Vail ignored my comment.
“Thanks for saving Connor,” I added.
“I did it for you, and if it wasn’t for you, I would have left him for dead,” Vail admitted bluntly. “Connor is really scary. Did you see the look in his eyes when he stabbed those Vampires? I don’t think you should see him anymore.”
“I can’t do that. You know I can’t. We need more information about the Slayers and Sam.”
“I think we’ve got all the info we need from Connor.”
“I believe there’s more to uncover.”
“So, what’s your plan? Never tell him that you’re a Vampire? Live a long life together and hope he won’t ever notice that you’re not eating or aging? Rosie, you can’t keep living in this make-believe world you have in your head. Wake up! We almost got killed tonight, and it was your fault,” Vail accused, her words like a slap in the face.
“No, it wasn’t. You wanted to go as well!” I retorted defensively.
“You’re a fucking Vampire, Rosie, and Connor is a fucking Slayer. I don’t know how to make it any clearer for you,” Vail exclaimed, frustration evident in her voice.
“Well, he’s a pretty shitty Slayer if you ask me. Not realizing that I’m a Vampire,” I muttered under my breath, crossing my arms in defiance.
“I worry that you’re going to get yourself killed,” Vail said quietly.
“I won’t. Connor would never hurt me,” I insisted, trying to reassure both Vail and me.
“Connor doesn’t even know you.”
“He is not a bad person.”
“But he does bad stuff to people like us,” she said, her tone filled with resignation.
In that moment, I couldn’t confess to her that she was right. Connor scared me tonight. Seeing him with those weapons, killing Vampires, it frightened me to the core.
“Why do you even care?” I asked her, frustration lacing my tone. “Why are you bringing this up? It isn’t my fault you came with me tonight! If it were up to me, I'd just leave. I'd skip town, but I can’t because I know that this is important toyou. If I’m going to be here, I'll have to live with the feelings I have, and it’s hard.”
“I've been thinking about why I decided that I wanted to go so bad and why there were so many Vampires there tonight,” Vail said. “I think someone put a spell on the flyers. A Vampire-summoning spell.”
“The same witch who put the circle around?”
“Yes. I think it was Sam,” Vail said, her voice filled with suspicion.
“But he’s not a witch.”
“I think he might be,” she said. “Did you notice? He wasn’t there when they were killing everyone. It was like he vanished. And did you smell the fire when we walked through it?”
“Burning plastic?”
“Yeah, I think that’s Sam’s magic.”
“So, Sam set us up? He wanted a massacre?” The thought made my blood boil.
“Seems that way. He made a Vampire-summoning spell and a witch’s circle to trap us all. That’s some advanced magic, Rosie.”
“But why would he do that? What does he gain from it?” My mind raced to find a motive.
“Power, control, maybe he’s trying to prove something. Who knows? But it’s clear he knows what he’s doing, and we need to be careful,”
As the city lights illuminated the car, I turned to Vail. “What do we do now?”
“Stick to the plan; we have to figure out Sam’s game and stop him.” Her grip on the steering wheel tightened. “And you need to decide what you want Rosie. If you keep your relationship with Connor, you might be putting all of us in danger.”
