Blood Bride | MYG

I Dare You

The snapping of a twig behind you makes your heart lurch, and your startled gasp pulls chilled air into your lungs.

"Someone's jumpy."

"Fuck off, Jimin," you grumble in response. "You and I both know the only reason I'm here is that you manipulated me."

Your best friend chuckles, his breath misting in the air before him. "I know. But, I also knew as soon as I mentioned vampires, you wouldn't be able to resist."

"Don't make me turn around and go back to the van." You cut a glare his way. Even if he can't see it, you hope he can feel it.

That earns you another throaty laugh, echoed from Taehyung walking a few steps behind you. "Fat chance you'd walk all the way back through the woods on your own," Jimin quips back. "Aren't you still scared of the dark?"

"I hate you sometimes."

Taehyung comes up beside you and bumps his shoulder against yours while adjusting the large film camera resting on his other. "Don't let him get to you. You're not the only one scared of the dark. I mean, my twelve-year-old sister sleeps with a nightlight."

You shove Taehyung's shoulder, glaring at him. "You can fuck off, too."

"Don't worry about it, babe. Everything is going to be fine." Jimin tugs off one of his gloves and slips his hand into your jacket pocket, where your hand is currently clenched around a thermal packet. His fingers work around the pack and slide between yours. "Thank you for agreeing to come. I'm excited that you're here."

From the outside, people always assume you and Jimin are an item—and you may have fooled around a few times over the years—but, they fail to realize that Jimin is more like your best friend now than a lover. Besides, he and Jungkook have been sneaking away into the film supply closet back at the warehouse every chance they get. You're not sure whether or not Taehyung has picked up on it.

You don't miss the way Jimin leans forward slightly to look around you to the other side of Taehyung, where Jungkook is walking. He has large headphones on, getting into the mindset needed for the long night ahead, blatantly ignoring the banter being exchanged.

Beyond The Seance is the paranormal and occult investigation team that you and Jimin started after meeting in college and bonding over everything strange and spooky. It's why you're currently walking down a creepy, overgrown dirt road in the middle of a forest somewhere near the mountains. Jungkook and Taehyung joined while the team was still in its infancy. All you and Jimin had was a few shaky and poorly edited videos on YouTube. But, with Taehyung's expertise in technology and Jungkook's enthusiasm for the paranormal, your team quickly morphed into what it is today.

Tonight should just be like any other night of investigating. The abandoned mausoleum and graveyard at the end of this road have been closed off to the public for the last fifty years. It's taken Jimin the better part of the previous two to get the owners to agree to this investigation. The stack of waivers and legal documents they presented to the team was as thick as some of your favorite vampire books—the books that had ultimately led to you not being able to say no to Jimin when he asked you to come.

Your vampire obsession is just that; an obsession. Blame it on Twilight, blame it on Interview With The Vampire—whatever it is, it's stuck deep, fused right into your bloodstream. So, when Jimin mentioned that this mausoleum is rumored to house an entire underground crypt with a coven of petrified vampires, you had no choice but to say yes.

It's not that you necessarily believe in vampires. You've investigated enough rumors about them that only ever ended up being just someone trying to go viral that you're pretty desensitized to it. But, you still can't deny the rush at the slight chance that maybe one day it won't just be porcelain veneers glued onto teeth or puncture marks made with hypodermic needles.