A/N:
Released on April 11, 2018

I hope you're ready for another long chapter, because here it is! XD

Word Count: 2763

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Chapter 18: To Hurt Or To Help

As I was about to round the corner of the building to save my friends, I ran into the second woman out of the hunters, who was in the middle of pulling out what looked like a cell phone to call for backup.

Fortunately, my eyes had dimmed back to their non vicious blue color, to keep up my charade if I needed to.

She dropped it with a gasp and immediately scooped it up, looking at me in a panic. "You need to get out of here! Why haven't you guys left yet, it's not safe for..." She trailed off when she saw the situation over my shoulder.

I had left one guy lying on the ground trapped in his nightmare, and the other three were passed out on the ground.

It might've been smart to move them out of sight, but I was in a hurry to get to my friends where I could smell vampire blood, which meant an injury.

"What is...?" The woman's attitude quickly changed before I could say a word. "Stop right there." She ordered as she pulled her gun from her holster.

I sighed in frustration, the smell of vampire blood getting stronger along with fear for Zane and Ash.

"Just go to sleep." I commanded forcefully in her head, going around her as she did what I told her.

I heard a clatter behind me and only paused to stomp on the phone like device the woman had dropped, shattering it with one hit.

A few more steps and I could see Zane and Ash kneeling in the alley, slightly hidden by a dumpster. "What happened?" I asked as I rushed over to them, not bothering to ask if they were okay because of the amount of blood spilled on the ground.

My eyes burned bright red once again when I saw that Ash was injured, a hand on his stomach to slow the blood flow. "I should've never left you guys alone." I whispered as I stared at the wound and the silver knife lying nearby.

"This was the only way we could win the fight, Alicia. We had to split up and you had to take out half of them before they realized it." Zane told me, grabbing onto my wrist to force my attention to him.

"If we attacked all of them when they arrived, all of us would've been seriously injured or dead." Zane assured me, but it didn't help when my gaze landed on Ash again.

"But it's silver." I said, my voice having hardly any volume. We both knew what I was implying, that Ash was going to die because the silver entered his bloodstream the moment the blade sliced through his skin.

"It's fine. I'm just glad you're okay." Ash said through gritted teeth.

"No, you're not allowed to do that." I demanded, angry at the whole situation. "You're not allowed to talk like you're dying. We're getting you some help."

"Alicia." Ash replied sternly, trying to get me to listen.

I shook my head, already forming a sort of plan. "No. I'll be right back. You stay here, conscious and ready to get better, alright?"

I took off before he could reply, racing around the corner to where I left the woman sleeping. "Wake up, right now." I ordered, already pulling her to her feet.

As soon as her eyes opened, I had to stop her from freaking out, but I decided not to push it with my telepathy. "Tell me how to stop silver poisoning."

She recovered from her impromptu sleep quicker than I thought, proceeding to stomp on my foot so I'd let her go.

But apparently, she forgot that she dropped her gun, so she wasted her few extra moments reaching for it where it previously was in her holster.

While she did that, I used my inhuman speed to locate the gun on the ground, kick it away too far from reach, and grab her by the arm so she couldn't get away.

"Do I need to repeat myself?" I asked her harshly, squeezing her arm to make her more uncomfortable.

"If it entered the bloodstream, silver kills vampires." The woman informed me.

"I know that." I hissed out, my fangs elongating in response to the heat of my red eyes and my fury at her for telling me that my friend was dying.

"I know you have a cure." I added the lie to get her to talk. What else was I supposed to do?

"We have no such thing." The woman lied with a straight face, but a light stutter of her heart gave her away. She obviously could control her heartbeat better than most, but no one could control their heart completely.

I didn't bother pointing out that I heard the flat out lie because I was sure that she knew that already.

"Kill me if you wish, you filthy bloodsucker. I don't know how you fooled us, but your kind will be put out of existence soon enough. Evil cannot prevail." The woman spit out hatefully.

"You came after me and my friends!" I hissed defensively, furious that she called us evil when I've never done anything remotely evil in my life.

I spun her around so she could see the destruction I left behind me. Okay, that might've been evil. The whole nightmare thing might've been going too far, but before that I had never done anything evil.

"See that man over there? I'm sure you know that's one of your partners." I pointed to the one who was whimpering on the ground, curled in a ball.

If she thought I was evil, I would play the part to get what I needed to save Ash's undead life.

"What did you do to him?" She asked in horror, seeing him act like a frightened child as he looked around blindly and rocked back and forth.

"If you don't tell me where I can get the cure, I could kill you or make you suffer through that." I told her, watching her eyes widen.

I could barely stand to watch what I had done to the guy who was stuck in his own fears. I couldn't even remember what those fears were, and I felt awful for it. So I decided to change my perspective and maybe change the woman's as well. But first, I had to help that guy.

I focused on the scared man for a moment, remembering that I had brought his deepest fears forward in his brain, which was why he was stuck in that. With my telepathic power, it caused him to be trapped and unable to escape.

So I reversed it as quickly as I could, then commanded him to pretend he was still stuck on the nightmare. He continued making fearful noises and rocking, but he no longer saw the nightmares. He just automatically did as I told him to, not knowing the reason why.

"Or maybe I won't do either because I've never killed anyone and I didn't mean to do that to him. Maybe some vampires were turned against their will and aren't evil." I suggested to the woman with a tint of rage still in my tone.

But I also took a breath to concentrate on turning my eyes back to blue so that I could seem more human again in her eyes.

"Oh yeah? Then why did you hurt them? And why don't you let me go?" The woman countered, eyes narrowed suspiciously at me.

I didn't think I could convince a vampire hunter to trust a vampire, but I might've been able to plant a seed of doubt in her head, in the area of her brain that said all vampires were evil.

"The people on the ground are sleeping, just like you were a few minutes ago. And I can't let you go just yet because I have a dying friend behind that building and I need you to fix that!" I yelled at her, shaking her arm again.

"I could undo what happened to him and leave you both unharmed, after you tell me where the cure is." I offered, thinking it was a deal she couldn't refuse, especially since she didn't know that I had already reversed what I did.

The guy suddenly flailed his arms as if to get away from something, and I silently applauded his performance before my gaze turned to the woman again. I could tell by her face that she was going to comply.

"Fine. The cure is in the second SUV. We keep it around for when we need to keep a vampire prisoner alive for questioning, which isn't often." She informed me bitterly.

"What does it look like? I'm not letting you get it." I said, just as suspicious of her as she was of me.

She pursed her lips, debating on whether to tell me, and I concluded that I didn't have time for that.

I took a quick peek at her thoughts and could see it in her head. The cure was a syringe in a little pouch, which could be found in a briefcase labeled silver. How convenient.

"Never mind." I told her and promptly used my telepathy to put her to sleep again, doing the same to the guy after making him stop his acting.

I ripped the door off the SUV in a hurry, finding my target easily among the assorted weapons meant to kill vampires. I tried not to focus on that as I opened it up. To my surprise, it was filled with pouches of the cure.

I closed the briefcase and took it with me, running back to Zane and Ash with the cures for silver poisoning.

Zane stared at the briefcase in my hand wearily. "What's that?"

I sat on the ground on the right side of Ash, whereas Zane was on the left side, and I ripped the lock off with minimal effort to show the contents of the briefcase.

"If I wasn't lied to, and I'm sure I wasn't, then this is the cure for vampires who have been poisoned by silver." I informed him confidently.

"Seriously?" Zane exclaimed, having doubted my ability to find help because it was unlikely.

We both thought Ash was going to die. The difference was that I wasn't going to let that happen, as long as I could help it. Zane seemed to have given up hope of my friend's survival as soon as he saw the wound was caused by silver.

I glared at him in answer, not having time to talk while I grabbed a pouch. Ash let out a short laugh, probably relieved to find out that he was going to survive.

After extracting the needle, I hesitated for the first time since I saw Ash bleeding out. "Um... Zane, which vein do I use?" I questioned uncertainly.

"Go with the neck. I'm pretty sure it's the biggest vein." He replied as Ash became silent while staring at the needle.

I could've imagined it, but Ash looked more pale than ever before.

"Are you pretty sure, or are you 100% sure?" I asked, worried by his word choice.

"Just do it, before he bleeds out completely!" Zane snapped in exasperation.

I turned to Ash, remembering how urgent the situation was, and located one of the veins in his neck. Feeling slightly squeamish because of the long needle, I attempted to focus so as not to hit an artery.

As I concentrated on the needle getting closer to Ash's skin, my heightened senses kicked in. The smell of blood was strong, but not overwhelming because it was vampire and not human blood.

I could hear the eight hearts pumping blood through the hunter's bodies near us, and I know if I tried, I could hear the other four hearts of the remaining hunters out by the cars.

Then I realized that I was somehow sensing exactly where to stick the shot, able to clearly see the perfect spot in his vein.

"Vampire skin is harder to pierce than human skin, so be careful." Zane added just as I was about to go for it.

"Thanks, but I've never given anyone a shot, so that doesn't really help." I remarked, annoyed over the amount of stress I'm feeling.

"Can you at least pretend to know what you're doing?" Ash complained from his slumped position against the wall.

"Surprisingly, I do know what I'm doing. So both of you, relax." I responded. As soon as Ash relaxed again, even though he was clearly still in pain, I plunged the needle into the designated spot in his vein.

I pushed down lightly on the syringe so that the liquid entered his bloodstream to battle the silver, in one way or another.

I hadn't stopped to ask the hunter how the cure worked while trying to get it to my dying friend.

I pulled the needle out of his neck and put it back in the little pouch, then I handed it to Zane to dispose.

"Now what do we do with the unconscious hunters?" I inquired, glancing around the alley. We had managed to take them out without too much spilled blood.

The few people lying around hadn't moved yet, but they might wake up soon... Then I realized that there were only a few people in view. My gaze flickered around, only counting five hunters.

Not counting the five people I made go to sleep, there should've been seven hunters.

"I only count five out of seven hunters here." I told Zane in his mind, not wanting Ash to worry about it.

"Two are missing?" Zane sent the thought back immediately, catching onto what I implied.

"Maybe we should kill all of the them." I mused aloud, getting glares from Zane and Ash.

"What? You've never killed anyone in your life! Why would you even suggest that?" Ash exclaimed angrily, knowing it was not my normal behavior.

My hearing picked up the sound of two heartbeats rising the moment I spoke, meaning that my plan had worked.

"I would say that to get two certain people who are hiding to come out." I informed him as I used my super speed to appear in front of the hunters.

But to my surprise, Zane knocked me out of the way of two guns aimed at me. Apparently, the hunters had prepared to attack the moment I said we should kill everyone, and I didn't hear the movement over Ash's words.

The hunters were either extremely dedicated or extremely stupid. Any other vampires would've murdered them all, but we had planned to spare them.

The momentum Zane created by getting us out of the way of gunfire sent us stumbling a few feet, which gave the two guys enough time to turn their guns on us.

When I turned my head and saw that we would be too late trying to attack them, I knew I had to use my mind instead of my fists because it was faster than any other action.

Zane let out an outraged roar and charged forward, even though it was obvious he'd be hit by bullets, just as I took hold of the hunter's minds.

"Guns up! Fire at the sky." I ordered with as much telepathic strength as I could muster.

They did as told, just in time, but Zane followed through with his attack. He turned to the guy on the left with a fury I hadn't seen in a while, one that I saw in Ash before.

Zane's left fist swung at the hunter while his right hand grabbed the guy's gun from his hands. Blood splattered from his mouth when the fist made contact. The hunter fell to the ground in complete silence, knocked out cold.

Zane paid no attention to him, moving faster than I'd ever seen a vampire move. An animalistic roar came from him as he jammed the stolen gun into the chest of the second hunter.

I swore I heard bone cracking as the guy screamed. Zane shoved him into the wall, turning to me with the coldest stare I'd ever seen on him.

And that was saying a lot, considering I knew him for part of the time he had played evil for Storm.

Zane blinked and suddenly he was back to normal. I convinced myself that I must've imagined that look. But I couldn't have imagined the brutality with which he had handled the two hunters.