Blanket of Fear

“Zack? Man, are you awake? C’mon, it’s fucking important.” A hushed voice on the other side of Zack and Eliza’s bedroom door said early the next morning, stirring Zack from the sleepless daze that he’d been in since the night before after he and Eliza had finished having sex. The voice belonged to none other than Jacoby, and he sounded distraught. He looked to his side to make sure that Eliza was still soundly asleep and when he noticed that she was, he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead before pushing the silk sheets and the duvet off of his body, reaching down to the floor and pulling on a pair of lounge pants before walking over to the bedroom door, stepping outside as quietly as possible before he looked at his friend.

“What’s wrong?” He asked in a low voice. Jacoby shook his head, putting a finger to his lips as he led him down the hallway towards the staircase. Zack was a little more than confused at this point, although he wasn’t going to say anything since he trusted Jacoby’s judgment. When they were in the foyer, he noticed that it wasn’t only Zack that the leader of Papa Roach had stirred, but every single male in the house.

“Whassgoin’ on?” Jimmy asked, his voice slurred as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. It was obvious that the tall man had just woken up, and everyone knew he was not a morning person. “It better be good, Coby.”

“Johnny and Leigh are gone.” Jacoby whispered in a low voice, glowering towards the den, where the door to the room Leigh had been kept in was wide open. Zack could see from where he was standing that the bars that had been over the window were broken, and there was no way Leigh could have done it herself.

“How the hell did it happen?” Zack hissed, instantly pissed off as he tried to think of possible scenarios of what could have happened and why Johnny would even want to leave the house with Leigh. He had known from the get go that until everything with Sean was solved that Leigh would be ostracized, and they’d both seemed relatively okay with that fact. They’d both maintained her innocence of anything to do with him.

“He left a note.” Tobin said, pulling the piece of paper form his back pocket and handing it over to Zack, who read over it quickly.

I know you’d have tried to kill Leigh. She’s more important than all of this to me. We are not a threat to BC. Will be under the radar. Don’t waste time trying to find us. More important things.

“He must have been in a hurry.” He muttered, shaking his head. “It’s barely fucking English.”

“This is all about her.” Benji said, anger in his eyes. “First, we find out Michelle betrayed us. Now Johnny’s jumping ship. What’s fucking next?”

“I don’t know.” Zack sighed, crumpling the note in his hand. Regardless of whether or not Johnny said they weren’t a threat to Avenged Sevenfold or any of their allies, it couldn’t be ignored that they’d left the premises without permission. They had essentially committed treason, and it couldn’t just be overlooked. Zack’s week was looking pretty bad, he thought with a sour face.

“What do we do?” Brian asked. “We can’t just fucking let them leave. They might not be very far by now.”

Zack frowned as he crossed his arms over his chest. Johnny might not be the smartest of the five of them, but he was far from stupid. He would have gotten far enough away to protect himself and Leigh. As a human, he’d escaped a maximum security prison, for God’s sake. How hard would it be for him to elude a group of exhausted vampires? He shook his head, trying to come up with other ideas. Finally, one came to him.

“He might still try to use his credit cards.” He announced. “Benji, Brian will give you his pin numbers for the cards. Track them. See when he uses one, and where. Tell me what he buys if it’s anything for survival supplies or travel accommodations.”

“You got it.” Benji nodded, turning to walk up the stairs to the computer room.

“We should at least go out and search the parameter of the grounds.” Matt suggested. “If I was trying to leave, I’d stick as close as possible until nightfall simply because it wouldn’t be expected.”

“Good point. You and Tobin do that. You’re the best two trackers here.” Zack nodded, giving the go ahead. “The rest of us have to keep working on finding out where Sean is. We can’t forget that he’s still our main threat right now. With Michelle dead, he’s going to be furious. He’ll want revenge. Let’s get to work.”

-x-

Eliza groaned when she woke up, the sunlight filtering through the plantation shutters on the bedroom window and hitting her square in the face. She pulled one of the pillows over her head and ignored the pain between her legs, a smile on her face as she thought to the events of the night before. It was a good kind of pain; the kind that reminded her that no matter how preoccupied Zack’s mind had been with Sean, he still loved her.

“I missed spending that kind of time with you.” She murmured, not turning around to see that Zack wasn’t still in bed. When no reply came like she’d been expecting, she reached back with her hand, expecting to feel his body somewhere with her fingers. Instead, she touched the mattress and sighed when she realized that he’d already gotten up and left the bed to start working again.

She yawned and stretched her arms above her head before she got out of the bed, making it as carefully as it had been done yesterday morning simply because she had nothing better to do. She walked to the closet and pulled out a simple outfit that she knew would be practical for what she planned on doing today, and then walked out of the bedroom, expecting to at least see one of the girls somewhere in the house. Instead, Eliza was greeted to a completely silent house. No one was walking around in the halls like they usually were. Even the rooms where Sparrow and Harlow stayed were silent, a testament to how early it really was.

“I wonder if everybody’s just sleeping.” She muttered under her breath as she found the staircase and walked quietly down the stairs, sliding her hand down the banister as she did so. It was just a simple wooden banister, but it was so much more than she’d ever thought she’d have when she’d moved from Tennessee to California less than a year ago.

As she walked into the kitchen, she thought maybe Leana or Val would be there, making breakfast, but was surprised when she once again found the usually-lively area completely silent. It was almost as if it were a dead house, with all inhabitants gone overnight.

“Zack?” She called out quietly, confused as to why the house was so silent. “Val? Someone?”

When no one answered, she shrugged and made a cup of hot cocoa before wandering outside onto the deck, sitting down at the canopied picnic table and surveying the scene. The sun was just beginning to rise, and in the distance she could see the early rays of sunlight splashing over the ocean, casting it in hues of vibrant yellows and oranges. There were trees to the west of the house, and sand a little ways away from that. She smiled in spite of how lonely the house seemed to be this morning. It was almost like the house was in a Norman Rockwell painting, with how serene and peaceful it was. No one would suspect that a large group of vampires was living here, hiding out from a psychopath that would have made Jason Voorhees shake in his hockey mask.

“What’re you doin’ up so early?” Tobin’s voice asked from seemingly out of nowhere, causing Eliza to jump from being startled. She blinked and turned to see him standing on the steps of the deck, Matt walking towards them from a short distance. She frowned when she realized both of them had guns.

“The sun woke me up.” She shrugged, taking another sip of the cocoa before nodding her head at the gun. “What are those for?”

Tobin just then noticed that he was still holding the gun and looked hesitantly over at Matt, who’d walked up. She knew Matt wouldn’t lie to her at least; he was one of the most honest men she knew, and she had no doubts that if she asked him what was going on he’d tell her.

“Christ is gone, and he took Leigh with him.” Matt said, his tone less than pleased as he activated the safety on his gun again. “We don’t know where they’re at, but we’ll find them. We have to.”

“Why would he leave?” Eliza asked, before sighing and shrugging when Matt gave her the look that said that even though he’d like to tell her what she wanted to know, he couldn’t without Zack’s consent. She shrugged. “Never mind. I’m just the statue in the room. Go do whatever it is you have to do.”

Matt smiled, grateful that she understood, and then cleared his throat before he spoke again. “Val said something about wanting to do something with all the girls today. She said she’d be in the garage, if you want to go out there.”

“I might do that.” She smiled before she went back to watching the scenery. Or, she thought quietly to herself, she might do a little of her own investigating. There had to be a way she could figure out what was going on without letting any of the guys know she was doing it. Knowing couldn’t really hurt anything, and she was nothing if not curious.

She just hoped Zack didn’t get upset when he figured out what she was up to.