Running Wild (Sequal to I'm Not A Vampire)

On the Run

**BLADE'S POV**

"Blade?" a soft, beautiful voice called my name through the darkness. "Blaaaade?"

I groaned and raised my hand, swatting in the general direction that the voice was coming from. "I'm busy," I mumbled, still mostly asleep.

Drake chuckled and grabbed my shoulder, shaking me gently. "Blade, angel, come on."

"No, YOU come on!" I whined. I sounded like a three-year old kid, but I didn't really care. "I'm sleeping! Don't make me hurt you!"

He laughed again and was silent for a moment. I was just drifting back to sleep when I felt him press his lips to mine. The shock and the usual jet of warmth that went through me at his kiss effectively woke me up, and I kissed him back without thinking. After a moment, Drake pulled away with a grin. "Thought that would work."

"You're an asshole," I grumbled, rubbing my eyes and looking around tiredly and finding myself in the middle of a parking lot. "Where are we?"

"McDonalds," he replied with another smile. "I woke you up to see what you wanted."

I sighed and shook my head. "No thanks, I'm not really hungry."

"Blade, you have to eat something," Drake's smile dropped into a concerned look. "You're skinnier than a fucking pencil!"

"I'll eat something later," I insisted, but he continued to shake his head.

"Nope, you're eating something now. If you don't tell me what to get you, I'll pick something you for you. And if you refuse to eat it, I will force-feed you."

"Why the hell are you so damn insistent?"

"Because I care about you, and seeing my gorgeous angel starve is killing me."

I felt my face flush when he called me gorgeous. "A-alright," I said. "I'll just have a hamburger."

"Okay," Drake backed out of his parking space and pulled up to the drive-through window. I looked at the board they had up with all the food and prices on it, and my eyes widened when I saw they were giving out batman toys in happy meals.

"Drake," I said, clutching his shoulder as a woman's voice came over the little speaker box 'Welcome to McDonalds, may I take your order?' "Drake, can I get a happy meal?"

He looked over at me, then at the board. His gaze flickered to the little picture of the Batman action figure, and a smile spread across his perfect lips. "Sure," he replied.

Drake ordered our food and payed. When he pulled up to the next window and handed me my happy meal, I immediately ripped it open and pulled out my Batman toy. I know, I know, I have the maturity of a seven year-old. But hey, technically I wasn't even a year old yet. Besides, Batman was very close to my heart. My dad was a huge Batman fanatic.

My dad. The minute the memory of Andy flashed through my mind, my cheerful mood dropped like a stone off a cliff. A painful longing filled my heart as pictures of the rest of my family followed suit. Ashley, CC, Jake, Jinxx, Sammi, Ashlyn. One by one their faces flew past, memories of laughter and joyful moments shared. I tried to stop the homesick slideshow, but it was no use. Without meaning to, I let out a mournful sigh.

Drake looked over at me, noticing my sudden change in mood. "What's wrong?" he asked, seeming concerned.

"I miss them," I admitted quietly. "A lot."

He reached over and held my hand. "Me too," his voice was soft and gentle, just like the touch of his skin on mine. "But I think it's a little too late to go back now, don't you?"

I nodded. We'd been driving for about a day now, and we'd covered about half the state. Neither of us knew exactly where we were going, but Drake suggested somewhere in Iowa. "I don't think I'd want to, anyway. We'd probably get our asses railed, and everything would just be ten times worse for us."

"Yeah," Drake's eyes were focused on the road, but I could tell he was thinking about something else entirely in the back of his mind. "I'm glade I have you back now, Blade."

"Me too."

We were silent for a long time after that, each of us thinking our own individual thoughts. I ate my food in silence, trying not to think about What would happen if they were following us, if our families caught us. I'd been so close to taking my life before, I knew without a doubt I wouldn't live through being torn away from Drake again.

We had no choice but to keep running.

If only we'd known there was more than one thing to be running from.

**ASHLEY'S POV**

A day after Drake and Blade had run off, Andy, Ashlyn, Matt and I were already driving down the highway, on a blind search for the two boys. Matt had insisted on coming too, as it was his son as well as ours, and Ashlyn had threatened to tie herself to the roof of the car with bungee cables if we tried to leave her behind. "He's my brother!" she'd insisted. "This is as much my fault as it is any of yours, and I'm gonna help fix it, whether you guys like it or not!"

"Do we even have any idea where they could've gone?!" Matt asked from the backseat a few hours after we'd started driving.

"Not really," Andy replied without taking his eyes off the road. "But we've got to at least try to track them down. We're heading west, Crissy and Ronnie are going south, CC and Jake are covering the east, and Jinxx, Sammi, and Sophie are staying home, in case they come back. We've gotta find them eventually."

"Yeah, or this could all end up with us going around in circles," he muttered, sitting back in the seat.

"Well aren't you the optimist," I commented, annoyed by his negativity. Deep down, we all knew that this was never gonna work unless we had more of a clue to their whereabouts. But for now, this was all we had.

"Their goal is just to be together, right?" Ashlyn piped up from behind me. "So they'd want to get as far away as possible, just in case we'd find them."

Andy shook his head. "Blade has attachment issues. He can't be too far away from something close to his heart. I know him, and he'd have a major problem going any farther than probably Kansas, and that's pushing it."

Matt nodded in agreement. "Drake can be the same way. If I had to guess, the first place he'd go would probably be Nebraska. That's where his mom used to live."

"Why can't we just wait them out?" Ashlyn asked. "I mean, if we give them some time, maybe they'll come back?"

"We don't have time," I replied. "News travels fast in the supernatural community. Most already know about Andy getting pregnant, and they've all most likely drawn the same conclusion: it could happen again. There are people out there who would do anything to prevent the chance of a new and dangerous species being bread into the world. Drake and Blade are in a lot more danger than they know."