“The look on your face tells me that you’re a bit horrified by the idea when it was your own suggestion…” Bentley says, sounding a bit confused.
“Oh! No, I just was wondering if I turned the… oven… off,” I say. “So… yeah, if you want, tomorrow. Same time. If not, whatever. Yeah. See ya! Thanks again!”
He raises an eyebrow, probably seeing me as a raving lunatic. “Um… yeah. Have a good night, River.”
I smile and rush for the door as I fixate on the fact that he didn’t confirm or deny tomorrow. Maybe I didn’t give him enough time to answer, and instead, endlessly babbled at him. I’m such an idiot. He’s a vampire.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
I hurry out to the car and get inside before driving to a small comic book store toward the end of town. They’re close to closing, but I park the car and get out with my backpack on and my hood up, doing my best to cover my face. Then I head around the side of the building and start walking.
I’ve never been the best at making decisions, so inviting a vampire to meet with me again really shouldn’t surprise me—even if it did. I always felt like I was a bit more indecisive than I should have been. It’s how I was with college and boyfriends and all that jazz. From a young age, I knew what I liked to do and that was drawing. I always wanted to focus on drawing, but my father was an immigrant from Puerto Rico and came from a very poor family. So he had extremely high hopes that his children would prosper in the US. They would go to college and use all the many resources they were given. He worked hard to get us there. My mother, who is white, also came from a poverty-stricken family, but the two of them sacrificed and worked hard to raise us middle-class. I felt like if I didn’t do more with my life, their efforts would have been for nothing.
So I went to college and got a degree in business. I got a really nice job right before shit went south.
I sigh.
And here I am.
I pull the mask snugly over my face before I walk through the fence into the self-storage area. When I reach the container far away from the others, I slip the key into the door and step inside before pulling the door shut behind me. There’s a racket going on but the moment I’m inside, it stops.
The vampire, who is lying on his side strapped down to a heavy metal chair, looks up at me, anger in his eyes.
“I will fucking kill you. I will rip your weak arms from your worthless body,” he growls, having lost the gag at some point.
Ah, fucking vampires and their superiority complex. See, Bentley? I bet deep down, under that good guy mask, you’re just like them. You’re just like all the other vampires who need to die.
I say nothing, not wanting him to hear my voice as I start to set up. This was supposed to happen earlier today, but my bad day made me put everything on hold while I prayed no one noticed the man in the container. Thankfully, this one was as far out as it could get, away from the busiest area. It allowed you to pick online and showed me which ones were occupied, so I just snatched one that wasn’t surrounded by anything.
I pull out another chair and set a large piece of paper on it that catches the vampire’s eye almost immediately. He begins to read it as I pull my camera out of my backpack and set it up before aiming it at him.
“Fuck you! Fuck you! I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re not burying me with that shit,” he growls. “We’re going to figure out who is underneath that mask of yours and we’re going to kill you. We’re going to tear you apart piece by fucking piece until there’s nothing left of you. We’re already right on your trail. You’ll be dead by morning if you don’t let me go.”
I honestly don’t believe a thing out of his mouth because if that was true, someone would have killed me already.
He begins thrashing and yanking, but the cuffs are police grade and he’s not going anywhere. He could break the chair, but his hands are cuffed to his legs and even if he breaks free, all he can do is thrash back and forth. I set my laptop up that’s designed to keep the police from tracking me to this destination. I want to make sure I’m extremely far away before they head here. Even if they do get to this location, they can’t connect me to it. I’ve done nothing to give myself away. Even the car I’m driving is leased to a man named Jonas Stevens and my other car is the one I use to drive around the city when I’m not involved in… this.
Hell, even if they do catch me, what’s it matter anymore? What does anything matter?
This is all that does.
When I go to grab his chair, he kicks off with his feet, flinging into me and throwing me back hard, but he can’t do much more than that, leaving me to step back until he’s done thrashing and kicking. This time, I just reach out with my hand and I heave him up so the chair is standing.
“No. Fuck. Stop. What do you want? Money? You want money? I’ll give you money. Come on,” he says. He’s done with the threats and moving on to negotiations. The last guy did the same thing. I ignore him and continue to set everything up until it’s perfect.
Then I go over to the camera, careful to keep myself out of the frame, and switch it on.
I wait a moment, making sure we’re live, and watch the views begin to flood in. They cancelled my first channel, but it takes mere minutes to start a new one. And once I share it on a social media group, it ignites. My views go from one to five hundred within a minute and it snowballs from there. I know it’s risky, but I want them to know I’m on to them. I know what they’ve done, and I will destroy them, even if it destroys me in the process.
The vampire nervously stares at the camera, then glances at me. “Help me! Please! Someone help me!” But he doesn’t know where he is or who I am. You’d think he’d be an old pro at this game by this point. I mean, he sure enjoys it when he’s on the other side.
I point my gun at his head, and he tries to lunge at me, but there’s no way he can reach me even if he’s determined to—this man has a whole lot more to lose than Wilder.
I point at the large paper next to the camera. The words are definitely big enough for him to see with his superior eyesight.
He shows me his fangs and I glance over at the computer. My views are up to a hundred thousand already. There’s only so much time before the police are on it and they’re hunting for me. I need him to talk and fast.
I aim my gun at his leg and motion to the paper.
“M-My name is Governor George White…” He trails off so I fire the gun again. I have very little experience with guns, but from this close, I’m bound to hit something. “Fuck! Stop! Please!” Now that he’s on the camera he’s not spitting as many threats at me. He wants to look good and wants everyone to sympathize with him. But he’s taking too long. I’m confident in my anonymity, but only for so long. And it would take the police or VRC exactly four minutes to get here if they found me immediately, and I don’t want to exceed that.
I glance at my watch that tells me I have two minutes and fifty-two seconds left.
“Because I have not confessed to the police—” He turns to look at me. “I don’t have anything to confess! I’ve done nothing wrong! You’ve got the wrong man!”
Suddenly, I hear a noise outside the storage compartment. Why would there be anyone back here when there are no units taken this far away?