Cora glanced up at him when he didn’t reply and stifled a giggle at the horror on his face. She’d known the condition of her apartment would be a drastic change from his usual, but she didn’t think he’d look quite so traumatized.
“You live like this?” he asked in a tone that suggested he viewed her living situation as little better than a refrigerator box under a freeway overpass.
Okay, so maybe her home was a bit messy. The dining room had been converted into Rick’s workshop for building the special effects devices, and fake blood was splattered across the walls, but getting the spurting action just right took trial and error. And sure, the living room was covered in costume pieces, black cases containing film equipment, and five tubs of Red Vines—which more or less made up the entirety of their craft services—but that was nothing. He should have seen her place when it was clean. The mess on the floor was doing a solid job of hiding the stained carpet, and the assorted movie posters decorating the walls were blocking the peeling paint that had to contain more lead than was legally allowed.
It wasn’t fancy or posh like he was probably used to, but it was hers. And she didn’t feel the need to explain to him that, thanks to the cost of her medications, it was the nicest place she could afford. The last thing she wanted was judgment from a grouchy vampire determined to ruin her life’s work.
She waved her hand in front of his face until his eyes focused on hers. “Did you hear me? Bathroom? Gotta text Jinx. I’ll be right back. And don’t worry, there’s no window in there so it’s not like I can sneak out.”
“I would hear if you did,” he replied, not taking his eyes off the chaos before him.
“Of course you would,” she muttered and shuffled her way throughthe mess toward the bathroom at the back of the apartment.
Plopping down on the cold linoleum floor, she sent a quick message to Jinx’s number before opening a blank email on her phone. With Saiden monitoring her every movement, the chances of leaving herself a physical note had pretty much vanished, so email reminder it was.
Now she just had to figure out what to say that a skeptical future Cora might believe.
She didn’t think ‘you’ve been brain wiped by a vampire so go dig the old version of your script out of the trash’ would quite cut it.
Triggers, Saiden had mentioned. She needed lots and lots of triggers.
She stared at the phone for a minute until an incoming text from Jinx pulled her attention away from the email that was still blank. The message was long but ultimately understanding. Jinx was always understanding, and Cora felt awful about lying to the most important person in her life. Her friend deserved better than a half-assed excuse about how she was feeling overwhelmed lately, but it was all Cora could give right then. The bulk of her focus had to be on composing an email that she could schedule to be sent to herself every hour starting tomorrow.
Now if only she could figure out what to say.
Chapter eleven
Saiden
Saiden nudged a severed limb to the side to clear a path to the couch. He grimaced when the prop left a streak of blood on the laces of his steel toe Harley Davidson boots. He rarely cared much about material possessions, and if he needed something, he just chose the most durable and practical. For the most part, he never bought anything he didn’t need save for his boots. They weren’t the most tactical or the highest quality, but they were his one vanity. They also never went out on rogue hunts with him primarily because he didn’t want to end up with them covered in blood.
Finding a spot on the sofa that looked relatively safe, he sat down and waited. His eyes scanned over the assortment of movie posters, and it didn’t take long for him to realize a theme. Nosferatu, 30 Days of Night, Salem’s Lot, Fright Night. She obviously had a thing for vampire films, and he was pretty sure that these were the ones that depicted his kind as nothing but vicious, evil blood suckers.
Ouch.
Leaning back against the threadbare couch, he closed his eyes and listened to Cora move about in herbedroom. She’d let him know that she messaged her friend saying she was going to spend a few days with her father, and they could leave once she packed up some clothes, but there had been a somber tone to the way she said ‘father’ that pricked up his ears.
Not dad or papa. Father.
Apparently Cora’s relationship with him fell under potentially lengthy backstory, and he would have to ask her about the history there later.
Crossing his legs at the ankles, he folded his arms and mentally berated himself. No, he didn't need to ask her a thing. The less he knew about this human the better. Get her to Marquin, get her wiped, and send her packing. Her life story was not his concern.
He listened to her throw some clothes into a backpack along with what sounded like an absurd number of pill bottles, then she was striding back into the living room.
“Okay,” she proclaimed, reminding him of a determined little pit bull. “Let’s do this.”
She really believed she was going to convince Marquin to let her keep the memory of her script. It was almost adorable. Most humans he encountered lacked this level of conviction for anything in their life.
“Great,” he said, getting up from the couch and carefully picking his way through the junk on the floor. “Let’s get this over with as quick as possible.”
Content to wade straight through her mess, Cora beat him to the door and held it open. “My thoughts exactly. I’m already behind schedule and unless you’ve changed your mind, I still need to find a new lead actor. If I miss the deadline for Screamfest, I’m going to stake you.”
Not likely, he thought, but refrained from voicing the obvious.
When she wasn’t being annoyingly obstinate, he found her littlevicious streak somewhat entertaining.
Saiden tossed Cora’s bag into the trunk of the McLaren and peeled out toward the highway. He expected Cora to grab her cell to do whatever it was humans did all day on their phones, but the device stayed tucked away in her purse.
