Emma found herself outside Michelle’s door. She knocked on it. A young woman opened it and tilted her head. “What do you want?”
“Janet, who’s there?”
“It’s Miss Greenfield,” the young woman said.
“You can leave, Janet.” Michelle said, appearing by her side. She was wearing a blue dressing gown and her hair was neatly held up in a ponytail. Her forehead looked a bit shiny and her face fresh. “Come on in, Emma.”
Emma stepped in and closed the door.
“You’re one brave chick, coming up to my room like this. I could kill you right now and no one will ever find out. What do you want?”
“Do you want me to be honest?”
The other woman nodded.
“Lucius,” Emma said.
“What? Is that what you came here to tell me?”
Emma shook her head. “Not really. I came to tell you that I can leave him but under one condition.”
Michelle chuckled. “Darling, you have no leverage. What will you do if I don’t do what you want?”
“Lucius offered to reject you for me,” Emma said. “I could tell him to go ahead with it. But, I won’t. I don’t want trouble. Give me two thousand dollars and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re a crafty little bitch.”
“Well, okay. I guess I’ll have to stay then. I only asked for the money because I really need it. I’m going to one of those cities run by humans and money is important. I really need it. But if you don’t want to help me, I guess I’ll just stay.”
“Do you promise to leave and never come back?” Michelle asked.
Emma nodded.
Michelle went into the bedroom and came out with an envelope full of cash notes. She handed it to Emma. “You can count it if you want. I added in a couple of hundreds. Emma pulled out some of the notes and checked to see if they were legitimate. They were. She placed her backpack down and put the money inside.
“Thank you. Goodbye, Michelle.”
“Good riddance,” Michelle said. “If you come back here, I’ll kill you.”
“Noted,” Emma said before opening the door.
She was lucky not to run into anyone she cared about. It made leaving so much easier. The guards easily let her through since she was not part of their pack and had not received any orders to detain her. When she was out of the pack household, Emma broke into a run. She ran until she reached the highway.
Axel’s men had confiscated all her stuff including her phone so she couldn’t even call a cab. She walked along the highway until she saw a truck. She stopped it and the driver agreed to carry her. Since she didn’t know where to go, she just told the driver to take her to the town he was going to. It was not very far from where she was but she’d figure things out from there.
The arrived at the town an hour later. It was average, neither big nor small. There were a lot of developments being carried out in the town. The truck driver had told Emma that they were developing it so it could be turned into a major city before the end of the next year.
“Like almost every part of the south, the vampires and werewolves here are not in very good terms so you have to be very careful,” the truck driver told her when she was about to get off. “One clan and pack clashed and this fight wouldn’t have reached this magnitude but others started taking sides. I think the vampires were always waiting for a chance to start war. Anyway, a lone woman is easy prey so you might want to pretend you’re not travelling alone.”
“Well, that’s rather inconvenient.” Emma said, thinking hard. “Why don’t you help me? You can pretend to be my long lost uncle or something. I really need to get into a motel and I don’t want them knowing I’m on my own, even if it’s owned by werewolves.”
The man shook his head. “No can do,” he said.
“I can pay you,” Emma said. “I’ll give you 200 dollars to take me to a motel and help me get checked in.”
He smiled. “Now you’re talking. I know a place downtown. I’ll take you there.”
“Thank you very much,” Emma said.
True to his word, the man helped Emma get lodgings. The motel was not as bad as some she had been to. It wasn’t paradise, either. It was fairly decent. The man went away immediately and left Emma alone. Emma left some of her clothes in the room before going to look for a restaurant. Thankfully, she found one nearby. After that, she went to a tech shop and bought a simple phone. She had been out of the loop for a very long time and wanted to see what was going on in other parts of the world.
In the next few days, Emma mostly stayed in the room surfing the internet. She was looking up several cities in the United States, and comparing them to figure out which was the best for her to move to. She didn’t want to leave without a solid plan. She checked up several travel groups for humans because she was not ready to give up her love for traveling. She also didn’t want all the drama with supernatural so she tried to make human friends.
She even met someone on a dating site. He was human and lived in the town she was staying in. She decided to have some fun in the town before leaving. She lied to him that she was human as well and they agreed to meet two days after they started talking.
When the day finally came, Emma went and bought herself a beautiful dress. She hoped the date would lead to something interesting because she had been bored out of her mind the past few days.
Archie turned out to be a very handsome young man in that brooding kind of way. He wore black jeans, a white shirt and a black jacket. Although he seemed really nice, Emma felt something was off from the beginning. However, she tried not to overthink it.
After the date, he decided to walk her back to the motel. The date had gone really well but Emma was still deciding whether to let him in or not. She opted to wait until she was at the motel. Her mood would help her decide.
Suddenly, a car stopped in front of them and the back door opened. Archie grabbed Emma and pushed her into the car. She struggled but he was quite strong.
When she got into the car, she glared at the man.
“You’re a vampire!”
Archie smiled evilly. “We can hide our scent, too.”
“Fxck you!” Emma told him.