Grant led her through the crowd to better blend in as they made their escape. Off in the distance, one of the vampire guards made eye contact with Alex and she saw him pull out what looked like a walkie-talkie.

“Grant,” Alex said, trying to get his attention as they made their way outside. “Grant I think one of them saw me”. Grant took a look around them.

“Crap, you’re right,” he said as three guards and the vampire from before surrounded them. Quickly he slipped Alex a sheet of paper and whispered into her ear. “Run, I will hold them back. Go to the address on this sheet of paper, it’s my safe house and it has protection spells to keep vampires out. You will be safe there.” Before Alex could answer the three guards and the vampire jumped into action.

“Get the girl!” the vampire leader yelled. Alex closed her eyes and ran as fast as she could to get away from the scene. She stopped at an old antique shop to hide and catch her breath. One of the vampire guards walked right past the store. Alex held her breath until she was sure he was gone. After peeking out the window one last time, Alex sighed. She opened her clench fist that was crushing the sheet of paper, to look at the address. 1223 Green Grove, Meadow Lake it read. Under that, it had directions on how to get there from Lake’s Edge bar. Alex sighed in frustration; she didn’t even know where she was exactly.

“Can I help you ma’am?” came a raspy voice from the counter. It was an old lady, probably the owner of the shop. Alex briefly wondered why the old lady was still in the store at this hour. It was probably 4 or 5 in the morning.

“Oh, well actually I was wondering if you could tell me how to get back to Meadow Lake from here?” Alex asked. The old lady grinned politely and pulled out a pen and sticky note to write down the directions.

“So you don’t get lost,” she said handing it to Alex. Alex smiled, took the paper and turned to leave.

“Might want to watch your back with all these vampires running around,” she said waving goodbye to Alex enthusiastically. Without turning back Alex ran out of the store.

The sun began to rise before Alex arrived at the safe house. The place was a small one-story house with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, and a small living room. One of the bedrooms had been repurposed as a study and was filled to the brim with books and notes. Amidst the clutter was an old desktop computer covered in sticky notes.

“First things first,” Alex said out loud to herself as she turned back towards the kitchen. She put her long dark red hair into a bun and walked into the kitchen to settle her growling stomach. After she ate Alex pondered on what to do next.

What if Grant doesn’t show up? What if he took off more than he could chew, then what do I do? she thought frantically. Grant had seemed to be her only ally in this mess, even if he did get her captured. Alex shook her negative thoughts away and decided to take her mind off of the subject with some informative reading. She dove head first into Grants notes and books on vampires and the paranormal.

Alexandria awoke with a start to the sound of glass being smashed. She looked into the living room to find that one of the windows had been smashed. Lodged into the floor along with glass was an arrow with a note tied to it. In old cursive handwriting, the note read,

We have your guardian friend; If you want him to live, come alone to Meadow Lakes Pentecostal Church at midnight. 

Lloyd H. Cornelious  

After reading it and rereading it a couple of times Alex decided there was no way around it. She would have to go and give herself up. There was the possibility that they were lying about having Grant but he would have returned by now. Then there was the possibility that they were lying about keeping him alive. Somehow she needed to make sure that they let him go before she gave herself up. She pondered the idea when suddenly it hit her. In one of the books, she had been reading it stated that there was an oath that vampires could swear where they had to do whatever promised. She could make them swear the oath before the tradeoff. Alex took out a sheet of paper and wrote down what she wanted the vampire to swear.

When she was done checking the rules of the oath a couple more times, Alex decided that it was as full proof as she could make it. She took out her phone and hit Grants name. One of the guards picked up the phone on the fourth ring.

“Hello?” answered the guard in a confused gruff voice.

“Give the phone to Lloyd,” Alex demanded. The man on the other end paused.

“This is Lloyd,” he replied.

“No it’s not, give the phone to Lloyd,” She demanded again. After about a minute and a half, there was a familiar voice on the other end.

“Who might this be?” the vampire from the club, Lloyd asked amused. Alex had guessed right.

“Exactly who you are looking for,” she replied. “There is only one way I will agree to your little hand off.”

“And what condition is that?” he inquired, clearly enjoying himself.

“You have to swear under the oath, that you will not pursue him in any way nor will your men pursue him in any way after the exchange.” She said as calmly as she could. There was a long pause on the other end.

“What makes you think I would ever do a thing like that?” he said. Alex could practically hear the grin on his face.

“Because if you don’t then you will never get what you’re looking for, and I won’t agree to the handoff unless I know for a fact that it won’t be pointless.”

“I could just kill him now if you refuse.”

“Killing him gives you no benefit. If you kill him then there is no point in handing myself over, I just won’t show up at all, and good luck getting in   here.”

“You need to give me something better than that” Lloyd teased. “You’ll have to leave eventually; you’ll die if you don’t eat.”

“I’m not afraid of death.” She could hear him laughing on the other end. It wasn’t a mocking laugh though; it was more amused than anything.

“Fine, but I need your name to swear the oath,” he said musingly.

“Alexandria” she replied. Again she could practically hear him grin through the phone.

“Alexandria, what a pretty name, just rolls off the tongue,” he said. “I Lloyd swear, after Alexandria exchanges herself for Grant, I will not pursue him in any way nor will my men pursue him in any way unless he should return to take what was rightfully exchanged, or may the angels chain me to hell,” he swore after adding his own little bit. “Looking forward to seeing you again, sweetheart,” he finished before hanging up the phone.

Suddenly everything that had happened in the past three days hit Alex like a blow to her stomach. She collapsed on the floor with her back to the ground and stared at the ceiling fan as it slowly turned around the room.

What happened to my life? she contemplated. Alex never thought her life was plain, but her old life seemed so simple compared to what was happening to her now. Not only do vampires exist but they are after her. Alex thought back to the bar, Bloody Mary must have been a code name for a vampire drink. She thought of all the people who went in and out of that bar. How many were not even human? she thought. Then her thoughts jumped to Keith. That would mean Keith knows about vampires... She wondered if Keith was a vampire himself or if he just served them at his bar.

“Keith,” she suddenly said out loud, sitting back up. “What am I going to tell him? He’s going to be pissed if he found out what kind of trouble I have gotten myself into,” she said, coving her eyes with the palm of her hands. She thought about what Grant had said the night he snuck into her apartment; about how she could endanger Keith. She didn’t want him to get hurt, so in the end, she decided that it was best to keep him out if it until she got things sorted out. Alex continued to lie on the floor in silence and deep in thought until the sun began to fade. When she was finally able to get on her feet, she pulled up the address for Meadow Lake Pentecostal Church on Grant's computer and headed out.

Alex found her way to the church and took a seat on a bench right outside. Light illuminated her face as she checked the time. It was ten minutes until midnight. She sighed as she put her phone away and stood up to look around. Although she didn’t know what she was looking for exactly, a group or just one guy with a knife to Grant’s throat? “This is the kind of stuff that only happens in movies and anime, not real life” she sighed. After checking her phone again she decided to walk around the church and stretch her legs. The church was one of those old churches, the long kind with stain glass windows and a single steeple in front. Alex walked behind the church and found row after row of tombstones. She laid her hand on one of them when there was a flash of light followed by thunder behind her. She whipped around and saw them, a group of vampires. There was a man she’d never seen before standing in front of the group. Leon was in the middle of them holding Grant to the ground and the rest surrounded him.

The strange man walked towards Alex, away from the group. To meet him halfway Alex hesitantly walked towards him. His golden eyes were on hers the whole time, watching her every move. The man’s silver-blond hair waved in the moonlight as he walked towards her. When they met each other in the middle, he stuck his hand out to shake hers.

“Name’s Claude, I’m Lloyd’s right-hand man,” he said waiting for her to shake his hand. She looked at him suspiciously, as had expected her too.

“And where is he now?” she queried.

“Waiting for you ma’am he apologizes for not being here himself, but he had other businesses to attend to.” Finally, Alex shook Claude’s hand with lingering regret.

“A pleasure doing business with you Alexandria,” he said as he shook her hand.

“Yeah…,” Alex mumbled in reply. What would become of her? What was it these vampires actually wanted from her? Grant never did tell her. Alex nodded her head towards Grant.

“Let him go,” she said to Leon firmly. Leon looked back at her for a second before finally letting Grant go. As soon as Grant got back to his feet, the group shoved him away, cursing and yelling at him. Before he walked off he turned towards Alex and mouthed: 

I’m sorry,

before he walked away, like a dog with its tail between its legs.