Page 15 of Slayer

What the⁠—?

I pushed him off to see Asher standing over me, sword still stuck in the man’s back.

“If you want to survive the night, we gotta go now.” He reached out his hand, and it was in this moment that I realized everything he’d been telling me was true.

He is a vampire hunter.

Vampires are real.

He is trying to help me.

And the one next to me was decomposing into shadows and dust right now.

“I’m not crazy, am I?” I asked him, taking his hand as he hauled me up.

He pulled my stake from the ground and handed it back to me as he sheathed his blade.

He didn’t answer, just scanned the park with military precision. I could see his mind searching for our next move.

I realized then that I needed to be taking this more seriously, that I would die if I didn’t.

“I couldn’t kill the sire, but I scared him off. He seemed new otherwise I’d be dead by now. He’ll be back once he knows my wafer has worn off,” he said and began to jog.

“I have the rune wafers.” I jogged after him and went to pull them back out from behind my lower back where they were stashed.

He held out a hand to stay me. “You might need to be in charge of those. See that I get another one in about an hour when this wears off.”

One hour. Okay. I could do that. I checked my phone to see that it was almost one a.m. and Rae had been blowing up my phone. I’d left it on silent at the club because I didn’t want any distractions for my party.

Rae: Where are you?

Rae: Club got shut down after a gang fight! Wild. Tell me you’re safe???

Rae: Holy crap Stella I’m calling the cops if you don’t text me.

I shot her a quick text.

Stella: Sorry, I ran off when the gang fight happened. Met a hot guy. Hanging with him tonight.

Rae: Ohhhh Yas, tell me more.

I sent a smiley emoji back.

I mean, it wasn’t far from the truth, and I didn’t want her freaking out.

Gang fight was so far from the truth, but I wasn’t about to tell her it was really vampires.

“What are the wafers? They give you superpowers?” I asked as he stopped near a couple smoking under a streetlight. The girl held a beer can, and music was blaring out of her phone as her boyfriend pulled an e-cig up to his lips.

“Hey, you wanna make two hundred bucks?” Asher approached them.

The girl, who had long blond locks, looked up at Asher glassy-eyed.

“Doing what?” She scowled at him.

“Can you and your boyfriend switch clothes with me and my sister?”

Sister? It was like a punch to the gut. He could have called me his girlfriend. Obviously it would have been fake, but to call me his sister? Is that how he thought of me?