Chapter 66

Tessa’s POV

Finally.

It was Saturday. I didn’t need to get up early. I didn’t have to go to school. I could just stay in bed for a little longer.

I hadn’t been sleeping all that well since my lunch hour talk with Emily Thorton.

Even though Joseph told Emily he wasn’t on the market anymore, I don’t think Emily would give up that easily.

Joseph also told me we shouldn’t cross the boundary of professor and student.

Now I wasn’t dating Joseph, so I didn’t have much of a reason to be upset. I once had sex with him but at the time I didn’t know he was my professor. My face warmed at the very memory.

I often thought about that night and what would have happened if he wasn’t my professor. Would I have seen him again? Would we have continued that sexual relationship? Or would it become more?

Nothing… I told myself. I wouldn’t have become anything. It was just a one-night stand. I thought he was a callboy for crying out loud. I tried to pay him!

Suddenly, I felt embarrassed. My face was warm for a new reason.

If only Miss Emily knew what had actually happened between Joseph and me. But she couldn’t know. Nobody could know. This was a secret I had to take to the grave.

I brushed the thought out of my head and rolled over in bed. I went to bed around midnight after I posted one last blog entry, and I managed to get a few hours of sleep. But not enough to get me though today.

When I looked at the clock just now, it was 6 a.m.

Groaning, I sat up.

The sun was hardly even awake.

Go figure when I don’t have to get up early, my body wakes me up anyway.

I wondered if Joseph was sleeping yet. I wasn’t sure what time he typically went to bed during the day.

Usually, I would wake up around 7 am to get ready for school and he would look utterly exhausted. It made me feel bad that he had to spend his sleep time babysitting me. My stomach tightened at the very thought.

I was feeling like a burden to him.

I slid out of bed and made my way into the hall. It was quiet, but the light in his room was off telling from outside his door, so I didn’t think he was in there. I doubted he was already in bed and sleeping at this hour. If anything, he’d be getting ready for bed around now.

I made my way down the stairs and toward his office. I paused when I saw that his office light was on.

So, I knocked on it and waited for him to say something.

“Come in,” he said, in a tired tone.

I pushed the door open and peered inside.

He looked tired, but he was awake. He was working on his computer, gazing over at me with a worried frown.

“Everything okay?” He asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

I nodded and stepped into his office, shutting the door behind me.

“Yes,” I answered. “I just wanted to say hi before you went to bed. When will you be going?”

He glanced at the clock on his desk.

“Soon,” he answered, then looked back at me. “Are you are okay? You look tired.”

I nodded and gave him a faint smile.

“I didn’t get much sleep,” I admitted.

“Something on your mind?”

I was surprised by his question, but I shook my head, giving him a faint smile.

“No. It just gets lonely when you sleep during the weekend. I guess I just wanted to see you before you disappeared.”

“You’ll see me tonight,” he said, raising his brows.

“I know,” I said, feeling incredibly weird for standing here for so long. I should definitely go so he can finish his work and get to bed.

“And I you want to go anywhere, I’ll leave you the number for the Chief Mulligan, he can assign one of his officers to accompany you.”

I nodded again, grateful that I wasn’t being kept prisoner.

“Thank you,” I said in return. “I’ll let you get to it.”

He didn’t say anything, but he watched me almost curiously as I left his office. I sighed as soon as I got back into the hall.

Why did I have to make that so awkward?

I shook my head, trying to erase the thought out of my mind before I made my way up the stairs and back to my room.

My laptop sat in the same spot I had left it the night before, on the desk across the room. It was still open, and my blog was on the screen when I turned it on.

I refreshed the page to see if any of my posts had gotten engagement and I gasped when I saw that my following had tripled overnight!

It’s only been a few hours since I pressed post on some of these entries, and they already had hundreds of likes and tons of comments.

Most of them wanted more posts just like the ones I posted. With so many praises, my mind was whirling. It was the most unexpected outcome I’ve ever had, and I couldn’t help but jump to my feet in celebration.

My heart was pounding rapidly against my ribcage; I just wanted to cry from joy.

I had never gotten this much engagement on my blog before and it was because of Joseph’s help.

I wondered if he had seen this already. Part of me wanted to run to his study again and tell him, but there was a voice in my head that was stopping me from doing just that.

I thought about calling Ruby too, but it was far too early to do that. My heart was absolutely racing. My writing was starting to pay off. People were liking what I had to say. They found it relatable, exciting, and helpful. I had never been more pleased by that.

I thought about Brian and how he had little to no faith in me during our entire relationship. I don’t think he even looked at my blog while we were together. I wasted a lot of my time in that relationship and as a result, my blog had gotten nowhere. But now that I was free from the chains that bound me together and I had a mentor that truly believed in me and gave me real advice, my blog was beginning to thrive.

Brian was wrong when he told me that writing couldn’t be a career. I was going to make a name for myself with my words, and he was going to watch me rise to the top without him.

I wanted to rub his pathetic face in it.

Joseph’s POV

I was about to go to bed when my phone rang. I saw that it was Chief Mulligan and answered it right away.

“Yes?” I asked him.

Mulligan rarely called unless there was new information, or something was wrong.

“Someone was found dead about an hour ago. This body was left in the middle of the street,” Mulligan growled. “They are getting sloppy, Joseph.”

“Where were they found? I’ll search the area and see if I can find anything,” I suggested, standing to my feet quickly.

“It’ll be sunlight soon,” Mulligan reminded me, making me curse under my breath.

“Shit. I forgot.”

“It was in the same area Natalie Parker was found,” Mulligan answered, and I could hear the frustration in his voice.

I was frustrated too, so I didn’t blame them. These vampires were different than the other vampires that I had to capture and bring to the vampire academy. These vampires were tricky. They hid well and disguised their scent to make them untraceable. They wouldn’t be found unless they wanted to be.

It was odd that these vampires were growing sloppy though. Leaving Natalie alive. Leaving this dead body out in the open for anyone to stumble upon easily.

It didn’t make sense to me.

“The same spot?” I asked, furrowing my brows together. “Do you think their hideout is in that area?”

“Could be,” Mulligan sighed. “But it doesn’t matter right now. The media is all over it and now rumors are speculating around the city. We are running out of time, Joseph. There will be a panic soon enough.”

This was exactly what we didn’t want. Humans were going to think these attacks weren’t animal attacks and start panicking about what could be out there killing them. They are going to start believing the things Natalie Parker had once tried to say to them before I manipulated her mind into thinking it was all made up.

“We need to move onto a new plan,” Mulligan finally said.

“It seems like you already have one,” I said in return, raising my right brow.

“We do,” Mulligan confirmed “The others and me were talking about it…We think it would be a good idea to use Tessa and lure the vampires to us.”

I stopped breathing.

“Use… Tessa?” I said in a low and confused tone.

“Yes,” Mulligan confirmed. “As bait.”