Scarlet hugged my side as we walked along the road.

No cars were coming or going so we had a nice quiet pace. There was only about two minutes between Lee's place and mine. It was why we had become such close friends. 

"Are you afraid?" I asked.

Scarlet looked up at me. She was still short, even though now she stood up straight. 

She looked back at where my house was just half a block down.

She nodded silently.

"It's okay," I reassured her. "I won't let anything happen to you."

"The hunters found me," she said.

"The hunters?" Did I even have to ask? Of course if vampires existed, humans would try to kill them.

She nodded. "Those men came looking for me. They got into every room of that place." Her voice was sweet now. No longer did it grate whenever she spoke, but flowed harmoniously with itself.

"That was the police," I told her. "They were looking for you, but not because you're a vampire. You… kinda killed that security man. They want answers for that."

She went quiet. "What are the police?" she asked.

"Uh… hmmm." She must have stayed in that asylum for the better part of the past century. Which probably meant she didn't age.

"Are they like polizei?" she asked.

"Probably," I agreed. "They enforce like laws and stuff."

She nodded. "Polizei. That makes me feel better." She reached over and picked up my hand.

I squeezed it gently, expecting her to pull away, but she squeezed back.

I smiled.

She smiled back.

And then I blushed again.

I leaned forward, my forearm just barely not touching the mirror surface as I made a quick flicking motion. A sloppy wing formed at the corner of my eyelid.

I sighed. I wasn’t good at this. I leaned closer and cleaned up the thick line with a q-tip.

Scarlet’s reflection watched me through the mirror. Her legs hung over the side of my bed, gently swaying contentedly.

“Are we going over to the green-haired girl's house?” she asked.

“Yes. Her name is Emily but she goes by Lee,” I informed. I repeated my eyeliner routine on the other eye.

Scarlet stood and came up behind me. “You’re friends?” she asked.

“Yeah, we’ve known each other since preschool,” I told her.

I set down the eyeliner pen and moved on to mascara. As always, I’d chosen black. A layer of black lipstick later, I felt ready and briefly tossled my hair. My camera bag hung over one of the posts of my bed. I grabbed the strap and pulled it on over my head.

I offered my hand to Scarlet, who took it without question. We headed outside, I briefly called to Mike, letting him know I’d be back for dinner.

Scarlet and I walked the side of the street, but very soon after my phone began ringing, I pulled it out and saw the police station was calling. I swallowed, but squeezed Scarlet’s hand before I picked up.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Hi there, Lexi. This is Officer LeBlanc, do you think you could come down to the station soon? We have some urgent questions we’d like to ask you,” he said.

“Uh, urgent? Sure,” I looked at Scarlet, who was alarmed by my one-sided conversation. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”

I gave Scarlet's hand another reassuring squeeze. 

“Thanks, I’ll be here,” the officer said and hung up.

I put my phone down.

Scarlet tugged on my hand a little, questioningly.

I smiled reassuringly to her. “I won’t be long,” I told her. “Why don’t you go ahead and hang out with them, you’ll be safe there.

She frowned.

“I promise,” I said with another hand squeeze.

She nodded, but she wasn’t happy about it.

AN: I am very sick atm. I may not be posting 20 until Wednesday instead of posting on Monday. The material is up on my patreon and will go public that day at midnight, but I might not be here to upload to ScribbleHub. We'll see. 

Hope you all are doing well though and I'll be back at it again soon. --SRFox