Alan walked in with this worried look on his face. Of course, seeing him like that made my heartbeat skyrocket. Two days in a row. This wasn’t good.

He hadn’t seen me yet and was speaking to one of my colleagues, presumably trying to figure out where I was. I quickly walked over to him. As I approached, he looked over and saw me.

“Is there somewhere private we can talk?” He asked

I said nothing, just grabbed him by the hand and led him to an empty patient room. When we entered the room, I noticed a man was following us.

“Can I help you sir?” I asked.

“He’s with me, babe.”

“What’s going on? Is my dad okay? Is the team alright?”

“Your dad is fine. Everyone is fine.”

“Then what’s going on and why do you have a look on your face like something terrible has happened?”

“Sit down.”

“Hearing those words before getting news is never good. Just tell me what’s going on Alan.”

“Okay. Seven vamps were killed last night, less than a mile from the apartment.”

“Our apartment? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Let me finish woman and you’ll know.”

I looked at him impatiently.

“The men that were killed had a photo of me, pinned to a map. We’re not sure why yet, but I wasn’t the only one. I didn’t recognize any of them. The man outside the door is Deputy Cooper. He’ll be with me until we get this all sorted out.”

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“What? What do you mean they had your picture up? Like a picture from Facebook or something?”

“No, it was taken recently from a distance. Someone’s been following me.”

“What the fuck is going on Alan? Why is someone following you and who the fuck killed them and why? What if they were protecting you from whoever killed them?”

“Babe! I need you to calm down. Getting excited about this isn’t helping.”

“Calm down? How the fuck can I calm down? You just told me that 7 fangs were killed less than a mile from our home and they had been following you! Where is there room to be calm?”

One of my co-workers stuck his head in the room.

“Is everything okay in here?”

“Does it fucking sound like it’s okay Jim?”

Deputy Cooper got my colleague’s attention and asked him to give us some privacy.

“Alan, I’m scared. What if there are more of them?”

“That’s why Deputy Cooper is here. He won’t leave us until someone comes to replace him.”

“So that’s it? One officer for backup? Can’t they put us in protective custody or something? I need to talk to my dad.”

“Babe. There’s nothing he can do. This decision was made miles above his head. They want to keep me in the open. We have no clue who these guys are or what they want. Detectives are interviewing the other guys whose pics were found at the scene to see if they know anything about what happened or why.”

“So, you’re the bait?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, that’s just fucking great. You’re the damn goat. Now we just have to wait and see what dinosaur comes to eat you.”

“Really babe?”

“It’s that or bawl my eyes out. Which do you prefer?”

“Pop culture it is.”

“So now what? I can’t work like this. I need to get out of here. Can we go home?”

“Yeah, babe. We can go home.”

Apparently, they wouldn’t allow Allan to drive his own car, because when we got to mine, he hopped in the driver’s seat after opening my door for me. I had long since given up on arguing with him about driving my car. He refused to let me drive if we were in the same car. It was cute but annoying.

When we got home, I immediately called my dad. As Alan had said, there was nothing he could do.