CHAPTER 27:

CATALINA'S POV:

So, here I am, in the clutches of an unknown vampire when I'd much prefer to be in the arms of my vampire boyfriend. Such is the life of a vampire hunter.

As the vampire, that is holding onto me from behind, lands on his feet, onto the pavement below, my body experiences a harsh jolt. Luckily, the vampire is taller than me and my feet don't hit the ground along with his. That would've hurt. After I regain my senses and my cool, I immediately start struggling in the vampire's grip.

Kind of pointless when a vampire has his arms wrapped around you from behind. The vampire whispers in a distorted sounding voice from behind me, "Don't you know not to play with vampires, little girl?"

Something about what he just said seems familiar. I shake off the feeling, but fail to shake off the vampire.

He starts laughing at my attempts and I growl, "My boyfriend is going to rip off your head."

"No doubt," he says, still laughing. The familiar feeling is back again.

A head falls from the parking garage five stories above. I watch it roll to a stop to the left of us. The second head almost hits me and lands in a way that reminds me of throwing a pumpkin or cantaloupe from five stories above. Busts open, if you know what I mean. I yell upwards, "You almost hit me with that one, Jaden!"

My answer is the sound of wind and a thud as Jaden lands on the pavement a few feet ahead of us. He doesn't even look at me and instead addresses the vamp asshole whose grip tightens on me. "Do you mean her harm?"

I look at Jaden in disbelief and let out an exasperated sound that finally gets his attention, "Um, duh! Of course he means me harm! I taste good! You said so yourself!"

Jaden grimaces and looks embarrassed, confusing me in the process, and the vampire holding me grunts angrily. What's it to him? Was he out looking for virgin blood? He came a little too late for that. Catch me a couple weeks ago and my blood would have been all virginal sweetness.

"Psst!" I whisper to Jaden.

He raises his eyebrows at me.

I nod my head back towards the vamp behind me, "New or old?"

Jaden rolls his eyes, "Not very discreet Catalina."

I glare at him, "So sorry, but I don't have any freaky vampire powers. I can't mind speak with you or use mind control on this vampire or turn him to stone or summon a flock of crows to--"

"New," Jaden ignores my rant and continues, "and idiotic." Jaden is looking intently upon the vampire behind me.

The unknown vampire is silent behind me. Their staring contest is getting on my nerves. "Excuse me!"

"Yes, angel?" Jaden meet my eyes with a curious, but way too calm look.

My patience is gone, "Honey, sweetie, vampy" I say with false sweetness, "what good is mind control, if you AREN'T GOING TO USE IT?" I think I lost all semblance of niceness at the end there.

Jaden looks away from me to stare into the fangy face behind me. He once again addresses the vampire instead of me, "I don't know, do I need to use it, or are you going to be a good little boy?"

The unknown vampire scoffs behind me, clearly amused and clearly not worried. "Do your worst." Obviously, MY vampire isn't the only stupid cocky vampire around.

Jaden smiles predatorily, "Don't tempt me. I'm not too happy with you right now, baby vamp." Jaden kicks a head full of red hair, dripping red blood, out of the way as he takes a step forward, staring at it thoughtfully as it rolls into the gutter. He looks back up at the vampire behind me. "This isn't the way to do it."

"Just proving a point," the unknown vampire, who is rubbing my upper arm with the hand of one arm that's wrapped around me. Either in a manner of comfort of seduction, I don't know, but either way, it's creeping me out. Sometimes a human girl could use some fangs of her own to sink into annoying unknown vamps. I gotta look into getting some from a Halloween store.

Jaden looks arrogant as he says, "And what lesson could you possibly teach me kid?"

Unknown vampire lets out an exasperated sound, "Isn't that obvious? That you can't protect her."

"So, you hired the retards?" Jaden asks, looking amused.

"No," says unknown vampire, who is STILL rubbing my upper arm in a consoling manner. "But, I knew it wouldn't be long until someone showed up for her. Now you see that you can't protect her. You need to send her away."

This is just so interesting. I have a feeling that Jaden has been keeping things from me. Why isn't he mind-f*cking this asshole and beheading him?

Jaden is finally starting to look upset, "If you weren't . . . who you are, then you'd be dead already, along with your friends." Jaden points to the head in the gutter.

I can feel the unknown vamp shrug behind me, "I just met them. No loss to me."

Jaden's facial expression changes from upset to menacing, "Let her go."

"I'm taking her out of town before it's too late." So says Mr. Unknown Vampire.

"Sorry, I'm not up for a road trip at the moment," I say, but am ignored by both of them.

"She doesn't want to go with you," Jaden growls, all fanged out at this point.

"We'll see about that," the unknown vampire growls back and grips my shoulders before spinning me around.

As I look up into his face, I think that I'm seeing things. I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again to the same image. Mason, my brother, with fangs poking out of his mouth.

That's when I do the most un-badass vampire hunter chick thing ever.

I faint like a b!tch.

JADEN'S POV:

As Catalina faints into Mason's arms, I dread the moment that she wakes up. Even though I just recently found out myself that Mason was not completely dead, she'll be upset that I didn't tell her right away. I guess I was hoping that he would go away.

Well, I did tell her, but couldn't stand seeing her so upset, so I sort of untold her. Erased the memory of me telling her. Unfortunately, Mason didn't go away and now she's had to find out again. The situation is a little worse now. A little more dramatic. Probably shouldn't have untold her in the first place.

Mason seems at a loss, "She fainted."

"Yeah, that tends to happen when people come back from the dead," I say sarcastically.

"I am dead," he mumbles. Obviously little baby vamp is feeling sorry for himself. I am not a vampire psychologist, so he'll just have to deal with his bloodsucker issues all on his own.

"Wah, wah," I say insincerely and walk over to him, taking Catalina out of his arms and jumping the five levels back up to the top ledge of the parking garage. I look down at him, where he's standing below, staring thoughtfully up at me. "Well, are you coming?"

I hear him say, "Prick," before making the jump himself and landing a little less gracefully than myself. I smirk at him and step off the ledge to walk across the cement ground and into the apartment building. Mason enters the elevator behind me and pushes the button to the top floor, where Catalina's penthouse is.

"Stalker," I tease him.

"Big brother," he replies self-righteously.

When we enter her apartment, I lay her down on a couch and stand back to look down at her. I sigh heavily and turn to face Mason. "Well, little vampire punk, what are you going to tell her when she wakes up?"

"I'm going to tell her that she's leaving town with me." Then he hastily adds, "For her own good."

"I'm good for her," I tell him. Glancing back down at my angel, whose eyelids are starting to flutter open.

Her eyes go wide and she gasps, "Mason!"

He kneels down beside her, "I'm right here, Catalina."

She looks at him with a mixture of shock and fear. I push him out of the way and pull her up so that she is in a sitting position, with me sitting beside her. As my arm wraps around her shoulders, I tell her. "Angel, it's okay. It's just Mason, your brother, nothing to be afraid of."

She looks at me in disbelief and dawning understanding, "Nothing to be afraid of?" She jumps off the couch and I make no move to stop her. She walks just a few feet away before spinning around, with her eyes shooting between me and her brother. She settles her gaze on me, "You knew he wasn't dead?"

I shift uncomfortable on the couch, "I just found out early this morning."

Her teeth are clenched, "And when were you going to inform me?"

I lean forward, with my forearms on my thighs, looking up at her apologetically, "I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to tell you." I glare at Mason, "But, obviously someone had other ideas."

I look back at her just in time to see her glance at Mason, shudder, then look back at me. Her face crumbles and she whispers, "Jaden, my brother is not dead. My brother is a vampire."

Immediately, I take her into my arms, "I know baby. It's okay."

She shrugs out of my embrace and I allow it again. She stomps over to Mason, tilts her face up to look up into his and asks, "So, are you a good vampire or a bad vampire?"

He rolls his eyes, "Seriously Catalina, are you still watching 'The Wizard of Oz' on a regular basis?"

"Answer the question," she demands, not in the mood to joke around.

She eyes her carefully, "I'm not that bad of a vampire, little sister. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here to protect you."

She raises her arms and pushes his chest. Her being a human and him being a vampire, he doesn't budge. She shrieks in outrage and yells in his face, "Where the hell have you been the past four years, I thought you were dead!"

"I am dead," Mason reminds her.

Not a good idea. She tells him, "Stay right there," then walks down the hallway, presumably to her bedroom.

Mason looks confused, "Where'd she go?"

I raise my eyebrows, "My guess would be her weapons drawer."

His mouth opens in shock, "Weapons drawer? She's not serious?"

I shrug nonchalantly, "She tried to kill me for two years. Has quite a temper. I wouldn't put it past her."

Less than five minutes later, Catalina reenters the room, strapped to the hilt with weapons. I think she emptied out the rest of the drawer. She has a silver samurai sword in one hand. She stalks over to her brother, placing the tip of it against his chest, where his heart is.

"Where the hell have you been the past four years, Mason?" Her face is calm, but her eyes show the anger that she's feeling.

"Why are you so mad at me, Catalina? Shouldn't you be happy that I'm not really, completely dead?"

"I'm mad because I mourned you along with mom and dad and you could have come to me at any time in the last four years to ease some of my pain, but you didn't. I'm mad because, if I don't hold on to my anger, then I'm going to completely lose it."

He looks compassionately at her, "I'm sorry Catalina. After it happened, I was in no shape to see you. I did a lot of bad things."

She nudges him with the tip and a spot of blood appears on his light blue t-shirt. "Are you still doing bad things?"

He glances at me, "I try very hard not to." He looks back at her, "What are you doing, chasing around vampires, trying to kill them, Catalina?"

She scoffs, "Trying? Mason, I DO kill them."

"It's too dangerous!" he says vehemently.

She waves her hand in my direction, flicking her fingers. "Don't worry big brother, I have my vampire guardian angel. Besides, he hardly lets me have any fun anymore."

Mason glares at me, "He can't protect you from what's coming."

Catalina looks at us both suspiciously, "What are you two not telling me?" As she does this, she whips the sword in my direction, "Jaden?"

"Well, obviously someone has sent both vampire and humans in an attempt to abduct you," I begin.

"Obviously," Catalina drags out the word sarcastically. "But, you took care of them Jaden."

"There's more coming," Mason interrupts. He throws a pointed look my way, "You would know that old man if you weren't too good to hang out with vampires."

"What are you talking about?" I ask him, annoyed that he has more knowledge on the threats to Catalina than I do.

"Word on the street," he uses a cliché that I despise, then continues, "is that anyone who can bring her in alive to the master of the city and his wife will receive a large reward and a place in their entourage.

Catalina gasps and her sword clatters to the ground, forgotten. I turn and walk away, towards the balcony. I don't want her to see me in my rage. "Jaden!" I hear her call after me, but I ignore her and step out onto the balcony, closing the sliding glass door behind me.

My parents have gone too far this time. I have no choice now. They've threatened Catalina. They have to die.

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April