This Is Where I Want To Be

9. Complications

Louis

“Okay, we’re coming! What floor?” Liam said after a lengthy pause.

“I’m heading to the top floor. Seems like the owner of the place is here tonight. It’s my best bet… Juliet went after some guy with a werewolf pup in a bag with him.”

There was more silence from Liam, “Quickly now, Louis! We’ll be right there,” he hung up the phone.

I had to pull myself together, “Just give me one more chance to make this right,” I whispered as I ran for the stairs, taking them three at a time. You could almost call it a condemned building. I realized Juliet had walked those halls. Knowing she had been in a place like that was already too much for me. She had more guts than wisdom, coupled with that volatile temper… would I ever know how to handle her? “Never tell her she’s acting like a child!” I scolded myself.

Slowly, I opened the last door and walked through. There was a table with five men gambling. They ignored me and kept playing. A gun cocked behind my head. The cold metal pressed against my skull, “Walk.” The person pushed me forward. I obliged—he was steering me in the direction I wanted to go anyway.

Walking into the room was like transitioning into another world. It was painted and decorated with clean lines and expensive furniture. Although it was just an office, a seating area surrounded a small coffee table. The motel was a front. The guard pushed me further into the room and made me sit on the white suede couches. I had dressed very well that day. No expense was spared for the outfit I wore to meet Juliet for the first time. Decided on a long black coat that hung down to my ankles. Underneath, I had on a smart-casual grey jersey with stylish slim-fit jeans. Black ankle-high boots with dark brown soles. Jewelry to finish off my outfit. Glad about it. I at least fit right into the surroundings. “You seem lost, Louis….” A voice said behind me.

I Jumped up, turning, recognizing it immediately, “Jacklin! What the hell are you doing here?” Doubtfully, my mind raced, the pup in the bag, the place, Jacklin, “Where is she?” I asked quickly.

Jacklin frowned, tilting her head in question, “You’re looking for someone… I was wondering why you were here. I knew it wasn’t for a prostitute. You stopped coming to me a long time ago.”

“Where is she?”

“So… you have finally found someone… Who is she?”

The panic around my heart gripped tighter; everything that was happening was one complication after another, “I’m not asking again.”

“Like I said, I do not know why you are here. But if some woman came wandering in. Don’t you think we would have noticed? The clientele is rather male.”

My chest felt tighter and tighter, “Where is Lucile’s client now?” I growled. “If he doesn’t leave the building, where does he go?”

“Lucile’s client? I don’t know every guy every girl sees in here.”

“Let me help you remember. Well-tailored infected vamp with a leather bag that makes the hair on my neck stand up straight… And I hope you have no part in whatever is going on.”

She dared to smirk at me, “There is a service elevator that goes to a basement parking. He takes a car and drives out, a new rental every time. Leaves it at a drop-off point the next day—no trace.” That wasn’t just a complication… It was a dead end. I sat down again. My head dropped, and my foot tapped nervously. Jacklin wanted to make her way over to me. She halted from the noises on the other side of the door. People were shouting and fighting. I knew I didn’t have to help or do anything. Shots were fired. A lot of bodies hit walls. The two parents would be done soon. They were the oldest and most potent. The human men didn’t stand a chance. It was over quickly and deadly quiet outside. They knocked. Jacklin stood with a drink in her hand, “Please come in.” Cindy and Liam walked casually into the room… “Who is this, Louis?

“The parents,” Jacklin’s head snapped at me, “How old is she?”

Liam and Cindy said nothing, “She’s not here. Or… she hasn’t shown herself. You know her. Would she have reappeared yet?”

“Of course! As soon as she saw us. She can be stupid, but she’s not selfish.”

“What happened, Louis?” Cindy asked.

“Earlier, there was a guy with a bag, like I said. There was definitely a pup inside. I followed him… But there was trouble in the alley. So, I went to help her… She fed… wanted to know what happened to the guy. I took too long to answer her… You two have really sheltered her from everything. Now she’s so frustrated that the smallest thing sets her off.”

“Louis, that doesn’t explain where she is!” Liam said, clipped.

“I don’t know where she is! If she followed the guy… And if she got in his car, they’re gone.” Saying the words were terrifying. I saw my only way to Juliet disappear. How would we find her? How long would it take us?

“They could be anywhere,” Jacklin interrupted. Liam and Cindy exchanged a quick glance and left the room. Jacklin grabbed at my coat as I made my way out the door. She wanted me to stay and talk. I shrugged her off and went after Liam and Cindy. “I will come and see you soon. It’s not over between us,” Jacklin yelled behind me. There had never been anything between us, and there never would be.

I got in the car and saw Cindy busy on her phone, “Come on, come on!” she whispered. A sound dinged. Both sighed with relief. They shared a look, and Liam squeezed his wife’s shoulder as she showed him the phone. Moments later, we were speeding down the highway. “One thing I told Juliet when we moved here was that she always had to have a locator app on her phone. She was so desperate to go to a normal school. She agreed easily.”

“I’m sorry for losing her… You guys trusted me to look after her, and I let you down,” There was silence in the car, “I don’t think this was the best plan… Letting her get to know me first… Before we told her that I came by your request.” Still, no one said anything, “What is going to happen if she finds out… I came here… Intending to see if I liked her before I stayed. The idea makes me nervous… She is going to flip out, knowing we lied to her. Not including her… Blind dates suck!”

“It sounds like you’ve decided. You have only spent one day with her.” Liam said softly, “You seem a bit on edge for someone who only met her once.”

That time, I was quiet. Cindy turned in her seat to meet my eye. There was no point in lying to them, “I have been here for some time. A month, maybe more. I’ve been following her and keeping an eye on her.”

Cindy didn’t look surprised or that they minded. My head lowered to my hands. “Like you said, we raised her very sheltered… It’s time she grew up, and if she can’t forgive us for this, we will wait. She can’t hate us forever.”

“Let’s just get our baby back unharmed. Then, we can think about spilling the beans. She has forgiven us for much more than setting her up,” Liam commented.

“I just hope she’s with her phone… That she was clever about hiding it somewhere, the guy won’t find it.”

The next half hour seemed like an eternity. We couldn’t be that far behind them, but we got lost a few times when we took the dirt paths off the main road. My nerves were shot, waiting. If we didn’t find her soon… my next option would be to get out of the car—go further on foot.

The lane leading up to the house was well hidden in the darkness. It had a long driveway up to the building. Liam decided to park the car somewhere hidden behind some bushes. We were all a bit frantic as we made our way through the thicket of undergrowth until we reached a well-manicured lawn. The house and garden were well-kept. The whole area around the house was lit with garden lights. Every window was covered, shut tight with steel-enforced security roller blinds. The garage was attached to the house, and the door closed. “If they arrived by car… The garage seems to be the place to get into the house.” Liam’s idea was to barge in and hope for the best, fearful of what Juliet was going through there.

“You guys go around the house first. I will go up on the roof to see if there is any way I can get in through the tiles in the attic. See if you guys can get in through the garage. There has to be some weak point in his security.”

I made my way onto the roof and quickly found a place to lift the tiles one by one. It didn’t take long, and I softly made my way down into the crawl space. Glad that the roof was pitched high and that I could walk on the beams. I searched for the trap door, hoping it would give me access to the house. That was my plan anyway.

I heard the garage door being forced open, “S-” Mom and Dad didn’t want to wait any longer. A sudden and alarming sound jolted me where I stood and blared inside the house. Lifting the trapdoor, I looked down into a hall. It was quiet, but the siren was deafening. He was protecting himself from werewolves and vampires, wanting to confuse whoever came in. The frequency was on such a pitch my ears rang until I couldn’t hear anything anymore. I glanced down at my blood-covered fingers, and worry for Juliet drove me to continue to sweep the house from top to bottom. My phone vibrated against my body. It fumbled in my hand as I took it out of my pocket, thinking it was Juliet. My brow furrowed. There were only four numbers on the screen. “What?”

***

Juliet

My eyes lazily opened. The first thing I saw was the wall lined with cages full of exotic animals making rabid noises. None of them looked normal. The smell was horrible… I gaged, trying to get my throat under control. Mr. Tailored had moved us to a new room. It wasn’t as clean as the previous one. The pup was not a werewolf anymore and had transformed into a human baby. The little guy was crying and crying. His voice was hoarsely cracking. I was afraid the wailing would drive him up the wall.

“You’re awake… I would ask how you feel, but I can imagine,” I looked at the same yellow liquid the baby received being pumped into my system. Couldn’t really feel any effects yet. I didn’t understand what he hoped to accomplish but I wasn’t going to tell him to up the dose. “Didn’t your parents tell you how we infected vampires come into existence?” I couldn’t talk. I didn’t feel like chatting. All I knew was what they told me as a kid. Like in the movies, some vampires bit people, becoming whatever the guy seemed to be. I’ve never seen one, although the compound had many. I had never believed them. It was a myth, and seeing the hatred on his face for my kind… I guessed that my parents kept something else from me. “Bet they didn’t tell you that all those servants at the compound were abducted, human children. Taken from their homes. Raised and trained until we were as big and strong as possible. Experimented on.” He took some stuff out of some cabinets, “I was not bitten, and then this happened. We’re made into the creatures I am… Stuck in time. Unable to live a normal life. No blood in my veins… Forever to serve the chosen race. They also didn’t tell you what happens to a born vampire if they undergo the same treatment I had to endure.”

A stone-cold feeling descended over me. I knew it wasn’t going to be a cushy fairy-tale story. I was lying on a steel bed; the top half was slightly raised so I could see out over the space. Mr. Tailored walked to the wall directly across from me. The upper part was a glass window. He flipped a light switch to reveal a small cubicle. Inside, a woman walked from one side to the other. I gasped when she turned to the glass. A nervous moan escaped my lips. My gaze darted at the drip in my arm, and I yanked it out, making liquid spray like a snake in the air. The rest dripped down my flesh, mixed with blood oozing from the wound. He spun around. I rolled off the bed and fell to the floor, trying to find my feet. I couldn’t and stumbled about, slipping on the messy floor. He came at me. I wanted to fight him—whoever he was. He was getting vengeance. I realized I had no clue about the world out there. My world.

Enraged, he pushed the bed out of the way to get to me. The force had sent the table skidding over the floor. Oh no. He pushed my shoulder over and hit me across the cheek. His fingers clenched, and the next pound was a fist. I didn’t yell anymore when someone hit me. I wouldn’t have been able to anyway. He gripped my shirt; I lifted into the air, flailing. The next moment, I crashed into the cages across the room, “Ahh,” the pain pounded into every bone that hit something. I wasn’t like him. We still bruised and bled. Towering over me, he wanted to hunch down but was halted when an alarm resounded in the small space. I reacted to the deafeningly loud sound, and the animals went ballistic. A spike of pain bore into my head. My hands jumped to my ears. I lay immobilized… Until I heard nothing more.

Mr. Tailored was unaffected, walking to the monitors mounted on the wall at the door. I couldn’t see what was on display. I prayed that Louis, Mom, and Dad had tracked my phone. Earlier, I wondered how long they would wait for me to come out of my vanished state or what they would do. But I was glad my mom forced me to get the app. My phone couldn’t be traced as long as I stayed invisible. Leaving my phone in the car, I knew it would only be a matter of time. He swore and turned to me, “I checked you. No phone or tracker. How did they get to you?”

I was out of it. The yellow liquid was now very much taking over part of my system. Feeling drugged, I kept struggling to stand up. Mr. Tailored was frantically packing things in a bag, making his way out of a back door, and leaving me on the floor. Relief washed over me. I wasn’t going to die. I pulled myself up on the cages, the animals raving inside, slamming into the wire mesh. They were more deformed than the woman behind the glass. I took in all of her as I stood. A shiver sent my stomach reeling. She suddenly stopped ramming into the glass, and I guessed the alarm had stopped abruptly. My gaze flickered over the room. My first object was the baby. What if he came back for him?

The baby’s ears were bleeding, but he was quiet… Still alive… And that was all that mattered. I scooped him up, holding him tight. Tears rolled down my cheeks. A hand on my shoulder made me spin around. I screamed, trying to disappear, thinking it was him. Louis pulled us both into his arms, kissing the top of my head. His arms tightened around me. It was over. I let out muffled cries into his coat and rested my head on his chest. He didn’t let go and kept pressing his lips into my hair. I softened under the comfort. Louis came for me.

Mom and Dad came into the room, shocked at the scene, and hurriedly walked toward me. Both pulled me into their arms. Louis took a step back, staring at the woman behind the glass. I pointed at the door. My dad grabbed Louis’s arm, and they rushed out of the room. My mom didn’t let me go, stroking my hair. A blur crossed my vision. I handed her the baby. Neither of us could hear each other. Her face was full of concern and frustration. I knew I would pass out and tried to make it to the bed. I reached out, but my legs wobbled, and I fell on my knees and hit the ground. My mom kneeled next to me, wiping the hair out of my face.

Suddenly… things that were really important … became very clear. Chris was and always would be first in my thoughts. His eyes fixed on me. His fingers around my wrist, stopping me from leaving.

I wanted him in my life.