"Speaking"
Thoughts or stressed words
Narration
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Hiro's POV
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Halloween.

A major national holiday in every child's mind around the world. It's that one time of year when the freaks can relatively appears normal and girls can be slutty as if it was their career.

To be honest, it's never been my favorite day. Why should I pretend to be a monster when I was a born as one? Never solely being a vampire or a werewolf; a hybrid has no place anywhere.

It was laughable how humans celebrated such vicious creatures of the night without realizing what their very neighbor might be with-keeping from the world.

Halloween has never been one of my favorite days out of the year...until now.

Currently, I am sitting in a dark lounge surrounded by conversing men draped with various prostitutes hanging off their bodies.

I would usually finish this kind of mission quickly, however this time, there was a significant change in my usual work pattern because of the addition of one particular thing. Or rather, one particular person.

Sitting casually in my lap was no other than my Amare. Unlike me, who's dressed in a comfortable button down-shirt and jeans, she was wearing a stunning and slightly-revealing black dress.

Of course, her beauty could never be ignored and had attracted the attention of damn near ever person in the room that had a Y chromosome.

I wrapped my arm around her waist and ever-slightly pulled her closer to my chest. Her narrowed gaze snapped to my one visible eye and silently sent a warning my way.

I merely gave her my classic smirk and responded with a nonchalant shrug, as if I didn't have a single care in the world.

She relaxed slowly and her even wrapped her arm delicately around the back of my neck to place her hand on my shoulder.

This would have been surprising any other time and place in the world if I didn't care to remember exactly where we were. What our purpose was.

I glanced over Amare for the nth time that evening and mindlessly rubbed my hand across her exposed upper thigh in a caressing manner.

Not like she would ever ask for comfort from anyone, but she also can't retaliate against me while we were in the field, so I'll take my wins when I can.

I shifted my gaze over to the man sitting across from us who was currently occupied with feasting on one of the many skimpily-dressed girls.

The girl was getting paler by the second but the man continued to literally suck the life out of her. Finally, once her heart beat no more did he dislodge his fangs from her rapidly cooling body.

"Now that, was tasty," he remarked. He turned towards us and gave a smile wide enough to show his sharp canines for the whole world to see.

He let go of the corpse and let it fall to the ground with a moderate thud. One of his underlings swiftly stepped in and carried the body somewhere to probably be disposed of.

"Now that I'm fed, let's get to business, shall we?"

I gave him an unimpressed expression and spoke with a tone as dead as his soul, "Yes, we shall."

This man, known only by the name of Akira, had been leading the biggest blood ring known in existence for more than a century.

The reason we hadn't gone after him sooner was because before now he never showed himself to the public. He always controlled things from the shadows of whatever hole he resided in.

Guess the prick is feeling confident is himself.

Akira's eyes slowly slid over Amare's body, appraising her, and made a big show of licking his lips with a hunger that I was all too familiar with.

He snapped his fingers and another one of his underlings roughly drug over a different young looking girl over to our cluster of chairs until she was directly in front of me.

"This is a new product that arrived just yesterday, so she's especially fresh. As you know, I only sell coveted merchandise, meaning she could be your reusable AB blood bag, if you purchased her at this very moment."

God, he sound like a 50s infomercial.

He once more raked his eyes over Amare and then cockily focused them back onto me.

"You know what? I'm feeling slightly... generous today. How about a trade? This blood bag for your little angel sitting right there? No extra payment needed."

I turned away from him and looked at Amare who was looking around the room as if she had no idea what was occurring right next to her. She suddenly perked up as if my silence had caught her attention.

She made eye contact with me and gave me her signature smirk since her back was facing Akira at that moment. Her eyes were saying, let's fucking end this, and I couldn't agree more.

Finally, I spoke up after about a minute of utter silence and passed, "The thing is, Akira, there isn't anything in this world that could make me hand over this little angel that's settled safely in my arms."

"I think you should reconsider. I'm not the type to ask nicely twice."

"Funny, 'cuz I'm not the type to give two fucks about niceties," I remarked smugly.

His expression quickly went blank and then a crazed smile crept onto his face.

"Well, that's just unfortunate, isn't it," he happily stated and then commanded his subordinates, "Take her."

Amare launched herself off of me and then swiftly pulled out one of her trademark guns. She crouched on the ground and coldly aimed her gun at his brainless goons before she rapidly fired, causing bodies to fall.

A shadowy figure zoomed towards her from behind and jumped as if to pounce on her. It didn't even have the time to protect its vital areas before my sword materialized and sliced easily through its neck.

I could feel my eyes began to glow and I stepped out of my fighting stance to stand upright again. Without looking, I felt Amare's back graze mine as she faced the opposite direction with her weapon prepared in front of her.

We were surrounded by what looked like a never-ending sea of enemies, but to us, it should have been considered nothing more than mere target practice.

I slightly turned my head to speak over my shoulder to Amare, "Let's see who can drop the most bodies in the next minute."

She made a small huff in what could be assumed as amusement and simply responded with, "Please, let's not even pretend that you could best me in any capacity."

We'll see.

Without any sort of warning, she once more pulled her trigger without hesitation into the crowd of underlings and I followed her example by slicing my way through a long line of people waiting to be killed.

Once the last vampire stopped withering, I glanced over towards Amare and unsurprisingly found her without a scratch.

Me, however, didn't fair so well. My shirt was clawed open and I had a few bloody scratches here and there.

A slow clap filled the deadly silent lounge and we both looked over to see that Akira had remained in his seat through the entire slaughter. He seemed even more fascinated by Amare after witnessing her skills.

"Beautiful! Just, beautiful! I wonder what else you are hiding within that gorgeous body of yours, my angel. I'm going to enjoy slowly and meticulously finding out what makes you tick so brilliantly."

I gave an exaggerated sigh and then lifted my blood-soaked sword to rest across the back of next.

My other hand unsuspiciously moved around to the back of my waist and grabbed for the object attached to my belt.

"While I would love to witness your pathetic attempts of capturing this one's attention, I've grown tired of this whole little affair of ours and believe it would be best for us to return home."

Without a second thought, I brought the small object up to my teeth and easily tugged the tiny pin free.

I lazily let go of the grenade and let it roll towards Akira's feet. Amare and I simultaneously turned our backs to him and bolted towards the balcony.

We jumped over the ledge just as we heard Akira scream, "You son of a bi-".

He never got to finish his insult as the anticipated explosion blasted the building to smithereens. We were fortunate that Akira's lounge was located right next to a river which we landed in soon after jumping.

I swam back to the surface and saw Amare already swimming back to land. I followed suit and sat on the ground while moving my wet hair out of my face.

We just sat in silence for a while until she uncharacteristically broke it.

"You know, I should be surprised you used a god damn grenade to terminate a target but then I would just be lying to myself."

She sighed as if my antics exhausted the hell out of her and turned her gaze towards me in an observing way. She then raised her hand to my cheek and carefully examined the shallow graze.

'Though, I am surprised you allowed yourself to be injured by those fuck ups."

I never responded out of fear that she would stop willingly touch me. After a few seconds of basking in her touch, I raised my right hand and softly held onto her small wrist.

"You know, Amare. If I didn't know any better, I would think you were concerned for my well-being."

She quickly snatched her hand out of my grip and unceremoniously stood up still dripping wet.

"Good thing you know better."

Without another word, she began to walk away to where our bikes were hidden so that we could return to base.

I remained on the ground for a little longer and watched her back as it grew more distant. After a minute had passed, I finally decided to make my way to where she was going and then slightly chuckled to myself.

I might just like Halloween after all.

Published 10/30/18
1.707 Words
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So...I wanted to make some sort of special to celebrate this story reaching 100K views but since I'm an utter fuck up and couldn't even do that properly, I figured Halloween would be a fitting theme to have for a special chapter, if anything. Either way, thank you to all my fans who have supported me since 2016 and making this into the unexpected success that it is today. I do hope that all those Hiro x 01 shippers out there enjoyed this little tidbit. I don't plan to write anything after this for this book unless it reaches an even higher view count, then we'll see I guess. Nonetheless, thank you, again, and I hope you all have a safe and happy Halloween.

- King