The silence that was left in the vampire’s wake was deafening. The three of them stood rooted in place, staring down at the dark envelope that lay on the floor. The small object seemed to suck all the warmth out of the room. The air in the stairwell was freezing and took Ruby in its chilly embrace. She huddled into herself, wrapping her arms around her chest for warmth. Subconsciously, she stepped away from the dark envelope.

  Jay broke the silence first. “What is it?” he asked, staring down at the envelope like it was a bomb about to explode.

  “Only one way to find out,” said Ethan. He bent over and plucked the vampire’s offering from the ground. He held it in his hand, staring at it fretfully, clearly reticent to open it.

  The door to the hospital lobby swung open, startling them all, and an exhausted porter with heavy bags under his eyes glared at them. “I heard a scream?” he said, more accusatory than concerned.

  “That was me. I slipped and fell on the stairs. Sorry,” Ruby lied.

  The porter grunted, and his eyes swept down over her body, silently assessing her for injuries. “Are you alright?”

  Ruby nodded. “Yeah. Fine. Thanks.”

  “Be more careful,” the porter grunted and then left. The door swung silently back into place, and the three of them turned their attentions back to the sinister envelope.

  “Are you gonna open that?” Jay asked impatiently, nodding at the envelope but making no move to open it himself.

  Ethan swallowed, his eyes still on the item in his hand. Ruby understood that look. Like him, a part of her did not want to see whatever was inside the envelope; it wouldn’t be anything good. Ruby wanted very badly to leave the envelope on the floor where the vampire had dropped it and go back to her simple little life. But she knew that wasn’t possible. Vampires were in her life now, and they weren’t going to leave her alone just because she ignored them. This was a problem that had to be faced head-on.

  “Here.” Ruby reached out for the envelope, but Ethan pulled it away from her.

  “It might be something dangerous,” he said. Ethan was always so protective over all of them, like he truly was the group’s bodyguard. Although her mouth didn’t move, her eyes sparkled with gratitude moments before she snatched the envelope from his grip.

  “It’s just an envelope. If he wanted to hurt us, he would have done it while he was here. The worst this can do is give us a nasty paper cut.”

  Out of all of them, Ethan’s experience with a vampire had been the worst. He’d been savagely mauled. She understood why he was warier of the letter and more reluctant to open it.

  “Just open the damn thing!” Jay snapped.

  Ruby slid her fingernail into the seam of the envelope and tore it open. Leerily, she peered inside and saw there was nothing suspicious lurking within. She pulled out the two items held within: a Polaroid photograph and a note. Her fingers trembled on the smooth polaroid as she flipped it over. Her breath caught in her throat.

  “What is it?” Jay said as he and Ethan gathered around her.

  The photograph captured Tyler sitting on a wooden dining chair, his wrists and ankles tightly bound with coarse rope. His usually styled hair was now a chaotic mess, and his eyes were red and puffy from crying. Black streaks of smeared eyeliner ran down his cheeks like narrow black rivers.

  Ruby’s heart sank as she stared at the picture. She clenched the photograph tightly in her hand, feeling the glossy paper crinkle beneath her fingers. A whirlwind of emotions coursed through her, anger, guilt, hopelessness.

  “Son of a bitch,” Jay muttered. For once his voice was faint and lacking conviction. He and Tyler had been best friends since middle school.

  “What’s that?” asked Ethan. He nodded at the slip of paper that remained neglected in Ruby’s hand.

  She unfolded it and saw words written in glistening red ink that was too vibrant to be blood. It was an address followed by a demand, which she read aloud. “Arrive by midnight, or Tyler will die. Inform nobody.”

  Somber silence fell over the trio like a blanket that snuffed out all noise. They stood frozen, the gravity of the situation weighing heavily upon them. Ruby’s mind raced, desperately searching for a solution that did not involve surrendering themselves to a vampire, but every other path would only lead to something worse.

  “We only have two choices, really,” said Ethan. “We go to that address, or we run away and hope this vampire never finds us.”

  Jay’s eyes were dark with determination; he’d already made up his mind. “I’m not leaving my best friend to die.”

  Standing his ground, his orange-stubbled chin raised boldly made Jay more attractive than ever. He may not have Ethan’s muscles, but he had a strong enough will when he needed it. He was loyal and that was one of the things that had made her fall in love with him.

  “So, what do we do, walk into the vampire’s lair and let him kill us?” said Ethan.

  “If he was going to kill us, he would have done it when he was here,” Ruby pointed out. There was no sense in luring them to another location when it was easier for him to slaughter them in the hospital.

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  “Maybe he didn’t want to leave a blood bath in the middle of a hospital.” Ethan didn’t sound scared, but Ruby suspected he was. He wasn’t usually the cautious type, but tonight, he seemed to be searching for reasons not to do what the vampire wanted. She didn’t blame him after what Scott had done to his neck. Hell, she was pretty scared herself, especially after what had happened mere minutes ago, but she’d never forgive herself if she let Tyler die. And she knew that despite all his reasons not to go, Ethan wasn’t going to abandon Tyler either.

  “He’s not gonna kill us,” said Jay. “That other vampire — Scott, he said that the Nytarch want to keep vampires a secret. Killing us will only make our video look more genuine.”

  “So, what? You think he’s kidnapped Tyler and demanded we go to this house so he can ask us nicely to back off?”

  “No. Obviously not.”

  “Then what?” Ethan demanded. The tendons in his neck were flexed, and his hands were balled into tight fists.

  “If he wanted to kill us, he would have done it just now. Hell, he could have kidnapped us and dragged us back to that address, but he didn’t. He wants us to comply. If we do what he wants, we will all be okay,” said Jay.

  Ruby smiled, impressed by her boyfriend’s keen mind and hoping that he was right. What he said made sense, but they weren’t dealing with a human; they were dealing with a vampire, and logic might not apply.

  “So, you want to just walk in there and hope he lets us walk out again?” said Ethan, his hostility reduced but still present.

  Jay shook his head, his eyes flitting about as he thought.

  “If we’re going to do what he says and go to that address, then we should take some kind of protection. Just in case,” Ruby suggested. She’d managed to stab Scott accidentally; if they turned up armed and prepared, there was a chance they could defend themselves.

  “Like what?” said Ethan.

  “We know wooden stakes hurt them. We’ve got about six hours to plan. My parents are still out of town, let’s go back to mine, do some research, sort out some weapons, and figure out how we can beat this guy. There’s only one of him and three of us. We have the numbers,” Jay said with more confidence than any of them felt.

  “Wooden stakes, silver, garlic, blood from a dead person, thorns from a rose, sunlight, running water, holy water, crosses, and fire,” Ruby said, reading the list of things that were supposed to hurt a vampire. They’d gone straight to Jay’s from the hospital, brewed some coffee, and got to work researching vampires. After over an hour, Ruby did not feel like they had much to show for it since nothing they’d learned had any proof.

  “We know stakes work,” Jay said, glancing Ruby’s way. “Maybe go for the heart this time.”

  “When you’ve staked a vampire, I’ll take your criticism,” she said waspishly, the stress of their impending deadline getting to her.

  “The only way to prove that any of it works is to test it in the field, as my uncle would say,” Ethan said. His uncle worked in weapons manufacturing.

  “The only problem with that is our test run is our only run,” Jay replied.

  Ethan nodded in agreement. “So we’ll have to take as much of this stuff as we can. Throw all the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.”

  “I’d feel a lot better with one of my dad’s guns,” said Jay.

  “Unless you’ve got silver or wooden bullets, I don’t think your dad’s gun will be much use,” Ruby told him. She spoke softly so he wouldn’t take it as a put-down, just a fact.

  “Ruby’s right. Guns are useless,” said Ethan. “Wooden stakes are easy to make, right?”

  “There’s plenty of wood in the yard,” said Jay. “And we’ve got plenty of silver in the house too.”

  “Garlic? That can’t be true, realistically,” Ruby said, looking at the other two for confirmation. The idea of a vegetable being able to take down a ruthless monster stretched her belief too much.

  “Taking a clove couldn’t hurt, though, right?” said Ethan.

  “I guess.” It made sense to cover all bases and take every chance they could. The worst thing that could happen was they’d smell a bit garlicky.

  The first thing they did was raid Mrs Hickey’s jewelry box. Ruby felt like she was violating a fundamental rule by rummaging through her boyfriend’s mother’s things, but if it meant not getting killed, she could live with it. She found two silver cross necklaces; Jay took one and gave the other to Ruby. The disappointment on Ethan’s face was apparent, but he said nothing. Ruby considered surrendering her own necklace to him but she knew that he would refuse to take it. As she clasped the chain around her neck, she felt no more secure. The chain felt light and flimsy. She’d never really believed in God. She thought that the existence of some deity was possible, but the God from the Bible was just too farfetched for her. The black tourmaline held more weight in her mind than the silver cross that now hung next to it. Although, now that she knew vampires were real, her mind was open to pretty much anything.

  “Can I take that?” Ethan asked. He was pointing at a thick wooden cross that was hanging on the wall by the bedroom door.

  Jay glanced up at it and shrugged. “Sure. My parents aren’t really religious anyway. My gran on my mom’s side is and she insisted Mom have a cross in her bedroom. She wanted one in every room in the house, but Dad put his foot down. You should have seen the ugly-ass thing she bought Dad for Christmas a few years back. It was a cross with Jesus’ face carved into the wood. It was supposed to look like he was in pain, but it just looked like he was having a massive orgasm.”

  Ruby had heard the story before, but hearing Ethan and Jay laughing made it feel like she was hearing it for the first time, and she laughed again. She’d seen the cross and agreed that it did look like a cum face.

  Ethan yanked the cross from the wall, leaving behind the two nails that it had been balancing on. The cross was about eight inches long and looked menacing in Ethan’s fist. If the religious aspect of it failed, then Ethan could probably inflict some damage just by clobbering the vampire with it.

  The next stop was the kitchen. They each took a sterling silver steak knife from the silverware box. Ruby felt much more protected with a sharp object in her possession, regardless of whether the silver would work on the vampire.

  “We need to get these knives back before my parents come home, or my mom will have a stroke,” Jay said. None of them said that if they didn’t get the knives back in the box, it would be because they were dead, but they were all thinking it.

  They each pocketed a bulb of garlic before making their way into the yard to create some stakes. It came as no surprise to Ruby that none of them knew how to whittle. It wasn’t a skill that was greatly needed by most people in modern society. Still, it also wasn’t particularly hard to sharpen the end of a stick. By ten thirty, the trio was back in the living room with the fruits of their labors laid out on the coffee table. They each had two wooden stakes, a silver steak knife, a bulb of garlic, and a Holy cross. If only one item of their arsenal worked, it would hopefully be enough to save them.

  “What exactly is the plan then?” asked Ethan. They had the weapons but no real idea of what to do with them. Ruby opened her mouth to speak when she was stopped by the chime of the doorbell.

  The three of them stiffened and exchanged anxious looks. It was almost eleven at night, and they weren’t expecting anybody. Nobody said a word, the silence confirmed that they were all thinking the same thing: there was a vampire at the door.