Thankfully, he was rarely sent on the kinds of missions that involved interacting with humans.
Saiden would take slicing and dicing rogues over talking to people any day of the week.
Chapter two
Cora
She’d only been awake for an hour and already had a chunk of vampire flesh in her mouth. Bits of gore and bright red blood were splattered across the white shirt she should have known better than to wear.
It was going to be a shit day.
“Cut!” Cora screamed, then grabbed a towel off the table next to her.
“I am so sorry,” Rick cried, rushing over to her. “I swear it wasn’t supposed to explode like that. If he yanked the heart out properly, then it should have just been a little spray.”
Wiping streaks of red corn syrup off her face, Cora reminded herself that she didn’t have the funds to alienate her crew. If Rick wasn’t the cheapest special effects guy around, she never would have hired him to begin with. And by cheapest, she actually meant free and desperate for credits to put on his resume. Though, in all fairness, his shoddy construction was only half the reason she currently looked like an extra in a Tarantino film.
Ignoring the bits of fake blood and flesh still coating her long auburn hair, Cora strode over to the mess that used to be the prop dummy.
“Dammit,” she muttered under her breath when she saw just how ruined it was. They simply didn’t have the budget for another one.
“What happened?” she barked, whirling on the group of nervous people standing behind her.
“It was my fault,” Jake offered, stepping forward. “I was just so into my character that I felt like I should grab my victim and hold her. You know, romance her a little before the big death scene. I think I just hugged a little too hard and triggered the mechanism.”
Do not murder the actors, Cora thought, rubbing her forehead.Murder is bad. Murder will not help get this film made.
She gave Jake a death glare in lieu of her preferred response that came with a prison sentence. “Please tell me you took some time and read all the way through the script before we started filming,” she fumed. “Because this is only day two, and I’m getting a disturbing feeling that you have no idea who your character is supposed to be.”
Jake shifted awkwardly, giving Cora an ashamed look. “I mean, I mostly read it. I skimmed the important bits.”
Anger colored her cheeks, and she fought to hold back the scream that tried to claw up her throat. “The. Important. Bits?” she seethed through gritted teeth. “And what exactly did you determine were the important bits?”
Jake ran a hand through his dark wavy hair. “You know, the character stuff. I felt like I was really understanding the role of Drake. Tortured vampire, looking for the love of his life, forced to kill the only girl he ever wanted. You know, the important bits.”
“You havegotto be kidding me,” Cora raged at the dipshit in front of her. The only reason she had cast him was because the number of muscular, attractive men willing to commit to a two-week film shoot for free was depressingly low. He had initially seemed semi-competent, but now she was starting to realize that had been an overly generousassessment.
“It’s a horror film!” Cora screamed. “Key word being ‘horror.’ This isn’t some damn sparkly vampire romance story. The vampire is the bad guy. He kills people. He enjoys it. He doesn’t fall in love with them for fuck’s sake!”
Cora collapsed into her director's chair and massaged the back of her neck where she carried far too much tension lately. She made a huge mistake casting Jake, and now it was going to cost her hundreds of dollars that she didn’t have. She debated shouting at the pretty idiot to get the hell off her set, but re-casting the role of Drake would set them back days.
“Everybody take ten,” she called out. “I need a second. And somebody tell Jinx I want to see her ASAP.”
An assortment of hushed murmurs reached her ears, and she knew at least a few of them were comments on her mood swings. They’d increased in frequency and intensity over the past year which was not a good sign. Not that dwelling on them would help. Thinking about how they’d gotten worse only made her more anxious about getting the film wrapped. She didn’t know how much time she had left.
At twenty-five, Cora should have felt like the rest of her generation—like she was immortal and had all the time in the world. Sadly, she’d long since accepted that was not the case.
A pert nose and vibrant green eyes framed by an untamed mess of blonde waves suddenly popped up in her field of view, startling her to the point that she nearly rocketed up and smacked into said pert nose.
“Dammit, Jinx, you know it’s not a good idea to surprise me. I almost head-butted you.”
Jinnifer, or Jinx as everyone called her because she was quite possibly the unluckiest person to ever live, just laughed.
“Wouldn’t be the first time, won’t be the last time,” she replied,pulling up a chair to face Cora head on. Plucking a chunk of bloody rubber off Cora’s shoulder, Jinx gave it a squeeze only for it to squirt from her fingers and fall into her shirt. Fishing the gross bit out of her bra, she gave Cora a curious look. “What happened here? I thought the victim’s heart was just supposed to spurt a little when Drake ripped it from her chest?”
Cora lifted her heavy head so Jinx could see her mouth when she responded. Contrary to popular belief, lip-reading was far from accurate, but the little device nestled in her best friend’s left ear could usually fill in most of the blanks. “That’s what wassupposedto happen,” she replied. “But our leading man decided my film should be a love story, and he wanted to cuddle the victim first. It triggered the explosion that Rick apparently calibrated incorrectly and destroyed the dummy. I’m not exactly surrounded by geniuses on this set.”
“Well, you are now,” Jinx said, leaning in to give Cora a hug.
