The pond was still, a fog floating atop it’s black placid mirror surface. The crime lights on the edge of the small neighborhood park cast long shadows through the heavy trees and lit a light misting rain that was falling from the burgundy sky.

Taylor stood at the edge of the pond, clutching her coat tightly around her and looking blankly at the fog on the waters. She wasn’t sure what to do here. She felt wounded emotionally. She couldn’t go back right now. She didn’t want to be subjected to Lindsey and her vicious tongue again.

She’d been there maybe fifteen minutes before she heard someone walking towards her down the grass from the street. She breathed deeply and tried to shrink into her coat, more from her guilt and shame than from the cold and wet. She only wanted to protect David and Ade from any kind of danger. The acute ordinance built into her blood to serve and protect them was impossible to control at times, she was learning. She wondered if she was wrong in her instincts. But those three vampires worried her. They were the dangerous ones. There was no way around thinking that for her.

The wind blew a little and caused ripples in the pond water that became illuminated by the crime lights. Taylor tucked her arms tighter against her body and felt the vampire step up quietly beside her. He tucked his hands into his coat pockets and breathed deeply. They stood together a few minutes in silence, watching the fog drift on the pond waters.

“Why does she hate me, David?” She asked quietly after a while.

David turned his head and looked at her with compassion. “She’s afraid of you.”

Taylor dropped her eyes to the wet edges of the pond and watched the nightcrawlers squirm in the dirt. “How can that powerful woman be afraid of me?”

“You are so much stronger than her.” David turned to her. “You are more powerful by far than she could ever be. Her compatriots barely thought to touch their weapons before you pulsed at them. You are incredible, to say the least. And that in itself makes her nervous. She attacks what frightens her.”

Taylor looked at him from the corners of her eyes. “She really doesn’t want me here, David.”

"There is absolutely nothing she can do about it. It’s not her decision, is it. It’s my decision and Ade’s as well. And we want you with us. You are our divine creature. That’s all that matters."

Taylor furrowed her brow and closed her eyes. David turned her by her shoulder and lifted her face with his fingers. She looked into his warm brown eyes that regarded her with complete trust and adulation.

“I love you. You belong with us. That is a fact. Nothing, not even a contemptuous old vamp with two suck-ups at her side, will change that.” He caressed her cheek and smiled at her.

Taylor’s eyes were wet. She blinked away the tears and swallowed the urge to cry again. David pressed his lips to her forehead again and lingered.

"Come home now. Please? The morning is upon us." He whispered looking her in the eyes.

Taylor nodded slightly. David took her by the hand and they both started to head back towards the street. Upon the first few steps, Taylor was seized by a bad feeling and she paused.

“David?” She murmured, looking around alertly as she took hold of David’s arm.

David stopped beside her curiously. Taylor sensed something extremely ominous. It was like an unheard static in her head. Her mind lit up and she looked past David on his right. Within the overgrown brush a hundred feet away stood a dark figure holding a glinting pistol, steadying his sight on David. Taylor’s eyes widened.

“David!” She cried out and grabbed him by his shoulders just as the shot popped,  echoing through the park’s open air.

In a split second, she had spun herself around to shield David from the gunshot. He was stunned a moment, eyes and mouth wide open. She felt something hit her in the back. She spun back around, snarling, and bolted towards the assassin in the bushes.

The man, a scrawny blond man with beady grey eyes, dressed in black, watched her with terror as she ran towards him. However his hands still worked and he fired off a few more rounds at her as she pounced on him. Wild and maddened, she tore his throat out with her fingers and then put his own gun to his forehead and pulled the trigger, blasting his brains into the brush.

The adrenalin pumping in her head, she stood up and staggered back a few steps. A weird weakness plagued her legs. Confused, she turned to look at David. David stood a few feet away with a look of shock on his face. A strange feeling suddenly rose to the surface thru the buzz, a tightening pain in her chest. Her brow furrowed again and she coughed. She looked down to see six holes in a zigzag pattern in her shoulder, chest and stomach, all seeping blood.

“David?” She looked up and whimpered as she touched one of the holes, feeling the sting of salt sweat against the raw openings.

The pain in her torso was becoming unbearable. Panic overwhelmed her and she stumbled to her knees, dropping her gun into the grass. Blood began to poor more quickly from the holes and she clutched at them, looking upwards in desperation.

David was there now, picking up her gun, grabbing her by the arm and trying to get her to her feet.

“Come on, Taylor! We have to go now! Right now!” David said urgently.

Taylor tried to stand on her feet but couldn’t force the muscles in her legs to work right and stay rigid. David put the gun in the waistband of his slacks behind his back and then gathered her up in his arms and quickly rushed back towards the mansion.

Taylor stared up at the low dark burgundy sky, feeling the light rain on her face. She clutched at her stomach and convulsed slightly. She grimaced at the sky, terrified. The pain engulfing her body from all the pieces of metal peppered throughout her torso, the ravaged flesh from their high velocity paths, was scaring her to death. She kept looking at the holes, watching the blood pour from them, whimpering with the thought that she was dying.

Back at the house, David kicked the doors open, carrying her through a long hall and into another room. The room looked like a doctors office, complete with a stainless steel table-bed in the middle and a stainless steel sink. Formica counter tops lining three of the walls. David set her down on the table and removed her gun belt and coat before lying her down on it.

Taylor weakly struggled, her eyes wide and flashing about the matte white ceiling and the black satin finished cabinets. Her body shaking and covered in blood, she couldn’t help but panic. She was convinced she was dying. She lifted her head and looked at herself again. Beneath the lights, the blood was horrendous; so much of it all over her and the table. She moaned loudly and let her head bang down back on the table. She began to cry and moan in her fear.

David stood over her again, took hold of her head gently to hold her still a moment. “Taylor. Look at me!”

Her eyes flashed to him and she whimpered pitifully.

“You have to keep still and relax. You can heal from this.” David spoke slowly and carefully, nodding.

She curled her body up towards him on her left side and looked into his eyes fearfully. He looked worried but stern, his copper eyes holding her in their gaze like a warm blanket. He caressed her face and knelt over her.

“It’ll take some time but your body will eject the bullets and you will recover. But you need to stay calm and rest. If you lose any more blood, you may lose a bit of your sanity with it. You need to lie still and rest. Do you here me?” He said soothing to her, his thumbs gently messaging her temples.

She gasped a few times with spasms in her chest from the pain. She nodded though and shut her eyes tightly. David released her and stood staring in a state of mild shock for a moment before walking around to the other side of the table. Taylor lay there on her side, her body shaking but no longer writhing from the agony. The pain was intense but she obeyed David and kept still. Her left arm extended out from her body and hung off the side of the table. She could see the blood pooling on the steel and dripping down her arm. Something occured to her as she tried to calm herself and it made her more disquieted and terrified.

“David?” Taylor called out weakly.

David appeared beside her close again, his coat off and his sleeves rolled up.

“Where’s Ade?” She asked quietly, another gasp of pain flitting through her mouth. “I need to know where he is.”

David looked away, his eyes distant for a moment. “He was out hunting. He’s coming though. He’ll be here soon.” He looked back to her and tried to put on a reassuring smile.

Taylor swallowed and looked away. Her eyes became unfocussed and blankly stared past him. She fell into a kind of trance, her mind slowing to a low hum like a neon light in a public bathroom at three in the morning. Her body numbed itself to all else that was happening. Like a power-down, she just laid there with only a vague idea of what was going on around her.

David pulled up a stool beside her and sat silently, his hand caressing her head soothingly. She tried to calm her nerves down, doing as David had told, just resting. Her mind wandered a bit like an out of phase ghost. She pinpointed where the other three brutal vampires were, hovering just outside the door. It made her nervous and she kicked out her legs in a pulse jerk. She could hear them talking, murmuring to each other, but couldn’t make out the words.

David lifted his head towards the door now, looking at it for a long time before standing up slowly. He leaned over to Taylor’s ear.

“I’ll be just outside, my dear.” He told her, still looking suspiciously at the door.

Taylor didn’t move or make a sound, just lay still and silent, blankly fixated on the wall. David sighed somberly, went to the door and stepped out.

Taylor was alone in the room now, humming along with the neon lights overhead. She fixed her mind on David’s presence though, feeling the pain less when she did. She would feel better if she could feel Ade nearby, she knew.

David stood just outside, arguing quietly with Lindsey and Keith about where they were staying. They’re speech echoed almost incoherently to Taylor but she could make out pieces here and there. Lindsey wanted the rooms upstairs, demanded them. She didn’t care about “the tatterdemalion bleeding out in the next room.” She just said David was being inhospitable to kinship.

“I don’t care what you think I’m being. She’s badly injured and I need to watch over her. You cannot stay here tonight.” She heard David say strictly to them.

They argued back, their voices becoming a low din in her head. She wanted to shield her ears from it, but it was inside her head like another nervous system. Then something bright and vivid and unattackable over took them.

Ade had come home.

“Fuck off, the lot of you!” He shouted approaching them.

Ade was home, just outside the door, and Taylor relaxed completely. A calm washed over her as she could see Ade and David outside barking back and forth at the others, their movements crude and slow motion. She could only see David and Ade though. She blinked her eyes slowly.

As the five vampires standing just outside the door argued, David trying to keep them all quiet, Taylor could feel herself healing now. The pain subsided rather quickly suddenly. The bullets, one by one, all expelled themselves from Taylor’s flesh, making a coin-like noise as they dropped onto the steel table top. She could feel her cells pushing them out like a plunger in a syringe.

Ade and David were yelling at each other now. David wouldn’t let him into the room. Keith was pushing Ade back. Ade was shoving Keith away from him. Keith was yelling. Ade reached for Keith’s face. It all looked slow motion to her in her head as she sensed it.

The last bullet clinked down onto the table ten minutes after David had left. A deep sense of peace had overcome her. The pain had gone and she felt oddly lackadaisical.

Ade was grabbing Keith now, warning him not to touch him ever again. Keith was extremely agitated. David tried to calm them. Milla was pulling Lindsey away from them. Lindsey was sniping at Ade, calling him Adrian.

Taylor slowly sat up and picked up the bullet fragments from the viscous blood that she’d been losing from the wounds. She wasn’t scared anymore. There was a lot of blood, everywhere; on the table, on her, on the floor. But she didn’t care now. She sat at the edge of the table, crosslegged and holding the seven bullets in the palm of her hand, looking at them curiously. She sifted through them with her index finger.

Ade pulled his arm back, his hand balled up in a tight fist and was about to punch Keith in the jaw.

"Ade. David." Taylor said quietly.

The noise and movement outside ceased upon her first word. A few seconds passed before they opened the doors and entered the room. David and Ade both stood, floored, staring at their divine creature, sitting on the table before them covered in blood, staring at her hands.

Ade was horrified by the blood for a moment. There was so much of it all over the place. Her arms and chest and stomach were covered and the six bullet holes in her front, were oozing blood still. There were pools of blood on the table and the floor.

Taylor slowly lifted her head, her face stained red on her chin over her temples, and looked at the two of them. Her brown eyes glowed. Her face paled as she breathed in.

Lindsey, Keith and Milla stood in the doorway, looking on with as much awe and fright as David and Ade had in their expression. Taylor blinked slowly, feeling very tired now. She moved, stepping down onto the ground carefully and walking towards them, leaving bloody boot prints on the tile.

She stopped before David and Ade, looking up at them beneath her brows. She lifted her hand with the bullets out towards David. David put his hand out and received the bloodied pieces in a state of shock.

"I took bullets for you. So, I want you to have them." She said to him earnestly. “And I’d take more." She looked at Ade. "For both of you."

Exhausted then, she stepped past them, past the other three vampires and walked slowly upstairs to her room. The bullet wound in her back dripped blood onto the carpeted stairs. She wanted to wash all the blood off of her and then to lie down and sleep.

Taylor turned the hot water on in the shower and tested it with her hand. As steam rose, she stepped in beneath the hot water and stood, still clothed. She pressed her forehead against the cool ceramic tiles of the shower stall and watched the waters run red down the drain as her blood was washed from her skin and clothes. She felt exhausted and sick now, like a zombie. When the water finally ran clear, she turned the water off and opened the shower door.

Stepping out, she looked up and found Ade standing a few feet before her. He stared solemnly at her through his sunglasses, his mouth set in a serious expression. He glowed again, that blueish hue surrounded him and she could faintly smell fresh blood on him. She stared back, unable to say or do or even think anything about it.
He stepped closer to her. His head cocking side to side slightly. He was studying her. He lifted his hand to the strap of her tank top and pushed it off her shoulder. His brow furrowed as he looked at the gunshot wound in her shoulder there. He took hold of the bottom hem of her tank top. He tugged it up ward, pulling the wet top off of her relentlessly.

Now he stood staring in fascination at her body and the wounds. He lightly ran his index finger down the middle of her chest, between her breasts, zigzagging over the fast healing wounds in her shoulder, chest, stomach and hip. His lips parted, his brow still furrowed, and he released a harsh quick breath. Taylor watched him sorrowfully.

He dropped to his knees suddenly, his hands softly sliding over her wet skin. He breathed through his mouth in short gasps, looking incredulously at the wounds and clutching her hips. He couldn’t understand it. He felt scared. She had scared him.

Staring at his bleached blond hair and seeing just glints of his astonishing blue eyes hidden beneath those sunglasses, her mind became fixated on them. He paused his inspection for a brief moment to remove his sunglasses quickly and toss them over his shoulder. They landed and slid to the far wall on the tiles. He didn’t care, just continued examining her injuries intently.

She cocked her head to the side like a peculiar puppy would and lifted her hands. She slowly ran her fingertips into his soft hair and back over his head, savoring the feathery soft sensation against her palms.

Ade stopped and slowly lifted his gaze. His deep blue eyes sparked looking up at her somberly. She let her hands fall away with a pang of nervous embarrassment.

"Do that again." He said quietly.

She hesitated. He grabbed her wrist and held it up, demanding she do it again with his eyes. She obeyed instantly and lifted her hands to caress his head again. He closed his eyes slowly, relishing the feeling. She ran her hands over the top and down the back of his head to his neck, again enjoying the feeling of his fine soft hair.

"Again." He whispered.

She replaced her hands over his temples and continued to pet him leisurely. He sighed blissfully and put his arms around her waist, pressing the side of his face against her damp cool belly skin.