Mickey trained both guns on the other three and backed away, stopping only when his shoulder brushed Letha's. She flinched away, casting him a dirty look, but he didn't noticed. His attention was fixed on the crumpled photo she was clutching behind her back. The picture had been taken from a distance and zoomed in so far that the image was pixilated, but there was no denying who the red curls belonged to. His eyes darted to the rest of the pictures scattered across the table, seeing different shirts and backgrounds, but always featuring Letha.
His head swung back to the front and he assessed their kidnappers warily. The man was glaring at the pistols, fingers twitching as he fought the urge to lunge. Mickey inched the gun in his right hand in his direction, staring at him until he rocked back on his heels. Beside him, the thin girl was making woodchips of her fingernails, gnawing at them with such an anxious expression that Mickey feared she might have a panic attack at any moment. Her breathing was sporadic and shallow with the occasional hiccup but when she realised he was watching, her breathing stopped altogether.
Quickly, Mickey turned the gun away from her and she dragged in a breath. Now the weapon was fixed on Min and he felt his hear contract painfully. She wasn't angry or panicked, merely watching him with a sad smile and pained eyes. There was no guilt or regret in her features, no hint of remorse, and Mickey straightened his back to steel himself.
"Answer her question," he muttered, turning his head away from her. He physically felt it when Letha redirected some of her fury at him for interfering but he didn't acknowledge her.
Everybody shifted to look at Min.
She swallowed uncomfortably, fixing her gaze on Letha. "Some of them are photographs of you – that's why you're in them – and others are photographs of people you spend time with and you're just there by coincidence."
Letha frowned at turned around, scanning the papers quickly. "Hadrian is in some of these... so is my father. Uncle Edacitas pops up regularly as well..." Angling her head to the side, her confused eyes met Mickey's. "Who would want to surveil my family?" Apart from yours? Both of them heard the second half of her question without it being verbalised. Seeming to realise that he couldn't offer any answers, she swivelled to face those that could and repeated herself.
Min cringed, closing her eyes as if to hold back tears. "I'm so sorry Mickey," she whispered.
"Excuse me?" Letha snapped, leaning forwards threateningly, "He's not the one whose privacy you invaded!"
The woman nodded quickly. "We've been watching your family because we believe a murderer lives amongst them," she said quickly, cracking her eyes open at the end to gauge their reactions. "He's a foul beast, with no morals or hesitations who preys on the weak and vulnerable under the cover of darkness." Her speech became to impassioned at the end, so earnest, that her face lost all trace of sorrow. Instead, it almost seemed to glow.
Her words had a different reaction in Mickey. His arms began to shake, not just because of the awkward height he was holding them at, and his pulse began to beat so thunderously that he could feel it in the opposite wrist where they were still bounds together.
Letha just rolled her eyes. "I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific," she sneered, tapping a foot against the concrete.
The other woman frowned slightly at that, clasping her hands in front of her and fiddling anxiously. Her eyes darted to Mickey. "You won't believe me," she mumbled, "but you have to."
Unable to recognise the woman before him, Mickey let his shoulders fall with a sigh. "Tell me," he insisted gently. Instantly, he felt Letha's dark gaze burning into his spine and he added some strength to his tone. "Us. Tell us."
Taking a deep breath, Min glanced at the other man and woman. They didn't put up any protest so she nodded once and focussed her gaze on the floor. "This man you've been seen with, Letha..." the girl in question twitched as her name was spoken, "He isn't a man. Not truly. He's something far worse.... Something.... Supernatural." She glanced up quickly and frowned at the casual impatience on her audience's faces. She wasn't expecting them to be so... unfazed... and it threw her off balance. "He um... he's a..." She took a deep breath. "A vampire."
The next few seconds did not unfold at all like Min had expected.
Letha clicked her fingers and pointed at Mickey, a smile of understanding lurking at the corners of her mouth. "Archer!" she cried, finally understanding. She twirled back to the pictures, nodding to herself. "I see it now," she muttered, "He's in the background of a lot of them." Glancing back over her shoulder, Letha pinned a gobsmacked Min with a condescending raised eyebrow. "You guys need to improve your photography if you really want to make it as stalkers. At least learn to place the object of your obsession in the forefront."
Open-mouthed, the woman wordlessly appealed to Mickey for a different reaction. His mild surprise and raised eyebrows did not suffice.
"You... you know?" she hissed, stepping away from them both reflexively.
Letha rolled her eyes. "Don't ask stupid questions."
Letting out a reproachful sigh, Mickey offered a consoling smile. "The real question is; how do you know, Min?"
Her mouth open and shut a few times before she got a sentence out. "I saw him kill someone."
He froze, but Letha was outraged. "What?!" she cried, striding forward until she was right in front of the other woman. What the hell do you mean?"
Indignant, Min refused to cower. "I mean that I was walking home one night last month when I heard a scream. By the time I got there, the man was dead and that man," she pointed at the photos, "Casually strolled away and got on a bus."
Relief filtered across Letha's face. "Oh, yeah. That guy."
Everyone in the room turned their horrified expressions to her. Mickey swallowed the emotion down, trying to remain reasonable.
"Letha," he said sternly, "explain."
Her gaze narrowed. "No, Sherlock. I don't think I will."
Swallowing a sigh of irritation, he inched closer so his next words couldn't be overheard. "Letha please," he hissed, "They think you were involved. And I've met Archer; he doesn't seem like the chatty type. The only way you could know is if you found him straight after or if..."
"I helped Archer kill him," She announced loudly to the room, face twisted into a superior smile.
Mickey could tell, from the angle of her jaw and the glint of anger in her eyes, that she was deliberately being difficult to get a rise out of them all. At any other time he would have been amused. But the outraged gasps from the others helped to keep entertainment at bay, and instead of laughing he sighed.
"What do you mean?" Min demanded, her face pale, "You... You killed someone?" Her breathing was laboured and her hands clenched tightly by her sides.
Letha gave a casual shrug and nodded. Mackey cringed.
"Alright!" He interjected quickly before the situation could further implode. He turned to his peer with a frown. "Prove it."
Her eyes narrowed sharply, fierce colour rising in her cheeks. "We were on a bus. Archer was hungry. I pointed out an entrée."
"You bitch," the biker growled out, some flicker of emotion darting across his scruffy face. "He was a human being!"
She scoffed. "He was a lecherous, seedy bastard who smacked his wife across the face before he took the bus to the pub. If he was a human being then I'd like to request a new species."
The others fell silent, confusion crippling their outrage. Mickey ignored her rant and focussed on what she'd responded initially. He clicked his fingers at her. "So you admit that you didn't actually kill anyone."
Swinging her head to the side to cast him an unimpressed glare, Letha rolled her eyes. "It's called accessory to murder. Google it."
"But you didn't kill the guy," he insisted, grinning broadly. "That's fantastic." His smile faded as he realised that his standards had seriously decreased over the last 24 hours.
Min was shaking her head before he's even finished. "It doesn't matter. She still helped orchestrate the death of a hum... a person. She chose to help a vamire!"
"Familial ties and all that," the girl responded, flapping a hand at the other woman.
Trying to figure out how he could gag Letha without giving her an opportunity to kill him, Mickey tried and failed to interrupt before Min could realise what she'd said.
"Fami... You're related to the leech?"
Letha's face lit up with something close to victory. "You don't know?" she murmured, enjoying herself for the first time all day. "You. Don't. Know. Not who I am, not who archer is, not who any of my family is." She jerked a thumb at Mickey. "You don't even know who he really is, do you?" She clapped and laughed, enjoying the moment.
"Letha," Mickey cautioned, watching the anger slide back into place on their captors faces. "Don't antagonise the kidnappers."
"What do you mean?" She asked innocently, taking slow steps towards the Muslim woman. "Don't you think I should tell her that the vampire she loathes is my cousin? But that we don't share any blood anymore because he's replaced it again, and again, and again with his snacks. Or that there is nothing she can do to stop any of their deaths?"
Min slapped her. Hard.
Unbalanced, Letha flew to the ground, landing awkwardly on her side. Min looked shocked, like she wasn't in control of her own arm, but the teenager on the ground just cackled. Blood seeped from her nose, gliding down her face ethereally.
"You know what they say," she sneered around the red liquid. "Blood is thicker than water."
The young brunette promptly turned around and threw up in the corner.
Hey there guys. So it's been a while. I can make 2 promises: firstly, the next update will not be for a while. Secondly, I will finish this story. I know whats's going to happen and then at the end I''ll ask you guys to vote on whether there's an epic epilogue or a sequel (which I also have planned...) So please keep reading, voting and commenting and I'll get writing! :D
XX SwimmingUpstream