Zachary and the others, and even then, he’d had it all planned out to play the hero and get her out of there while worming out information about them. But now, she had fallen in love with the green-eyed vampire, and she had feelings of friendship for the others. It infuriated him. He wanted her, but not for sex. He wanted her to see just how far he could push his agenda, and to see how good his experiments had been. To do that, he needed Eliza. No other person would do. He needed to find a way to get her.

He just needed to find another way in. He wasn’t sure how he’d do it, but he needed to. Otherwise, everything he’d been working to achieve since before she had been born would all be a failure. And to Sean Castro, the word ‘failure’ didn’t apply to him.

-x-

“Baby, c’mere,” Zacky murmured into Eliza’s neck as he walked up behind her, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist and leaning his chin onto her shoulder. She smiled and leaned in to him, feeling safer than she had been even just a few minutes previously. “You’ve been thinking about something. What’s wrong?”

Eliza thought about telling him, and then decided against it. She forced herself not to think about it, not wanting him to find out that way, either. It was best if he didn’t know she was worrying about what Leigh had said to her earlier this morning. There was a large chance that what Leigh had said was either false or misconstrued, and Eliza just didn’t feel like bringing Zacky down when he already had so much weight on his shoulders.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Eliza lied, knowing that he’d be able to lie. However, she didn’t care. She would rather him assume something else than be worried about something that probably wasn’t true. She pressed her lips to his neck and then looked up at his face. He still looked worried, but he wasn’t going to push it. He reached up to tuck some of her hair behind her ear, and then wrapped his arm around her again.

“I love you, Eliza. You know you can trust me with anything that’s bothering you,” he told her softly. Eliza bit her bottom lip and nodded, knowing that she could tell him anything she needed to. But this wasn’t something he needed to know.

“I love you too, Zacky,” she smiled up at him, hugging him tightly to her body and then leaning up on her tiptoes to press her lips to his. He smirked and licked over her bottom lip, asking for entrance, but she shook her head and pulled away. “Not tonight, you look tired,” she whispered.

Zacky sighed, but the smirk stayed on his face as he moved his hands to cup her ass. He pulled her up so that she was forced to wrap her legs around his waist, and then carried her over to the bed, laying her down before pulling the blankets up over her. She was already in her pajamas, so he didn’t have to worry about that, and he then climbed in next to her.

He didn’t say anything as he pulled her closer to him, tangling their legs together and then pulling her body flush up against his. His breath was hot on Eliza’s ear, and she couldn’t help but shiver. She knew that Zacky knew what he was doing, but he wasn’t planning on stopping.

“Baby, stop,” she giggled, shifting in his arms and turning to face him. “I don’t want you to be all worked up and then not get anything. Let’s just sleep,” she told him softly. Zacky met her eyes, wondering if that was really what she wanted, and then nodded before pressing his lips to her forehead.

“Alright, Liz,” he murmured into her neck when he laid his head down again. “If that’s what you want, it’s what we’ll do,” he whispered. Eliza smiled and grabbed his shoulders with her hands, and then closed her eyes. She might be worried about what Leigh had told her, but she knew that Zacky would keep her safe. Nothing was going to happen to her, because Zacky loved her. And that love would keep her safe from harm. She may not have liked him in the beginning of their tumultuous relationship, but now she couldn’t imagine life without him.

-x-

Leigh awoke with a start, sitting up bolt straight on her bed as she looked around the room, taking in the features of the four walls before her breathing calmed down. She could see Matthew sitting on his bed, not sleeping. He never slept, she had noticed, and it disturbed her. Though everyone else seemed willing to invite him into this house, she didn’t trust his reasons for being here. She knew enough to know that he wasn’t helping Sean Castro, and that he wasn’t here to kill any of them…yet. But there was something she didn’t like about the elder Baker brother, and it didn’t sit well with her that he was sharing this room with her. Johnny stirred next to her and she looked down at him. He didn’t wake up, and instead murmured something in his sleep. She smiled softly and brushed the hair off of his face. Out of all of them, Johnny was the only one she knew she could count on. Jimmy was too out there, and he seemed to have an agenda of his own even without making it known to everyone else. Matt had a temper that she knew could get people killed, and Brian…he was a trainwreck. Ever since what had happened with Michelle, he’d been either depressive and reclusive or combative and violent. Everyone had started staying out of his way except for Val and Eliza. Which brought her to those two.

She’d been having a dream about them. Well, if she were honest with herself, it wasn’t much of a dream at all, it had been a vision. She didn’t know where Val fit into the picture, but she knew that the vision she’d had was important somehow. They always were. Ever since Castro had started his experiments on her and she’d started having them, almost all of them came true. And almost all of them were bad.

In the vision, Eliza had been in a dark field with two tall trees on either side of her. Both trees were dead, and both trees were tall, looking hundreds of years old. The sky had been a stormy, cobalt blue, with rain falling down. The fiery redhead had started to run, but the trees stayed with her as she moved. Val had been at the end of the field when Eliza had started running, and she had with her a knife. She hadn’t stabbed it at Eliza, but instead, she had stabbed one of the trees with it. The tree, already dead, had gone a horrible grey color and disintegrated into ash. Before the vision had been finished, Leigh had woken up.

Leigh knew what the trees represented, and it frightened her to her core. She knew she had been right about Eliza; she knew that she had been right in telling her that Sean had plans for her. She didn’t know what they were or how far he would go to achieve them, but she knew that they were a real threat; not only to Eliza, but to everyone around her. She just hoped that the redhead would heed her warning and find a way to prevent this vision from happening. Because if she didn’t, the end was close for Avenged Sevenfold.