We waited about an hour before the cops finally showed up. Abel was there to greet them and filled them in. There was only a couple of them. I was confused when they didn’t even wanna take statements from us. Then one slid his aviators down, showing off cartoonish black eyes and winked at me.

Well then.

I guess even the cops had supernatural infiltrators.

We drove everyone home, straight to their doors. No one felt like walking anymore and Creek desperately needed the support of his family straight away, so yeah. No one objected to dropping him off first.

When we got to Cal’s and Fred’s Abel turned in the seat. “Y’all alright?”

“I don’t know. You wanna come inside for a beer for a bit?” Fred asked and fidgeted a bit with her fingers in her lap.

“That sounds like the absolute best idea,” I said before Abel could say anything. Cal snorted and jumped out of the car, helping Fred out next.

“You sure?” Abel asked after Cal had closed the door.

“Yeah. If it’s alright with you?”

He nodded. “I’d actually really love a beer right now.”

So we went with the girls to their backyard and Cal got us all beers.

“Will Creek be alright?” I asked, opening my beer can.

“Yeah, but it might take a while. They’ll need to get over this though and their resting period varies. They’d be happy if you texted them though.” Fred smiled a little. “He likes you.”

“I’ll make sure to text ‘em then,” I said and wrote a mental note to remind myself later.

“How are you feeling?” Fred asked, her brows crinkling her forehead.

“Not good. My fingers hurt.” I put my hand on the table, showing them my fingers. There was nothing there and they looked completely normal again. But it still felt like someone had shoved pins under every single nail.

“Can’t imagine it feels super great to rapidly grow out claws.” Fred looked up at her girlfriend and Cal cringed.

“I mean, it doesn’t feel like a massage or anything. But it shouldn’t hurt this long after. It must be because you’re so blocked.”

I nodded a bit. “Yeah… What about you guys? Everyone’s alright?” I glanced up at Abel.

He shrugged. “I’m okay. It’s not my first rodeo.”

I frowned a little. His first rodeo with Creek’s scream or with dead bodies in the woods? I wasn’t sure I wanted to actually know the answer to that.

“I’m honestly freaked. Like yeah there has been some crime here but it’s usually not a serial killer leaving bodies in the woods.” Fred shivered a little. Cal put her arm around her, and Fred leaned against her.

“It’s freaky alright. My pal promised to keep me updated on it,” Abel said.

“Actually, about your ‘pal’,” Fred started and then took a deep breath. “Vamp cops?”

Abel shrugged. “Wherever there’s a larger community of vampires, accidents are bound to happen. So, there’s always people on the inside to clean up those accidents. Are you guys not organised?” He arched a brow at Fred.

“We have very simple rules: stay off social media, stay off any media, stay out of any trouble at all times. Whatever happens then is on you.”

“Seems short-sighted.”

“We haven’t had like hundreds of years to infiltrate the common society – not to mention, even if we did, we’d have to insert new people all the time since we don’t have unlimited lifespans.”

“That’s a good point,” Abel murmured and bit down on his lip, a fang slipping over the thin skin. “We’re paranoid though. Kind of part of our culture I guess.”

I realised there was still a lot to unpack when it came to knowing Abel and his background. I wanted to know more, and I wanted to be as openminded as possible, but I felt we needed to have a conversation about it. I needed to make it clear that it might take me a little time to accept every part of him and his culture. Or not accept but understand. I needed time to properly wrap my head around the fact that there was a whole parallel society that was run by ancient people. Even just thinking that out loud sounded like something from a bad movie. I wondered how Abel would react to me airing these thoughts. If he’d think I was nuts or super judge-y.

I decided to show some support in my own way and took his hand in both of mine. He smiled a little at me and squeezed my hand.

It’d be alright. I just needed to listen and come at this with an open mind. I had never been in a relationship with someone who was a completely different species, so honestly, it was expected there’d be some hiccups. And maybe there really weren’t any hiccups. All of this was happening in my head. Maybe I didn’t actually need to vocalise any of it, but just work through it on my own. Possibly bring him in if there was something I needed help understanding.

I thought that sounded like a solid plan going forward. It was also a nice distraction from everything that had happened that day. I needed to process it at some point, but not right now. Right now, I was just focusing on sitting in my friends’ nice garden, drinking some nice beers with them.

And nothing else.