Chapter 24

Tessa’s POV

Every ounce of my mind was telling me to run for the hills. I kept telling myself, “Tessa, are you insane? How could you stick around knowing what you know?!”

But my body wasn’t listening to my mind. I sat in the living room of Joseph’s house, staring up at this incredible man, with a racing heart, knowing that he was a vampire. I should have been afraid for my life. I should be running away and screaming. I shouldn’t ever look back.

But I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to experience more.

I’ve only ever written about vampires. But finding out true facts about real vampires could greatly benefit my writing.

But with all the information he had given me, my mind felt like it was going to explode. I needed to leave and wrap my head around everything.

He seemed to understand.

Just as I grabbed my purse off the table, I accidentally knocked it over. I sighed, reaching to grab my phone that had fallen from my purse, and frowned when I saw Ruby’s name appear. She’s been calling me.

From the looks of it, she’s been calling me multiple times.

“Tessa!” Ruby was crying on the phone. Ruby wasn’t the type of girl to shed tears, at least not that easily. The last time she cried was when someone broke into her apartment.

I couldn’t imagine that happening again.

“Ruby, what’s going on?” I asked, worried about my friend.

“It was awful!” She sobbed, her voice was trembling. She was terrified but of what, I wasn’t sure. “I don’t know what happened. It was so dark, and I heard her screaming!!”

“You heard who screaming? You aren’t making any sense Ruby.”

“Morgan…” she whimpered.

My heart plummeted into my stomach. Morgan lives not far from Ruby’s apartment, and they park in the same lot. A couple of others from the group lived in that area as well and I could hear their light murmurs in the distance. They all sounded equally distraught.

Soon, I heard sirens.

“Ruby, what’s going on?” I asked again, this time I feared what she might say.

“Morgan is dead!”

My entire body was frozen as I turned to face Joseph who was also clutching his phone in his grasp, his knuckles growing white, as he stared down at me.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes, Reese,” Joseph said as hung up the phone.

“I’ll be there soon,” I said to Ruby as I hung up the phone.

“You should return to your home,” Joseph said as he walked past me and toward the front door of his Villa.

“Ruby was my ride. You’ll need to give me a ride,” I told him. “Besides, I’m pretty sure this is happening at the place I’m staying.”

Joseph didn’t argue with me. He led me out of the villa and toward his black Bentley.

It didn’t take us long to get to the lot that Ruby had called me from. I could see the blue and red light illuminating the night sky as we neared the scene.

Ruby was speaking to one of the officers and crying into her hands. I had never seen her like this before and it broke my heart. But not nearly as bad as how I felt for poor Morgan.

I saw her body lying in the middle of the shadow region of the parking lot. I always called it the shadow region because the streetlights never worked in that area, yet for some reason, Morgan always parked there.

That was the perfect spot for any kind of attack without being detected.

“I just heard her screaming and I ran toward her. She died when I got to her…” Ruby sobbed as she spoke to the cop.

“You didn’t see anyone or anything suspicious?” The cop asked, eyeing her carefully.

She shook her head quickly.

“No, I didn’t see anything,” she said. “We had just gotten back from our professor’s house and—”

Her voice trailed off when she noticed Joseph walking towards Morgan’s body. The EMTs were already zipping the body bag by the time Joseph reached them.

“Oh, there he is now,” Ruby sniffled.

It was at that moment I noticed Ruby had blood on her clothing and my heart broke all over again.

“Oh, Ruby…” I breathed, walking closer to her. “You are covered in blood…”

“It’s not mine,” she said in a low whisper. She glanced at the body bag Morgan was in. “When I reached her… she was still half alive. She was gurgling blood and I was holding her in my arms. She was trying to say something, but she couldn’t… she died shortly after.”

“I think that’s all the questions we have for right now. If we think of anything else, we will reach out. But if you remember anything, please give us a call,” one of the cops said to her.

Her eyes looked voided, and it was like the cops weren’t even there. They realized this too and said nothing more before they went to speak with Joseph.

“Oh, Tessa,” Ruby cried as she wrapped her arms around me. “It was awful…”

“You are safe, Ruby,” I said in return, hugging her back tightly. “You should get home and stay inside.”

She released me and frowned as she stared around my face.

“You’re coming with me, right?”

I glanced over at Joseph, who was still speaking with the cops and the EMTs.

“I’m going to stay here for a few and then I’ll be there shortly.”

“I don’t want to be alone,” she whimpered.

“It’s going to be okay. I won’t be long. I promise,” I assured her.

She stared at me for a moment longer before nodding.

“Please, hurry,” she said over her shoulder.

Once Ruby was gone, I went back to Joseph who had just finished his conversation. There was a similar void on his face than the one Ruby had.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“They are going to let me examine the body,” he told me.

I raised my brows.

“Why do you want to examine the body?” I asked in return.

“I need to know for sure what happened to her. They didn’t want me to examine the body until she was sent to the morgue. I had to use my abilities to influence their minds.”

My eyes widened as I looked over at the EMTs, removing the body bag from the ambulance and bringing it back to Joseph.

They placed the body on the ground and unzipped her.

The sight of her was alarming and I gasped, jumping away. She was covered head to toe in blood and she had bite marks all over her neck and arms. the parts that weren’t completely covered in blood were ghostly white, as if all the blood inside her body had been drained.

Not to mention the smell.

She smelled like rotting flesh, and I nearly threw up on the spot. I had to take a step away, unable to look at the gruesome scene in front of me.

“We already know it was an animal attack,” one of the EMTs said, shaking his head with pity. “No human could do such a thing like this.”

Joseph stared at it for a moment longer before waving for the EMTs to take it away.

“You are certainly right. No human could do such a thing,” Joseph said, turning away from them.

“Was it really an animal attack?” I asked immediately when there were no wandering ears nearby. Joseph met my eyes and shook his head.

“No,” he answered. “It was a vampire attack.”