Will pulled into Jason's driveway. "I'll see you tomorrow," Will said as Jason got out of his car.

"Yup, see you tomorrow," Jason closed the car door and sighed.

In the window to his living room, Maggy waved to him, her eyes on Will as he left.

Jason walked into the living room. "What are you doing?"

Maggy was still watching Will's car as he drove down the street. "Nothing, just curious about your friend."

"Nuh-uh," he waved a finger. "No way, Mags; he's off-limits."

"You say that about all your friends!" she huffed. "Don't talk to Roy, don't ogle the new guy," Maggy sat on the couch with a huff, her arms crossed. "It's not fair."

"They're not boys you should fraternize with."

"But it's okay for them to be your friends?"

"Yes, since they're just friends; I'm not looking to date any of them."

Maggy rolled her eyes and turned away from him. Outside of school, the only male she talked to other than her brother was Roy, but he had been coming over less and less recently.

He plopped down on the couch beside her. "Come on, Mags; I only have your best interest in mind." He stroked her hair.

"You always say you're just looking out for me..."

"Because I am! I'm your older brother; it's my job to take care of you."

"No, it isn't," she snapped at him. "That's our parents' job—"

"It's mine too; that's what older siblings do."

"In case you haven't noticed, I try to take care of you too, Jay."

"I know you take care of me. If it wasn't for you, I'd live off of frozen dinners and never eat a vitamin," he laughed and nudged her. "Can you let me keep my right to protect you?"

"You're never going to let me date, are you?"

"Not until you're thirty."

Her jaw hung open. "Thirty? Most people are married by then, not having their first date ever!" She pushed his hand away. "Seriously, Jay, you're my brother, not my father."

"I know, I know, but..."

Both their expressions dropped. "They're not around much..." Maggy stared down, fiddling with her thumbs. "I guess them both being high-ranked in the same company makes them absent at the same time..."

"Which is why I try to—"

"You realize I'm more mature than you, for the most part, right?"

"Yeah, but... girls mature faster. Maggy..."

"Yeah?"

"We take care of each other, and on that note, stay away from those two boys—"

"But I like Roy!" Her eyes widened and she clasped a hand over her mouth. "Oh my gosh..." she bolted up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door shut.

"Well... that happened. Ugh, why Roy?!" He rubbed his temples to try to stop a headache from forming.

"What were you up to last night?" Samantha asked Will as they sat down for breakfast at the kitchen table.

"Went to see a friend for help," Will replied, drinking a glass of blood.

"Oh? I hope they're going to help; we could use it."

"They're coming over for dinner tonight to talk about it."

Samantha froze with a piece of omelette on her fork headed for her mouth. "You invited someone here?"

"Yeah, don't look so shocked; they already know where we live anyway. They've been here too, well, on the outside."

"Oh my gosh... It's one of those two boys, isn't it?"

Will smirked and took another drink.

"You invited Jason here?! Wait... if you did that and he's supposed to help us then... he knows?"

"That's on you, my dear sister, since your hypnosis didn't work on him."

"But he hasn't said anything... And I thought you were going to fix things if it didn't work?"

"I was going to, but we need help and he's in love with you, so he's not likely to betray us." Will watched for a reaction that didn't happen. "I guess I was right; you already knew of his strong, romantic feelings."

"He's just a boy with his whole life ahead of him; he shouldn't be wasting time with a crush on me."

"It's more than a crush and you know that."

"And you know strong feelings can fade."

"So harsh, sister; I hope you're kinder when dealing with him in person."

She set her fork down, frowning at him as her cheeks burned. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

Will shrugged, a slight smile playing on his face. "Why not? I'm finally getting to see you all flustered again. It has definitely been too long."

Samantha covered her cheeks with her hands. "Ugh... Why can that happen if we're vampires?"

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"You know as well as I do we function mostly the same as humans, but stronger and... most of us need blood to survive. I have no idea how you manage it; I'd go insane eventually and attack someone."

"It's grown easier throughout the years, but I gotta say, being hungry all the time isn't great."

Will thought for a moment. "I have invested in research into synthetic blood to help vampires such as yourself, but haven't come up with anything workable yet. It'll probably be a few years before I have something to give you..." he sighed.

"When did you start investing in that research?"

"About a decade ago... Sucks nothing has happened yet."

"By the way, you invited Jason for dinner, right? That means you're cooking?"

Will flicked the TV on. "Yeah, yeah, I'll do the cooking; we don't want him getting food poisoning."

Thud. Samantha smacked him in the head with a thin pillow she had on her kitchen chair. "I'm not that bad."

"I knew a fellow that would say otherwise."

"What are you talking about? He loved my cooking."

"Trust me when I say he didn't; Nero loved that you tried to cook for him and happily ate anything you fed him."

Samantha tensed at his name. No matter how much time passes... I can't forget him. She could practically feel his arms wrap around her from behind again and the light kiss he'd leave on her cheek.

Will watched his sister's reaction with wonder. "Over our centuries, we've both loved and lost, but I've never seen you take so long to recover," Will said, his brows furrowed.

"It's not like I can just force myself to forget about him."

"I can force you to though."

She stared at Will wide-eyed. "What are you thinking? You can't hypnotize me."

"When we were young vampires, no, I couldn't. If you were feeding like a normal vampire, I probably couldn't either, but having only had a tiny bit of blood while I'm full power and an old vampire, I might be able to—"

"No," Samantha refused. "I don't want you to."

"Why not? It might help us survive!"

Crackle. Shatter.

Will's grip on his glass tightened until his glass shattered, cutting his hand and leaving a trail of blood to drip onto the table. "Why are you so damn stubborn at the wrong times? Tch." Will left to get a pan and rag and came back to clean up the mess on their hardwood floors. Samantha knelt down beside him to help and he swatted her hand away. "Go get some groceries so I can cook for our guest later; I'll clean up my own mess," Will nearly growled at her.

She sighed and backed away from him. "I'm sorry, Will; I know I'm always causing you trouble. I'll be back soon..." she trailed off, walking away with slouched shoulders.

"Don't you know I'm the one who always causes trouble in the first place... If I wasn't a weak, frail boy, they never would've found out about your special blood and been hunting you like this. I wasn't able to protect you then, but I will now..." Will grumbled, cleaning up his mess. "Ow," he sliced his finger open on a shard of glass. He watched as the wound sealed itself in a few seconds.

Samantha made her way over to the closest grocery store and pushed an empty cart around. He didn't even tell me what to get. A strawberry cheesecake in the frozen area caught her eye. Jason does like sweets... She smiled as she placed the cheesecake in her cart.

She combed the aisles filling her cart with fruits, vegetables, chicken and anything she knew they were out of and he might like. I think I went overboard. She stared at the cart overflowing with food.

Bing. A text came in from Will. 'Pick up pasta, a few types of cheeses and some chicken.'

I almost have everything already. She grabbed some cheese and headed to pay for her groceries. Everything paid for and bagged, she made her way over to her car.

A sudden chill ran down through her forming goosebumps on her arms. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She carefully scanned the parking lot, feeling eyes on her. She rushed to put the bags in her car. A figure shrouded in darkness reached out to her. She turned and grabbed his wrist, crushing it.

"What do you want?" she asked, her eyes glowing as she glared at him. Isn't he a student?

"Evan sent me to get you, so you will come with me," he hissed.

"Like hell I will."

He grabbed her neck with his free hand. Without hesitation, Samantha shoved her hand straight into his chest and ripped his heart out. A look of disbelief crossed his face before he turned to dust.

Samantha pulled a rag out of the back of her car to clean off her hand. She sighed and sat in her car, her head resting on the steering wheel. She learned a long time ago not to hesitate when it came to one of Evan's vampires, but it didn't make it any easier to kill someone. She used the mirror to look at her neck; the red marks from him grabbing her were already vanishing.

Ugh, I think I'm going to be sick.

Bing. 'What's taking you so long? Did you get lost?'

She rolled her eyes and started her car, ignoring the text. After taking a few more deep breaths, she headed home.

"You can't even respond to a text?!" Will blasted her as soon as she entered the house.

"Don't text and drive," she hummed, lugging all the grocery bags in at once.

"Then pull over and respond. For all I knew, you were attacked or kidnapped and hurt somewhere without me around to help," he grabbed half the bags and set them on the kitchen island to put things away.

Samantha flinched, the feel of her hand going straight into the vampire's chest replaying in her mind. The feeling of his heart in her hand and blood trailing down her. She shook it off and helped put groceries away.

"You got a lot of stuff," Will said.

"We were running low anyway."

"True; you do eat a lot sometimes."

She gasped. "I do not!"

"The way you eat, sometimes I think you're a hungry teenage male," Will caught the bag of rice she tossed at him, laughing.

"Sometimes eating in mass helps the hunger, so sue me."

"You know, if you had a proper diet, you wouldn't be hungry all the time..."

This again...

"Are you ever going to tell me the real reason you stopped drinking blood? Or is as simple as I think and you're torturing yourself over Nero."

"Lay off it, Will," she shoved a few packs of chicken at him and headed upstairs to her room, fuming.

"Sam..." Will sighed, shaking his head. "I guess I know what I have to do."

Will turned on his TV in the kitchen as he worked on his special parmesan chicken with noodles and vegetables.

"Seventeen-year-old Emily Richards was found dead behind the movie theatre here in Lunadale Mall."

Will's ear twitched and his hands stopped moving. The name caught his attention. He turned to stare at the name on the screen, 'Emily Richards'. "So familiar..."

"What's so familiar?" Samantha finally showed back up and peeked into the kitchen after hearing him mumble to himself.

"More like who," he pointed at the TV with his knife and turned back to his vegetables on a cutting board.

Samantha's heart dropped. "No..." she dropped to her knees, tears pricking her eyes as she clutched her pants.

"Sammy? What is it?" he set his knife on the board and knelt down in front of her.

She buried her face in her hands and shook her head, shrinking away from him.

"Come on, talk to me. Wait a second..." he sniffed her. "Why do I smell blood?"

She froze. Crap... I thought I cleaned off well. "Emily Richards is my student... or rather was..."

Will thought for a moment, wondering if he had already met her. The name seemed familiar like he had heard it recently. It clicked. She was the girl Roy was going out with the other day. Knowing he couldn't do anything about it right then and there, he shook it off. "You didn't answer me, why do you smell like blood?" he forced her hands away from her face and ducked down to look into her tear-filled eyes.

She bit her lip and tried to pull away from him, but he was stronger than her. Dammit.

"Come on, talk to me," he pouted.

He's not going to let this go. She took a deep breath."One of Evan's vampires attacked me in the parking lot at the grocery store."

"What?! Why didn't you tell me?"

"What good would it have done? It happened... and I got rid of him..."

Will carefully watched her expressions. "It was someone you've seen before?"

"Quit doing that; you read me too easily."

"What do you expect after spending centuries together? So, who was it?"

"I don't know what his name was, but I think he was a student... Do you think he's the one who killed Emily?"

Will gritted his teeth, releasing her wrists. "I... don't know."

"Either way... something tells me this is Evan keeping his promise to kill my students..." she slumped against the nearby wall. "Will... What can we do to stop him? He's made sure we can't run anymore... but I don't think I can stand being with him."

"We both know you can't; you tried before and we ran away from him the first chance we saw."

Will glanced at the time. "I should get cooking; Jason should be here soon."

She wiped away the tears. "Jason..." Won't he be in even more danger if he comes here?