I never told you what I do for a living.

Gerard POV.

Frank and I stayed in Italy for a few weeks. There he showed me where he had lived and he told me more about his parents. He also told me about the siblings I never knew he had.

He was the firstborn and only son of the family. He was the oldest and he had three little sisters; Lucrezia, the youngest, and the twins being Magdalena and Isabella. Lucrezia was still a toddler when Frank was being sent away. He couldn’t remember much from her, except that she was a very playful and energetic child. Frank always remembered her as a pixie because she looked like one. She had big, hazel Bambi-like eyes and soft brown curls.

Magdalena and Isabella were 5 years older than Lucrezia. They had longer, golden-blonde hair and the same hazel eyes as the little girl. The twins adored Frank and cried heavily when they knew he had to go.

“They wanted me to stay, even though they knew what I was and what I was capable of.” Frank told me. He tried to avoid eye contact but I could still see that the look in his eyes was broken. After what happened all those years ago, he had never seen his sisters again.

The tombstones said that Magdalena had become 45 years old and her twin sister Isabella 56 years old. Lucrezia never reached the age of 20.

Although he missed his parents, he could never overcome the pain and feelings of self-loathing he got because of them. They sent him away. If he wasn’t even good enough for his own parents, how could he be good enough for the people close to him?

Days passed since our reunion and we started to get back to America. After all, the thing Frank really wanted was to go home. We still traveled around for a few days. We went to the town in Spain where he had met Jamia and showed me around for a little bit. The house where they had lived had been long gone and it was hard for Frank to comprehend that everything he had known simply didn’t exist anymore. The days passed and every place that Frank had known or been had changed so much. The broken and at the same time confused look in his eyes became worse and worse so I decided it was time to go.

~

“So, eh, do you have any idea where you’ll stay once we get back home?” Frank suddenly asked out of the blue. There was a nervous tone in his voice.

“I don’t know. I think I might have to get used to traveling around again since I don’t have anywhere to stay.” I answered honestly. Even though I really wanted to stay with Frank, he still didn’t know I had imprinted on him too and he was acting strange. Maybe it was because he was in love with me and he didn’t know I was in love with him too or maybe it was the shock from coming back from the dead.

The more we talked about going home, the more Frank started to hint that I could stay at his place for as long as I wanted. I haven’t really opened up to him about it yet, but that was what I really wanted the most. It would seem like a wonderful idea to live together with Frank. To be honest, I had no idea how the dynamic between the two of us was going to be, but it couldn’t go very wrong. I still haven’t told him about me imprinting on him yet, so the clock was ticking to have ‘the talk’ with him very soon.

While we were traveling, I could see him shooting glances at me. But the second I tried to catch him, he looked away. I knew something was bothering him but I didn’t know what or how to bring it up with him. He seemed so curious and confused at the same time.

We were silent for a while and it started to bug me. I didn’t like awkward silences at all and I was still wondering about Hayley and how it all lead to the fact that she was turned into a vampire. I knew for sure Frank knew more about this, so I decided to ask him.

Frank, suprisingly, told me everything about how she came to visit him while he was still laying in his grave. How she had made a cut in her wrist and how she had pushed it against his lips. The taste of blood awakened him out of his deep comatose sleep and of how he couldn’t stop sucking the red liquid out of her because of not drinking for so long. He was way too strong for Hayley to get away and since he started to bite her at some point, the vampire-venom ended up in her bloodstream. It was too late.

She turned into a vampire awfully fast. Frank has never seen someone change that quickly. Her transition was complete within one and a half hour. Frank felt really sorry for her and he wished he had bitten someone else, but she had woken him up and she brought him back to me so he owed her.

Hayley was still nowhere to be found, so looking for her was the only option. We couldn’t leave her behind in a country she doesn’t even know. Surely not now she was a newborn vampire. Since she is still so “young”, she hasn’t experienced all her new senses and cravings yet, something that can be very overwhelming when you acknowledge them for the first time. No, we had to find her and take her with us back home where we can get her the prober help she needs.

We first thought about going to the square where Frank and I met again for the first time. Which in retrospect wasn’t really an option since she killed a few people there. If we would go and ask around for a girl with red flaming hair, we would be arrested ourselves. Nope, that was not an option.

“How are we ever going to find her? She ran off after she brought me to you!” Frank eventually said with a lot of frustration coming from his voice.

“I don’t know. She can’t be that far away, can she?” I answered him. I have to be honest, I was losing hope of finding her by the minute, but I tried to stay positive for Frank.

“I don’t know. She is a grown-up, you would say she could handle her own business herself, won’t she? I say we go home and wait until she gets back too. She is a vampire, she is very hard to kill, remember?” Frank answered me, still frustrated.

“I understand what you are saying, but still, it would be wrong to just leave her here. and by the way, she would’ve done the same for us. Why don’t we first check the newspaper if there were any other unexplainable killings in the area. If there are, then we will go there to see if there are any signs of her. You can still read Italian, right?” I proposed a new idea to get Frank going. I was leaning to what he said, that we should just go home, but it just didn’t feel right to me. I can remember I was pretty scared and overwhelmed by the thirst I had when I changed, so to me it just wasn’t fair to abandon her. she needed us, if she wanted to or not.

“I never really quite learned to read Italian and if I still remember some words, it will be in old-Italian, but I can try.” Frank hesitantly answered.

I grabbed the first newspaper I could find and gave it to Frank, with little success. The only article about some sort of murder or killing was about the one we witnessed on the square.

“… She ran off to the woods. There had been no sign of her since.” Frank read to me.

“Okay then. Let’s go to the woods.” I answered.

~

Eventually we arrived at the place we had last seen her at the square but there was no sign of her. Our vampire senses were strong enough to locate a human or any other vampire in the area, but since it has been a few days, her trace was gone. Not even the slightest of her scent was in the air, there was no way we were going to find her if we continued like this.

“I don’t know what’s happening. If she was here I am sure I could pick up her track.” Frank said after a while, frustrated of not finding a trace of Hayley.

“You are still recovering from coming back from the dead, don’t beat yourself up over it.” I smiled at him, while trying to reassure him. I could see that Frank was getting frustrated over the fact he still wasn’t fully functioning. I tried to not make him feel bad about it, but he just couldn’t get over the fact that he wasn’t fully healed yet, but healing takes time.

After we tried to pick up a track of Hayley, we saw a guy standing on the opposite side of the square in front of us. The first thing that got my attention, was his long white, silver hair. He must’ve been around the age of 25 although he looked older. When he turned around, he was intensely staring at me and Frank. Although he looked young, he didn’t have the look of a guy from that age. The gaze in his eyes was dark and angry, he must’ve seen some things a normal human being doesn’t need to deal with. When I looked at his face a bit closer, there was a scar from the top of his right eyebrow all the way to the underside of his chin. The scar couldn’t have been older than 4 months. It was healed for the most part, but it was a fresh scar. An uneasy feeling crept upon me and I decided I didn’t trust him.

“Why is that guy staring at us?” Frank suddenly said, pulling me out of my own thoughts. He came to stand beside me and also looked at the strange man across the square.

“I-I don’t know.” I managed to get out. “He really creeps me out though.” I added.

“Same here. Come on, Gee, let’s get out of here. That guy gives me a really bad feeling.”

We started to walk but we had no idea where we were going to. As we walked, I constantly got the feeling we were being watched and I didn’t like it at all. Normally I’m not the kind of guy that gets scared easily, but this gave me an eerie feeling. When I looked at Frank, he looked almost confused. I couldn’t really identify the emotions that spread across his face, although he looked the most like he was confused. Ever since we’ve imprinted on each other, sometimes Frank’s feelings took over me. I felt what he was feeling at any given moment. Sometimes only when he was really confused or sad or even happy, but sometimes it also happened out of the blue. Sometimes it could really come in handy and sometimes it could take a toll on me. At this moment, I wished I knew what he was thinking.

We walked further without saying a word to each other. I was lost in my thoughts and Frank was lost in his.

Suddenly a rustling sound came up from behind us and a feeling of impending doom crept upon me. When I turned around, I could see the mysterious man from the square standing in front us. Frank, turning around immediately, was hissing at the man. I could only stare at the guy.

His face was now even more visible. Not only the scar looked more serious than I thought it would, the color of his eyes was also one I had not seen before. The color was an ice-blue with little specks of gold shattered around it. The color alone wasn’t that strange, I had seen more people before with really light blue eyes, but this was different. This was piercing and mesmerizing instead of the friendly blue from most humans. Nope, this wasn’t good.

Frank on the other hand, was positioning himself like he could attack the man at any given moment. Even to me he looked scary.

“What the actual fuck are you doing here?” Frank growled, his eyes turning red like a killer. His whole body was tense, like he could attack the guy immediately. He also seemed to know the man.

“Oh, come on, like you have no clue why I am here.” the mysterious man answered, laughing darkly.

“Leave. Us. Alone.” Was all Frank managed to get between animalistic growls and clenched teeth. I had to admit, I was looking out for Frank to keep him safe more than I was looking out for my own wellbeing. At this moment, he even scared me.

“Aww, Frankie,” the man said, strangely condescending. Wait, Frankie? How did Frank know this guy? And next to that, I was the only one who called him Frankie. “-you really don’t have a clue why I am here? Are you sure it has nothing to do with your little friend, hm? That pretty vampire with the flaming hair?

Hayley. Shit. Was she in danger?

Frank could only growl in response and even I got more tensed. I had expected much from her, more killings et cetera, but not some weird guy who was, to me, really intimidating.

“Where is she?” Frank asked him sternly.

“Who? Your little friend? Oh, we caught her murdering one of our teammates.”

Notes