Unapologetic Apathy

I woke up to Kelsie gently stroking my hair. I blinked my eyes open and saw the dark room where Gerard had given me first aid. Why was Kelsie here? I suddenly remembered my hidden camera and I gasped, sitting up, which brought a stab of pain to my head.

"Shh, it's okay, don't hurt yourself," she hushed. I groaned and felt at my neck, where the bandage was on, and burning numbly. My eyes widened at the scene in front of me.

"Please tell me what's going on," I demanded.

In the room, a small study, actually, was the whole gang, including Sam and Ray. They surrounded Gerard, who was standing stiffly in the middle of the triangle with his hands behind his head. He was still drenched in blood, and even held at gunpoint as he was, but he looked like king. Smug little bastard. Ray held a rifle to his back and Sam had a silver knife. Kelsie had a bottle of holy water strapped to her hip. He didn't seem scared.

"He bit you," Ray told me.

"I know," I replied.

"He almost kille you. We came to help," Sam said in a worried tone. He held the knife oddly, like he was afraid of it cutting him. He wasn't meant for this. If everyone was here, who was at the base? Sam was supposed to be home by now, too, it was a school night.

"He didn't mean to. He said it was part f the deal that he didn't hurt me," I muttered. My head felt like crap and every muscle aches.

"He did hurt you," Ray said, "he broke the deal."

"Not intentionally ," Gerard clarified. Ray held the gun closer, so the point was pressing into his black suit jacket. He winced.

"That's besides the point. You should die either way, you bloodsucking leech. It's four against one, you will die," Ray hissed. Gerard didn't look scared at the threat. He turns his attention to Sam. Sam shrank a bit in his stare. A sardonic smile quirked on Gerard's lips.

"Only a knife, boy? " he smirked. Sam's eyes widened in fear, but his arms lashed out and slashed the vampire across the forearm. Gerard pulled his arm in and hissed in pain. A thin trickle of black blood came out of the cut, but the skin around it turned a sickly shade of black-purple. It looked burnt.

"That's what my knife can do," Sam said proudly, wiping the blood off the blade. Gerard stared at him with eyes full of venom.

"Hey! Stop. We have a deal. Honour the deal. He said he didn't mean to, now back away," I said as Kelsie helped me to my feet. Ray looked surprised.

"Frank, what happened to killing this guy? It's the only reason we came to Jersey," he said in shock. Gerard looked serious, however. He was very calm and collected, though he cradled his slashed arm protectively.

"No."

"But-"

"I said no. Trust me."

Ray looked frustrated, but Sam looked disappointed. I had other plans. They would just have to trust me. I winked at Sam, but that didn't help. He didn't look me in the eyes. I felt terrible being a role model to this kid, feeling as hypocritical as I was. I motioned for them to drop their weapons. Sam hesitantly put his knife I the wasteband of hi jeans, an Ray unloaded his gun. He handed me the silver bullets. I nodded and put them in my pocket. Kelsie nudged the holy water to me and I took it.

"There. Nobody gets killed. Gerard, you're not going to kill anyone, right?"

He eyed them all spitefully, but his posture remained arrogant an confident. "As long as they follow the rules we established."

"They will," I assure him, but he didn't look convinced.

"That what you said last time, but look where they are now," he nodded towards my team. "They should make their own deals, yknow, to make sure they stay in their place." He leaned against a desk and crossed his arms.

Kelsie got angry. She stormed up to him and started shaking her finger in his face. "No! Stay away from them! You are a sick, sick man! Vile! You will not tie my boys in you're filthy knots!" She yelled, then shouted some Mexican insults at him. I recognized a few: insults to his mother, all that kind of stuff. He didn't flinch at her outburst. He smiled sardonically and let her continue until she couldn't curse anymore.

"Fine. But if I am even under the impression that one of you is out of line, there will be trouble. I...suggest you leave now. Get Frank to a doctor. Forget about this entire meeting." Kelsie looked shocked.

"You don't care about Frank's wellbeing. You wouldn't care if he went to a doctor or not," she spat. He raised an eyebrow and gave her a bitter look.

"I'm not entirely emotionless," he muttered and pushed past us down the hall. I tried to follow him with my eyes, but I lost him in the shadows. Maybe it was a vampire thing. He did seem to camouflage well in plain sight, just using the darkness. I sighed. He could be still watching us, hinestly. Without my flashlight, I couldn't tell where he was in the pitch blackness of his manor.

"Let's go," Ray said, and he led us back to the door grimly.

When we were in his car, that when the lecture began.

"Why were you on his side?" Kelsie shouted.

"Stockholm syndrome," I heard Sam mutter under his breath.

"I didn't want anybody hurt. He's not like a year old vampire, he's powerful, you know. He's taken on four cops at one time," I told them, remebering the story he told me about the police comin in. He had to kill them. Then move the bodies to the walls. I shuddered.

"You're taking a fancy to him, though," Sam growled. I snarled back at him.

"Don't e childish. I do what I must. I'm finding a way out of this deal. As a leader, I take the hits so none of you get hurt. Just trust my judgement." That silenced them. I could tell Kelsie was trying to hold in a big outburst of lecturing shouts. She but her lip. We reminded her of her sons, he told us before, and she thought of us as her boys. She didn't want us to be involved in stuff like this. I felt sad again.

"Okay. Fine," Sam said. We dropped him off at his house, an he snuck in quietly. Then the gang went back home, to the small house we bought. I watche as Ray and Kelsie unpacked and cleaned up, eating a quick snack for suppe.

I didn't sleep.
I just thought of Gerard. Was I really siding with the bloodsucker?

Notes