~Adrian~
When I made it back to the club Nicole was awake and she definitely was not herself. I could only guess that all of the broken glass and turned over furniture was from her.
She never had the opportunity to figure out that our kind even existed before being turned to save her life, so no one could blame her.
Luckily enough for David, she was no longer angry with him for the lie, only because she was distracted by anger towards the man that killed her and took Paige. But perhaps if she knew ahead of time what David was, she would have steered clear of him.
She was in tears now, and David was rocking her trying to calm her as if trying to calm a child. I was thankful that I came in after he got her to stop throwing shit; I wouldn't want to snap on her when my war is not with her.
Still, I proceeded with caution to Nicole and David, and sat down beside the two of them on the floor, where he cradled her.
"Nicole, I need to know what happened, whatever you can remember, so I can find Paige," I said.
"I want to kill him!" She said with a growl.
Her eyes lit with anger, her veins nearly popping out of her skin around her face.
"If I don't kill him first!" David said, taking her hand into his to calm her, and give her comfort.
It worked.
I could see her settle and become human-ish, as she calmed more.
"We all want to get revenge, but first we have to save Paige," I started. "
Nicole, I need you to go over anything you can remember from that day, anything that can help," I said as calmly as possible.
"And if you have any more questions about our kind, I will fill you in after, I promise," David added.
Nicole nodded.
"A big, motherfucking, bald, ugly son of a bitchcame into our house, she said with a sigh.
"I woke up to the sound of glass breaking and immediately went to my room to get my gun," she said with a shaky voice.
"I walked carefully through the house. I was scared but I felt safer with that gun in my hands," she said as she shook her head in disbelief.
"I heard his footsteps coming from the stairs and I knew I had to get to Paige, so I went up the stepsand when I made it to the top, I saw him coming out of her room." Nicole started to sob.
"He was cradling her like a baby, and she was knocked out, I don't know what he did to her," Nicole said as she began to cry into her hands.
"My hands were shaking when I held the gun to him, and he just laughed and kept coming closer.Iwas afraid I would hit Paige if I shot at him…" She wiped bloody tears from her face.
"He took the gun from me and shot me while still holding her. I reached for her hand but he pulled it away, and everything went dark," she said, bloody tears continuing to run down her pale face as she recalled the events that lead to her death.
David dried her tears with his thumb and kissed her softly.
He gave me a look and mind linked me to get her some blood from the fridge.
I nodded and went to collect it.
It will help keep her inner beast calm after having to relive those painful memories of her last moments of humanity.
"I love you," David whispered to her.
"I love you," she whispered back.
I tried to put together the pieces in my mind.
"Is the bald guy by any chance, her ex?" I asked, remembering the threats he once made when I answered Paige's phone.
"No, it wasn't him. I've seen his social media pictures; her ex is a skinny spoiled brat that thinks he's God's gift to women," she said with sass.
"Have you ever seen this man before tonight?" I asked.
"I think I would remember that ugly mug," she said, then her face froze as if a light bulb was going off in her head.
"I saw him after we picked up her car," she said,staring off into space as if trying to remember.
"I remember now, he was parked in a van across the street from the diner that we had lunch at…we were sitting on the patio and he kept staring at us but I thought he was just a pervert with a staring problem, so I ignored it," she said, clearly puttingthe puzzle together as she put her head into her hands.
"This is my fault. I should've said something when we were in public and safe," she said, balling up her fists by her sides.
"It's not your fault, Nicole. He wouldn't have gotten arrested for staring; you had no way of knowing his intentions," David said softly.
She smiled at David.
"Thanks. I just feel stupid and useless. If he hurts her, I won't live with myself," she said with sorrow on her face.
"I found hardly any shit for clues when I went to look around," I said as I emptied my pockets of the washcloth and phone.
"I don't even know her pass code to check her phone, but this cloth definitely has chloroform on it," I said, picking up and setting back down the towel.
Nicole looked confused.
"Yes, I smelled it. The effects won't work on our kind," I said, not ready to explain what we can and can't do. I took a breath and picked the phone back up.
"Do you know her pass code?" I asked.
"Yeah we have the same code," she laughed.
"8675309. We thought it was catchy; we've used the same code since college," she said looking down at the floor, as if her memories were bittersweet.
I punched in the numbers and the phone unlocked and went to her home screen. Her wallpaper was a photo of her and Nicole the night I met Paige.
I could hear Nicole asking David the inevitable questions about what we are, and what she is, as I scrolled through Paige's phone looking for evidence.
I checked her recent calls and her texts, nothing from the psycho ex since she had her number changed, but I still had a feeling he had something to do with this. I heard Nicole shouting at David from behind me, asking why he couldn't let her die.
She might have taken this better if she didn't feel like it was her fault that she couldn't save herself and Paige.
We were all taking this rough, but I can't imagine how much worse it must be for Paige. We all promised to protect her and we failed.
"There's nothing in here," I said. Feeling defeated and heartbroken, I laid her phone back down.
"Wait," Nicole said she picked up Paige's phone and scrolled through it.
"That's it—that's the van," she exclaimed, passing the phone back to me.
"Paige loves photography. She was taking pictures of the fall leaves on the trees and I remembered the van was close to the direction she held her phone to," she said with excitement.
I zoomed in on the van.
I could barely make out the numbers on the tag but I wrote them down.
"David, take this number and call that friend of yours at the station. The sun will rise soon and we'll all be useless until dark. Maybe he can dig us up an address before we wake," I said, handing David the tag number.
"I'll do it now. There's some O Positive in the fridge, grab some before you go as you'll need your strength," David said as I was about to leave the room.
I shrugged. I didn't have any of the other suites stocked with blood, so I took him up on his offer and got two pouches from the fridge that was now fully stocked.
"Thank you, brother," I said, holding up the blood bag, and I left the room. I could feel my body starting to weaken. I went to the next suite, and drank the blood from the bag. This wasn't my favorite room, but I was getting too exhausted to care. I took off my shoes, and removed both of the phones I had in my pockets. I then slid out of my jeans and got in bed still working on my second blood bag. I drained the bag and put it on the night stand beside me. I picked up Paige's phone again and just stared at her photo until sunrise came, sending me into a deep sleep.