Hunting

Caleb regained consciousness while lying on the couch and immediately lurched into an animated state. The sound of his heartbeat pounded in his ears. "Don't leave me behind!" he shouted as he sat bolt upright.

Paige suddenly appeared at his side, perching on the edge of the couch. Her right arm stretched across to the back cushion before him in a corralling fashion. "Whoa, tiger," she crooned. "They're already long gone."

"Damn it!" he cursed.

She smiled supportively. "You may not believe it yet, but you're a hell of a lot safer in here with me than you'd be out there with them."

He didn't want to believe that at the moment. All that mattered was they had left without him, left him behind. "I just want to help somehow," he lamented. "I know I'm not much of a threat to a vampire, but I could've done something useful."

"Listen, don't take this the wrong way," she said matter-of-factly, "but if you had gone along, they would've spent more time looking after you than they would hunting Chimalma. As it stands now, they can concentrate fully on what needs to be done."

"Yeah, sure," he sighed with exasperation. Maybe Paige is correct, he considered. At least, it sounds logical. However, it still didn't change how he felt about the matter. His eyes focused on the pale arm before him barring his way.

Paige narrowed her eyes and regarded him warily. "Are you going to play nicely?" she asked.

His pale blue eyes darted to her deep blue ones with a degree of surprise at her question. It was similar to a recent comment made by Katrina.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Do all vampires ask that?" he demanded irritably. "Seems like I've heard that a lot lately."

Surprise and curiosity showed simultaneously on Paige's face as she slowly removed her arm, allowing him to sit up. The vampire considered him for a quiet moment with a peculiar expression. "Listen," she offered in a cordial tone, "Katrina asked me to keep an eye on the surveillance system in her room. That's where you've been staying, but I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable or anything. And since you're already packed..."

It made sense that Paige might want to stay where she was close to the computer and monitoring equipment. "Oh, sure," he responded casually. "Yeah, I can move my things into another bedroom." He recalled the smaller bedroom at the top of the stairs where he and Katrina shared their most recent, and hopefully not last, intimate time together. "I'll move into the one at the top of the stairs," he offered. "Of course, if it's okay with you."

"Sure, that's fine," she agreed with a slight nod as she moved to let him stand up.

He rolled upright, rose, and realized that his belongings still sat in a suitcase in the middle of the floor. The final minutes before his blackout replayed in his mind as he ran one hand over his scalp and through his hair.

"Caleb," Paige gently prompted.

He turned to her, once again marveling at how she looked like a young college student from one of his history classes, barely old enough to be called an adult, though not much younger-looking than himself in reality.

"I don't know you very well, and I'd like to avoid any misunderstandings between us," she explained carefully. "So, I'm here if you want to talk about anything, okay?"

"I understand," he replied congenially. "And thanks. That's very kind." He quietly moved to take his suitcase upstairs with a somber expression.

"Yeah, I can see we're going to have a barn burner of a time," Paige muttered under her breath as he left the room with suitcase in tow.

* * *

Alton drove himself and Katrina across the darkened city of Atlanta to the four-story, modern-looking structure that housed the Corporate Research Enterprises office. Upon their arrival, the nearly empty parking lot suggested that most of the building's offices were closed.

Alton parked their car at the rear of the building, where the only other vehicle was a cleaning service van. He and Katrina exited the vehicle wearing long black winter coats and black leather gloves. Alton reached into the back seat and withdrew a small black briefcase, which he laid on the trunk to open. He removed a small plastic-encased device and slipped it into his coat pocket. Placing the briefcase back in the car, the two of them proceeded to the building's service entrance.

The night air was crisp as a cold front entered the city from the northwest, and Katrina took a moment to appreciate the feel of the cool breeze against her pale skin. She felt her senses sharpening and honing their sensitivity and was especially happy to be in the field actively doing something rather than just sitting and waiting. She momentarily considered how truly desperate Caleb was to escape his own in-house captivity. Still, she felt better knowing that he was tucked away safely with Paige.

"Cameras?" she asked while scanning the area for the second time since their arrival.

"None on the exterior," he noted. "But there will likely be some inside."

Alton reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the plastic case with lights and a few small buttons on it. He began pressing buttons until two green lights on the device lit up. "This will jam all electronics when we enter," he stated quietly. "That should take care of alarms and camera systems. But because of the power consumption, we'll only have about ten minutes before the battery goes dead."

She quickly glanced at the device and asked, "Where did you get that?"

He smiled and muttered, "British intelligence toy. Somebody owed me a favor."

Her eyebrow shot up, and she adopted an impressed expression. His device is going to make things much easier.

They entered the building, and, as expected, there was nobody around. They avoided the elevator and made their way to the stairwell. It took only a few seconds to race up to the fourth floor, where they exited into the main corridor. The offices on the floor appeared to be closed already, and they heard no activities from within any offices they passed.

They arrived outside Room 404 and noted the company sign for CRE was still on the plaque. Katrina tried the door handle and to no surprise found it to be locked. Alton reached into his pocket and pulled out some lock picks, but she held up her hand.

"We don't have time," she noted before stepping back and swiftly kicking the door near the locked door handle. The lock broke away as the door slammed inwards and open. He shut his eyes tightly at the momentary crashing sound.

"Are you going to kick in all the doors we run into?" he asked sharply.

Katrina scowled. "Only the ones that get in my way."

Alton shook his head, but followed her into the dark offices. The lack of lighting was no problem for the vampires, though there wasn't much to see really. The furniture was bare, and only a few empty cardboard boxes remained in the area. Katrina walked into Chimalma's office and scanned the room. She noted the two chairs placed in front of the desk and imagined Caleb sitting in one of them as he interviewed for the supposed part-time position not long ago. It was a rather elaborate ruse to get Caleb closer to them until Chimalma was ready to spring a trap. I'm so grateful that they didn't kill him once he was here. The mere thought repulsed her.

Katrina gritted her teeth angrily as she shuffled through the abandoned desk and nearby filing cabinets. She found nothing of interest remaining related to either CRE or Alondra Vargas.

"Well, it was a long shot," Alton muttered.

"Agreed," she stated before turning to depart the office.

He pulled the door to on their way out, although its damaged lock mechanism failed to hold the door shut. "What next?" he whispered under his breath so only she would hear him.

"Follow the money trail," she muttered. "She'll have to purchase something either where she's at or where she's going next." Somehow I'm going to find her, Katrina vowed.

Alton made an agreeable grunting sound as they reentered the stairwell and sped downstairs to the ground floor. They failed to notice anyone in the building, except for a janitor inside one of the supply closets gathering his tools and supplies. The janitor was oblivious to either of the vampire's presence. Seconds later, they were walking outside.

"Finances are your bailiwick," Katrina announced while entering the passenger side of the vehicle.

"Of course," Alton agreed brightly. "And I happen to have a contact at Interpol who can help us."

* * *

Caleb unpacked his suitcase, placing his clothes in the guest room dresser and storing his toiletries in the adjoining bathroom. He felt somber and tired, but most of all lost. What do I do now?

"This must be what it feels like when a spouse goes to off to war and leaves the other behind," he mused darkly while perched on the edge of the bed. The minutes seemed to last forever as he sat in virtual limbo.

He heard a light tapping noise and looked up to see Paige leaning against the door jamb looking thoughtful.

"You don't know what to do next, do you?" she ventured softly.

"No, not really," he replied glumly. This is the most useless I've felt in a long time.

"Now, we get to do the hard part. We wait," she replied soberly. "They'll check in regularly to let us know how things are progressing. In the meantime, we keep you safely occupied and as happy as possible."

He adopted a wry expression. Safely occupied and happy as possible, he thought. "Yeah? Like what?" he asked aloud, not necessarily directing his question to Paige.

"We need some 'getting to know you' time, I think," she suggested.

"Okay," he replied absently, if only for the sake of something to do. "You start." His thoughts were still focused on Alton's and Katrina's departure, but he didn't want to get on a bad foot with Paige. Being locked in a house with a hostile vampire wasn't an enviable prospect.

"So," she began with a charming smile, "have you memorized all of Katrina's rules yet?"

He looked up with surprise. "You know about the rules?"

"Of course, silly," she chuckled. "I lived with her for quite a few years. We've talked about her partners in the past. I'll admit she has quite a few rules compared to other vampires."

"There's normally fewer?" he inquired.

She looked at him sharply. "Yes, but that's not important to you, Caleb," she clarified tactfully. "What matters is that you learn and follow her rules."

He rolled his eyes.

"So," she continued while sitting next to him on the bed, "you've memorized them then?"

"Um, I'm working on that," he hedged.

"When you can recite them backwards, she'll be much easier to live with," Paige mused thoughtfully.

"You had to learn them?" he inquired.

"Me?" she asked. "My only rule is not revealing the true nature of our kind to humans."

"Great," he groaned. "I feel like I'm in grade school again with these rules."

"You have to realize it's hard for us to trust you humans," she explained diplomatically. "Our anonymity is all we have to protect us from the danger humanity poses to us."

"I suppose I can understand that," he conceded. "My initial reaction to her secret wasn't exactly noble."

She giggled as if remembering something funny. "Oh yeah, the tree branch guy."

Caleb turned what seemed like three shades of red simultaneously and felt the heat quickly rise to his face. "I see my storied reputation spread fast."

"Yep, old Tree Branch Caleb," she said grandly in her best southern drawl. "That's how you're known in these parts."

"Great," he said wryly. "Just great." It wasn't the proudest moment in my brief history with Kat, he admitted.

She grinned at his reaction before adopting a more sympathetic expression. "I'm sorry about teasing you. She actually thinks it's pretty amusing now," she said. "I can tell she adores you, Caleb."

His thoughts went immediately to Katrina. He worried for her safety and wished she hadn't left him behind. Trapped in a grand-sized box, complete with closed lid and all the amenities.

Paige seemed to detect where his feelings were going and reached across the short distance between them to pat him on the back lightly.

"I could've helped her," he muttered dejectedly. "I can go out in the daylight when vampires can't, for example."

She raised one eyebrow and granted, "That's helpful, I admit."

"And before you arrived, Katrina drilled me in some potentially handy martial arts moves," he added optimistically.

Her smirk faded as she withdrew her hand from his back and chastised, "Okay, now you're just being delusional. A few 'moves' doesn't make you combat-ready."

Caleb held up his hand in an apologetic gesture. "Fine, I'm saying I'm not in bad shape, that's all."

Paige adopted an incredulous visage. "And I thought you were actually smarter than the average guy. Listen champ, you may think you're in pretty good shape, but you're no match for us on your best day. Any one of us would wipe the floor with you. Trust me."

He considered her thoughtfully as he stared into her blue eyes. It was difficult to envision her as overtly dangerous.

"You humans are far more fragile than you think when it comes to us," she insisted.

He recalled being sore for days after being tossed around by Katrina that evening in the park. "She did throw me around like a rag doll the night of the branch incident," he reminisced.

"And I bet she wasn't even trying to kill you," Paige ventured with a grin.

"It sure felt like it at the time," he muttered, wide-eyed.

She was introspective as if deciding what to say next, or how best to say it. "Katrina's like a sister to me, and I respect her probably more than you realize," she began slowly. "And I can tell you that she wouldn't go to this much trouble if you didn't matter a great deal to her. You and I both know she loves you, kiddo."

A warm feeling passed over him, and he started to smile.

She grinned at him as if reading something in his expression. "And I'm willing to bet you care enough about her to trust her to have your best interests at heart," she ventured quietly.

He nodded and smiled back wanly. Yes, I trust Katrina and feel deep appreciation for what she's doing to protect me. I just yearn to be with her, maybe try and help her somehow. Instead, I'm left to sit around and hope that I have enough patience to make it through the waiting and worrying part.

* * *

Katrina and Alton checked into a hotel on the outskirts of Atlanta. They needed a temporary base of operations until determining Chimalma's location. Rather than returning to the estate and further agitating Caleb, the hotel allowed them immediate mobility to act or relocate as warranted. Once settled in the room, Katrina's thoughts immediately turned to her mate. She dialed her cell phone and only waited two rings before Paige picked up. After giving her a brief update, she asked about Caleb.

"Just as you predicted, he was irritable initially, but he's doing much better now," Paige reported in an upbeat tone.

"Where is he now?" Katrina asked.

"He's in the shower in a guest room upstairs," Paige explained. "He's sleeping there while I'm in the sublevel. Do you want to chat with him?"

Katrina considered it and declined, "No, it's probably better if I don't just yet. He'll likely still be upset with me for leaving him. Just tell him that we checked in and are working on tracking Chimalma further. We'll call when we know more."

Paige paused, prompting, "And?"

Katrina sighed and added, "Tell him that I love him, Paige." She could almost hear Paige grinning on the other end of the phone.

"Now, that's what I'm getting at," she responded brightly.

Katrina shook her head with a smirk and instructed, "Say goodbye, Paige."

"Goodbye, Paige," the spritely vampire replied before hanging up.

Alton walked in from one of the two bedrooms asking, "Why do I feel like we're two parents who just left the teenagers in charge of the house while we're gone?"

Katrina chuckled. "Good thing that one of the teenagers is a vampire."

He nodded agreeably as he powered up his laptop on a nearby table.

* * *

The first night without Katrina was difficult for Caleb. After his shower, he received an update from Paige on Katrina's phone call. She spent the evening sitting in front of the computers and security surveillance system in Katrina's lair, leaving him the main part of the house to himself. He lay on the main living room couch watching television until nearly 1 am before making his way up to the guest room.

Once asleep, he had restless dreams that eventually turned into a nightmare. Katrina and he happily strolled though a moonlit night at one of Georgia's numerous Civil War battlefield parks. One moment they were walking hand in hand, and the next Katrina disappeared. He called her name while running through dense trees, across battlefield cannon emplacements, around old stockade fencing, and across open stretches of grassy fields. But his voice was barely a whisper even though he yelled at the top of his lungs.

He finally heard snarling and growling sounds and made his way towards the source. Upon entering an eerie-looking graveyard among a copse of thick pine trees, he saw Katrina facing off against Chimalma. Both looked fierce, and their eyes were ablaze with fury. He noticed that each combatant had a set of jagged claw-like fingernails, which were dripping blood. By the moonlight, he saw dark stripes covering the clothes of each woman. Those have to be blood streaks, he realized.

Katrina's face turned towards him, and she hissed. In that same moment, Chimalma's right hand darted out and plunged into Katrina's rib cage. With one swift, terrifying movement, Chimalma's hand exited Katrina holding her still-beating heart while blood dripped thickly to the ground. The Aztec-descended vampire screamed in exaltation. Katrina's eyes flashed and went dark as her body slumped lifelessly to the ground. He was stunned, and watched with horror while shouting, "Katrina! No! No!"

Then there was nothing.

He awoke in nearly total darkness, the only light emitting from the dimly glowing numerals of a digital clock sitting atop the dresser across the room. He was breathing in short gasps and broke out in a cold sweat. "Oh God," he muttered, putting one hand to his forehead while propping himself in a sitting position with the other arm.

Seconds later, the door to the bedroom swung open, and Paige was at his bedside. He felt a brief rush of air wash against his slightly damp face as her bright blue eyes illuminated in the darkness.

"Are you okay, kiddo?" she asked with her cool palm pressed soothingly to the side of his face.

"Yeah," he breathed. "Just a nightmare."

"Wow, you really broke out in a sweat," she remarked absently. "Want to talk about it? I heard you shout Katrina's name."

He nodded in the darkness and began to recount the brief nightmare as Paige turned on the small lamp on the nightstand. It didn't take long for comprehension to dawn on both their faces.

"Well, I don't have to be a dream therapist for that one," she noted sagely.

"Yeah," he remarked darkly. "Keep your useless butt at home so you don't distract Katrina and get her killed."

"It's probably best," Paige agreed. "But she knows how badly you want to be there with her. It means a lot to her, Caleb."

He nodded and slipped over the opposite side of the bed. He was thankful for having put on a pair of men's pajama pants earlier as he walked towards the adjoining bathroom. He needed to towel off and didn't want to parade around naked in front of her.

"Nice-looking useless butt you've got there," she nevertheless teased while observing his lean, shirtless figure.

He grinned and felt a growing appreciation for her company. But his thoughts quickly turned back to Katrina, and he prayed that everything would turn out completely differently from his nightmare.

* * *

It was mid-afternoon the following day as Katrina and Alton stayed safely behind the dark curtains of their hotel room that the first major break occurred in their hunt for Chimalma. Alton used his laptop while Katrina reclined on the room's sofa drinking blood from a hotel glass. She had brought a lockable cooler with packets of blood.

"Chimalma made her first mistake," he observed with satisfaction.

She sneered and countered darkly, "Her first mistake was coming after Caleb and me."

He ignored her and continued, "She must be using disposable cell phones to avoid being traced. But she's also still trying to run a small international company. My Interpol contact acquired her corporate cell phone records, and guess what?"

Her interest was piqued, and she listened closely to her friend and mentor.

Alton noted her focused attention with a grin. "She's still accepting calls on the corporate cell phone she carries," he added with satisfaction. "I've got her latest location from the coordinates forwarded to me."

"Just how did you get Interpol to help us?" she asked.

He smiled. "Simple. Chimalma's crimes qualify her as either a serial killer or domestic terrorist."

"Hm, helpful," she admired. "Would there be someone of interest there, as well?"

"Perhaps," he replied with a smirk. "But I'm not quite ready to say just yet."

"I'm happy for you," she offered sincerely.

Alton continued to smile as he retrieved a satellite image, which he zoomed in on progressively. It was of an area near Warren, Pennsylvania, in the far northwestern corner of the state close to the southern border of New York. He brought up MapQuest and focused on the city of Warren. Katrina appeared at his shoulder to peer intently at the screen.

"Why there?" she asked as her mind began organizing information and assessing variables.

"It's only a small town, barely eleven thousand people as of the last census," he noted as he searched the Internet for additional information. "Established in 1796, its main claims to fame were oil and lumber. The town went through hard economic times, with only a few companies serving as primary employers. But look." He pointed to the screen.

"CRE has a small corporate retreat just outside of town," Katrina observed.

"Great location," he mused. "Lots of forest and hills and very few people."

"But why there?" she insisted with a frown. "She's hiding from us? That doesn't make sense."

Alton murmured his agreement. "Unless she wants us there. In which case, she's picking the battle ground."

Katrina scowled. "Fine with me."

"Okay, destination known. Now what's our plan, besides you tearing her to shreds?" he asked pointedly.

She glared at him, but admitted that he was correct. Her anger would only be useful if channeled properly. "I see explosives in her future," she said coldly.

"Quite an extreme attention grabber, don't you think?" Alton queried. "Perhaps a simple beheading would be better and far less dramatic?"

"Immolation eliminates evidence," Katrina countered.

"Are you suggesting we blow up a lodge full of potentially innocent people?" he insisted incredulously. "That's pretty bloodthirsty, even for you."

She gave him a withering expression and snapped, "Of course not. Rather, we set up a kill zone near her and draw, or drag, her into it."

He considered the idea and conceded, "Hm, seems plausible and direct. If you'll arrange for a charter flight, I'll make a few calls to some contacts that can help outfit us with helpful tools."

"We'll need a place to stay affording both privacy and some degree of safety from sunlight," she added.

Alton searched the Internet further as Katrina retrieved information related to corporate charter flights from a folder in her luggage. She had used Sunset Air a number of times. The company was owned by a fellow vampire and was well-known among her kind for both its discretion and safe, reliable service.

"Got it," Alton said. "There are cabins not far from the town of Warren. I'll reserve one for us."

"Fine," she warned. "But we're picking up some dark sheets and duct tape somewhere because I'm not about to spend the day with you hiding from sun rays in a cramped cabin closet."

He chuckled and shook his head.

* * *

It was early evening already, though it felt to Caleb that time had practically stopped. He spent most of the day reading a biography on Theodore Roosevelt that he had brought from his apartment. Later that afternoon, he had talked Paige into connecting his laptop to the Internet long enough for him to update his video drivers so he could play a computer game he'd tried loading a few days prior. However, she was attentive to his activities, and once he was finished, she disabled the wireless access in the house, much to his chagrin. Still, it allowed him to pass a few hours getting lost in the game. However, he felt guilty for being able to sit casually playing while Katrina and Alton did all of the dangerous work on his behalf. Once again, I feel useless, he fumed.

Paige showered, changed into some black cotton lounge pants and a baby blue T-shirt, and sat barefooted at the computer hutch in Katrina's sublevel room. Caleb made his way down the steps and plopped down on the nearby bed. He was going stir-crazy and was prepared to do just about anything to get out of the house, even if it were just for a few minutes. He couldn't recall a time in his past when he had endured the kind of isolation that he was experiencing.

"Hey, any chance I could talk you into deactivating the front door code for about ten minutes?" he asked in a pleasant, innocent voice.

She smiled politely. "I seem to recall Katrina's saying something along the lines of 'Caleb stays inside the house, period.'"

He glanced at her with a speculative expression, hoping she wouldn't notice. Much to his chagrin, she did.

"Come on, just a brief evening walk?" he pleaded hopefully. "I'll only walk to the end of the driveway and back. That's all. You can go along with me for protection, if you like."

She smiled. "Well, sure. I can do that."

He gave her his best appreciative-looking smile.

"But it's going to be awful hard for you to take that walk with two broken legs," she amended with narrowed eyes and flat voice.

His eyes widened momentarily with surprise, and his smile disappeared entirely.

She shrugged. "I have my orders, and they don't include either of us leaving the house."

He folded his arms across his chest and sighed derisively.

"For any reason," she said forcefully with a raised eyebrow. "Remember, nobody's supposed to know I'm even here."

"Paige, please," he pleaded in an urgent voice. "I'm going stir-crazy in here."

"I sympathize with you Caleb. I really do," she said. "But it's for your own safety, after all."

"Listen, I've never felt so bored and useless in my life," he complained.

She regarded him coolly before smiling back at him. "Well, we better find something for us to do then."

That caught him off-guard. "Like what?" he asked carefully.

She grinned menacingly. "You could show me some of those handy vampire combat moves that you said you learned from Katrina!"

He gave her a dirty look as she walked past him with a smirk over to the nearby sitting area to turn on the wall-mounted television. "You're just plain sarcastic. You know that, don't you?" he called after her irritably. She seems to enjoy toying with me, he noted irritably.

Paige forced a laugh. "Be nice. Don't make me stand you in the corner."

He hurried to the couch and found her already lounging on the cushions methodically surfing through cable channels. She didn't even glance up as he glared at her over the back cushion.

"Oh, really? Stand me in the corner?" he pressed with a hint of incredulity.

"Well, despite my appearance, I'm a lot older than you," she ventured. "And you're only in your mid-twenties as a human, so I guess that makes you the spoiled youngster here."

He folded his arms before him and asked, "That so? Well, just how old are you then?"

"My vampire life?" she asked. "Oh, I'm around the century mark now."

He hadn't expected her to be quite that old. Her youthful appearance and manner led him to believe she might have only been a vampire for a short time. "A century?"

To him, she seemed like a peer, someone he could have known through college. She had a very modern attitude for someone from her time period if she were truly a century old. "I'm finding that hard to believe," he muttered while taking a seat in an open spot at the end of the couch near her pale feet.

Paige ignored him and continued to channel surf.

"You're so...modern," he added, grasping for the right word.

She glanced at him curiously, considering him at length. "Really," she replied thoughtfully. "Well, you apparently don't know much about the early 1900s then. It was a wild time, not much different from today really, other than the technology."

He felt the history teacher persona rising in him to take over. "My specialty is really more the pre-twentieth century, but my impression is everyone was much more conservative in the early 1900s compared to today," he ventured.

A smirk formed on her face and she corrected him, "Ah, that may have been true in some of the small towns or as reflected in public photographs, but I can tell you that people in the cities threw some really good parties behind closed doors in those days." Her eyes grew distant, as if she were seeing another time. "Oh yeah, some really wild parties behind closed doors, especially in the 1920s. We did things that would put even cable TV shows to shame. You see, people aren't all that different, really, just the facades of what they want to show outwardly."

"Well, but there was barely women's suffrage," he countered.

"Women's suffrage," she scoffed. "I'm talking about the essence of what makes men and women tick inside, Caleb. The emotions, the passions, the sex!"

He blushed slightly, which she regarded with a grin.

"Oh yeah, that's right," she teased. "You're the history professor. Well, take it from me, professor, it's one thing to read about it and another thing to live it."

Her statement struck him like a cold splash of water to his face. It was a pretty good response, he admitted and noticed how very different Paige seemed from Katrina.

She observed his expression out of the corner of her eye while changing the channel to a romantic comedy. "So, spill," she insisted simply.

Spill? He shook his head at her strange term and offered, "You're just so different from Katrina, that's all. You're a lot less serious, for example."

She paused while staring at the television, as though not fully focused on the movie before her. She cast him a sober expression. "Katrina's serious for a reason. I'm pretty young as a member of my kind. You don't survive as long as Katrina or Alton without time and events taking some toll on you, I think. So, I may not be like I am now when I'm their age," she explained. "That is, if I make it to their age."

"What do you mean by that?" he asked.

She considered her words carefully as he patiently waited.

"Before Katrina left, she warned me," Paige said while staring into Caleb's eyes. "She told me not to leave the house if at all possible. She said that Chimalma is very old and powerful for a vampire because of how long she's been honing her skills. And if Chimalma manages to elude Alton and Katrina somehow...well, we don't want to confront her out in the open."

"But you're a vampire too," he countered.

"I'm a teenager among my kind," she explained in a quiet voice. "Chimalma, Katrina, and Alton, they're serious adults, the veterans."

He frowned at her ominous tone and everything implied in her explanation.

She noticed his reaction and offered a hopeful smile. "But hey, I'm a tough teenager," she reassured him. "I've never lost any kids on my watch."

Caleb rolled his eyes with a smirk, and she giggled at his reaction.

"So, I wonder know how old Katrina is in vampire years?" he asked nonchalantly.

She gave him a wary sidelong glance and retorted, "Oh no, you don't. You're not getting that out of me if Katrina hasn't told you. You take that up with her. Though more than likely, she'll tell you when she's ready."

He sighed with resignation.

"So, what do you say? How about a horror film?" she prodded playfully. "There's a good vampire movie on the Chiller Channel."

Katrina and Alton took a small charter flight from Atlanta to Bradford, Pennsylvania, to the east of Warren where they last placed Chimalma. Despite the waning hours of night, they were able to take possession of a Jeep Cherokee they had arranged from Atlanta.

On their way to Warren, they stopped at an all-night discount store to stock up on the various supplies that they needed for the cabin. They also acquired an adequate supply of both regular and dry ice for their blood supply. Upon arriving at the campgrounds, they managed to wake the manager, who was staying onsite in a cabin next door to the main office. After hasty, sincere apologies to the semi-retired fellow and a large sum of money to help assuage his irritation, Katrina and Alton arrived at the small, non-descript log cabin.

Even at night, when darkness softened the edges of everything, the cabin was both modest and antiquated. The interior was fairly small, consisting of one main central room with a small stone fireplace, a small kitchen-dining area with a wooden table and four plain wooden chairs, two small bedrooms with wooden framed double beds, and one central bathroom. Katrina noted a small closet next to the front door, which brought to mind her quip to Alton back at the hotel regarding hiding from sunshine in a closet. The few windows in the cabin were thankfully small, and they came well-prepared to cover them for the coming daylight.

As they hauled their supplies into the cabin, Katrina smirked.

"What's so amusing?" Alton asked while carrying an armful of baggage.

"I was just thinking about Caleb and how he complained so much about being locked indoors," she recalled. "I should've brought him to a cabin like this for one day, and he'd be on his knees begging me to return to the estate."

He raised an amused eyebrow and teased, "Tsk, tsk, Katrina. You'd actually torture poor Caleb like that? Such vengeful thoughts towards your mate."

An idea settled into her mind as she considered the matter further. "Actually, it's kind of quaint. Being sequestered in a cabin with Caleb for a weekend might actually be romantic. We could spend our days inside and walk through the moonlight appreciating the outdoors from a completely different perspective from what he's used to," she ventured thoughtfully. "He might enjoy that."

Alton raised a curious eyebrow in response and offered with a mock-mortified expression, "Okay, now you're scaring me. Since when did you become such a hopeless romantic?"

She frowned and stuck her tongue out at him, but he merely grinned and chuckled.

He pulled out his notebook computer and established satellite communications for Internet access. He received an email from a clandestine contact regarding some specialized equipment and explosives they needed for the battle with Chimalma.

Katrina watched him for a moment and glanced at her watch. It was nearly dawn.

"I'm going to unpack some things and call Paige to check up on everything back home," she stated while carrying her luggage into one of the bedrooms. "They should be up and around before long."

* * *

Caleb woke not long after seven o'clock, unable to sleep beyond that. He had trouble falling asleep the night before, though thankfully had no further nightmares. Standing before the bathroom sink wearing a pair of men's pajama pants and gazing into the mirror, he scraped the blade of his straight razor against his face to attack some remaining stubble. His thoughts were distracted by ruminations on how Katrina was doing. On his last pass with the razor, he abruptly cut his chin.

"Damn!" he cursed as he rinsed the blade in the sink.

A few droplets of blood fell onto the front of his bare right shoulder. He cursed again when he realized how deep the cut went. He toweled the remaining shaving cream from his face and noticed Paige standing next to him, still dressed in some comfy-looking dark blue cotton pajamas. She seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Are you okay?" she queried. "I thought I heard you curse."

"Sure, I'm fine," he replied. "Cut myself shaving, that's all,"

She moved her body closer to Caleb's and looked up at his chin. She licked her finger to moisten it and pressed it against his skin. He remembered how a vampire's saliva helped close wounds and felt a momentary numbing sensation. After a minute or so, she withdrew her finger to inspect his chin. Paige licked her finger absently as if sampling the flavor and took a deep breath of the air between them. Her blue eyes glowed as she focused on the small droplets of blood on his shoulder.

Caleb's eyes widened as her body lurched closer to his bare chest. The muscles in his body immediately tensed, and his heartbeat began to increase slightly.

"Mmmm," she murmured from deep in her throat as her nose touched his right shoulder, and he felt the side of her soft face against his skin.

Placing both of his hands carefully and respectfully on her slim waist, he tried to push her away, but immediately froze when one of her razor sharp fangs touched the bare skin of his shoulder. He held his breath and remained statue-still.

Paige parted her lips slightly and her tongue flicked out to lick the drops of blood from his skin. Her fang suddenly retracted, and she pulled away from him with a start. "I'm so sorry," she apologized in a rough voice while stepping back from him a few feet.

Her eyes still held a deep blue glow as he gazed into them. "Are you okay?" he asked tentatively.

"That was close," she offered shakily. "Katrina would tear me to shreds. You're forbidden fruit, my friend."

He stared at her uncertainly.

"But sweet fruit," she added with a smirk in a whisper almost too soft for him to hear.

His eyes widened at her comment.

"Sorry. Control is still hard at my age when I haven't fed and fresh blood is present," she explained with a nervous chuckle.

Before he could say anything further, she darted from the room in a blur. He released the breath that he didn't realize he was holding. That was close, he silently agreed to her earlier comment.

Upon hearing a phone ring downstairs, he raced from the room and down the stairs.

* * *

Katrina glanced around the dimly lit cabin with a grim expression and momentarily worried as she counted to the fourth ring while calling the estate from her cell phone. Alton scrutinized the front window in the main room, making sure no sunlight would break through the combined drapes layered with dark sheets they had put up.

He had rented a cabin in a more remote area of the scenic, wooded park hoping to deter unwanted visitors or passers-by. They also placed a vinyl cover over their rented Jeep parked in front of the cabin.

"Hello?" came Paige's tentative-sounding voice at the other end.

Katrina breathed a sigh of relief before demanding, "Paige, is everything okay there?"

Following a pause, Paige replied innocently, "Just fine here. Are you two all right?"

Katrina immediately picked up on Paige's hesitant reply and didn't like the tone of her voice. It sounded as if her calmness were somewhat forced. Something's wrong, she thought. Just what have they gotten themselves into?

"Where's Caleb?" she urged. "Is he well?"

"He's fine, Katrina," Paige assured her sedately. "He's just fine. In fact, I hear him racing down here now."

A few seconds later, Katrina heard Caleb's voice in the background demanding, "Is it Katrina? Is she okay? Let me talk to her."

Her face immediately relaxed. Same old Caleb, she thought with a relieved smile.

Meanwhile, Alton smirked at Katrina knowingly. She caught his expression and frowned back at him.

"Just a second, Katrina. I'm putting you on speaker," Paige said at the other end.

The phone crackled, and Katrina also put her cell phone into speaker mode for Alton's benefit. He moved to sit in one of the plain upholstered reading chairs across the room.

"How are you two?" Katrina asked.

"Us?" asked Caleb somewhat anxiously at the other end. "We're fine. Nothing going on here."

"Yep, we're both getting by," Paige agreed a little too convincingly.

Katrina frowned, but Alton remained silent as he peered at her from across the room. However, his expression seemed almost amused by the exchange.

"You're not very convincing," she insisted suspiciously. "As Paige so often likes to say, 'spill.'"

* * *

Paige and Caleb winced nearly simultaneously at the tone of Katrina's voice as they stood in the middle of the sublevel room near the computer hutch.

"Well," Paige hesitated. "You see, Caleb cut himself -"

"What?!" Katrina demanded over the speaker.

"Shaving!" they yelled in unison.

Paige continued, "He cut himself shaving, but he's fine now. No problem."

She waved her hand in the air at Caleb in a calming motion. There were a few seconds of complete silence at Katrina's end, and they thought they heard a slight chuckle from a male voice in the background. That had to be Alton, Caleb considered.

"Then why do you sound so nervous?" Katrina asked in a quieter, calmer voice.

Paige shut her eyes tightly and Caleb waited for a moment before answering, "Everything's fine, Kat. I'm fine. Paige has been wonderful, and I believe absolutely no rules were broken. I promise."

* * *

Katrina's eyes flashed bright green, and Alton's expression turned momentarily serious.

"Rules? You don't believe any were -" Katrina pressed in a stern voice. "Do you mean my parting instructions or The Rules?"

There was silence at Caleb and Paige's end of the line.

* * *

Paige's eyes snapped open and glared at Caleb as she mouthed the words, "Oh, shit." Caleb's eyes widened to the size of saucers, and he felt like an idiot for not censoring himself more closely.

"Either, really," he replied weakly.

Paige heavily massaged her fingertips against once-again closed eyelids and emitted a somber groan. There was complete silence Katrina's end of the line.

Caleb sighed in a resigned fashion, walked over to the handset lying on Katrina's desk, picked it up, and turned off the speaker mode. "Kat, it's just me," he said while glancing up to motion for Paige to leave, but she was already closing the room's sliding access door behind her as she hastily departed.

* * *

Katrina stared at the cell phone in her hand and turned off the speaker option. She noticed Alton closing himself into one of the cabin's two bedrooms with a noticeable click of the door mechanism.

"I'm alone, as well," she said softly. However, she knew full well that her voice was still detectable by another vampire's sharp hearing, particularly in the small cabin they inhabited. Still, she appreciated Alton's respect for her privacy.

Katrina calmed herself while listening to Caleb's steady breathing at the other end. She thought she heard faint traces of his rapid heartbeat, which was somehow soothing to her. Perhaps it's just the satisfaction of knowing he's alive and well.

* * *

"I miss you so much," Caleb breathed into the phone. He hadn't felt this way about anyone's prolonged absence in his life, except following the death of his mother.

"I miss you too," Katrina agreed at the other end in a low, but gentle voice.

"Listen, I've had some time to think," he began quietly. "About me, about us. And I think I understand something."

He paused, but only heard silence.

"I'm sensing - hoping how much you must care about me to do what you're doing," he continued. "And for that, I'm sorry that I've made you so angry with me lately. I don't like it when we argue with each other."

"Caleb," she tried to interrupt him gently.

"I've been selfish about my own wants and needs, not really appreciating what lengths you're going to for me," he persisted. "And if Paige would open the front door for me, I'd rather stand outside to accept whatever fate I'm due than cause you continued grief, no matter the fear I'm feeling."

"Stop," Katrina ordered firmly.

He ceased speaking at once, not wanting to irritate her. I'm just trying to be honest with her.

She didn't speak immediately, but paused a few seconds more in silence.

"Caleb, I'm not angry with you," she explained in a soft voice. "I've been upset that someone so innocent and dear was targeted for revenge against me. Granted, my patience hasn't been at its usual level of tolerance, but don't turn this onto yourself. I won't allow it."

He started to open his mouth, but then stopped and just listened.

"You mean so much to me now," she conceded earnestly as much to herself as to him. "I want you in my life and safe. There's so much I want to share with you, so many things I want to tell you."

He smiled a little, and his heart soared with a liberating feeling.

"So don't even think about walking anywhere into danger," she warned. "I truly can't abide that."

He paused and smiled at her open, caring words. She's the most amazing woman, he considered. "I feel the same about you, Kat," he replied gently.

His heart felt like it would burst with happiness despite the darkness of the current circumstances. "And Kat," he added quickly.

"Yes?"

"There's no need for concern. Nothing bad has happened," he explained. "I was bleeding from a razor cut, and Paige...well, I'm not bleeding anymore."

There was a pause, and she surmised quietly, "She tasted you, didn't she?"

"Yes," he admitted. "But nothing more. She even sealed the cut nicely."

Silence.

"I understand," she said finally. "And I appreciate your honesty. Now, please put the speaker back on and call Paige into the room again."

Feeling strangely vindicated, he put the phone back in speaker mode and shouted, "Paige, telephone!"

A few seconds later, the sliding door opened abruptly and Paige traversed the distance down the stairs in what seemed like a blur. She stopped just two feet from Caleb, who marveled at her speed. Hell, you might even be faster than Katrina.

"I'm back, Katrina," she offered in a friendly voice.

"Good," Katrina began in a casual tone. "Everything's fine, Paige. Caleb explained the situation. And thank you for taking such good care of him."

Paige's eyes widened, and she flashed an appreciative smile at Caleb.

"Are you feeding regularly?" Katrina asked.

Paige paused, her smile fading somewhat, and replied in a circumspect tone, "Maybe not as often as I should."

"I've mentioned before that there's about a three-month supply of blood stock in my wine cellar refrigerator," Katrina explained evenly. "Please feed as often as you like. But please stop tasting my mate."

Then Katrina added gently, "And Caleb, try to curtail any further 'bloodletting' on your part until I return."

He rolled his eyes, and Paige winked at him with a renewed grin.

"And as to some brief outdoor privileges?" he ventured hopefully. "Daylight is safe for me, no vampires."

"Well, since you mentioned it, not on your life," Katrina countered emphatically. "Not until we return. I don't trust Chimalma not to hire humans to wait for you during the day when you would normally think that it's safe from vampires."

That made sense to him. I should've expected as much, he supposed. Even vampires can hire hit men. After all, that has to be what Harry Maddox turned out to be in the end.

"We should be back no more than two days from now. We found Chimalma and plan to move as soon as possible," Katrina informed them on a new train of thought.

Caleb's relaxed manner became tense at hearing the revelation from Katrina. Paige's eyes turned serious as well.

"Both of you be careful," Paige urged.

Caleb's heart was racing by that point, and his heart was in his throat. He felt helpless being stuck in a veritable bunker and wished he were able to be there with Alton and Katrina. Paige moved closer to him, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder.

Alton's deep voice broke the silence at Katrina's end of the line, "She's coming back soon, Caleb. Trust me."

Then they said quick goodbyes. After the phone went off, Paige pressed some codes on the handset in rapid sequence and gave Caleb the best reassuring smile that she could muster.

"What if they try to breach the house during the day?" he speculated darkly. "You can't go outside in sunlight, so you're vulnerable during daytime."

"We've already prepared for that," Paige said simply.

He stared at her as if waiting for additional information, but she said nothing more.

"So, is it on a need-to-know basis only too?" he pressed.

She sighed and nodded. "Sorry, better you don't know. Suffice to say, plans are in place."

Caleb was hardly encouraged.

"Katrina's a great planner," she reassured him. "Remember? She's one of the veterans."

"I know," he conceded.

"One of the adult vampires," Paige added with a growing smile.

"Yeah," he replied absently and moved towards the stairs to leave.

She followed him with a playful grin. "She knows what to do. She's the alpha in your partnership."

"All right," he muttered darkly as he reached the top of the stairs.

"Of course, I'm the alpha in the house right now," she teased as she walked just behind him down the hallway.

"Bad vampire, no more nibbling," he teased back while entering the kitchen to get a Coke from the refrigerator.

"Don't push my buttons, Tree-Branch Boy," she warned with a sly smirk.

"Whatever," he muttered with exasperation as he popped the can open.

"Am I bugging you yet?" she asked as she leaned across the island countertop to poke him in the back repeatedly with her fingertip.

He deliberately sighed loudly before taking a drink from his cola can.

* * *

It was night again, and Alton drove the Jeep while Katrina sat in the passenger seat with a steely expression. They were on their way to meet with an arms dealer Alton had used before. The dealer was providing a couple of weapons they would need, including the explosives they planned to use to kill Chimalma. The route to their destination was aided by a dash-mounted GPS with coordinates provided by the dealer. Fortunately, the location was only a couple of hours away from their cabin, so they could easily navigate to and from the transaction on the same night.

I just want this over with quickly, Katrina thought. I have a vampire to kill. "Are you sure about this dealer?" she asked for the second time that evening.

He restrained a sigh and replied, "Don't worry, Katrina. I've dealt with the man on two previous occasions, and both times he provided the items as promised."

"So, what precisely did you need an arms dealer for in the past?" she inquired.

"Oh, just a couple of past favors for some acquaintances," he replied vaguely.

She glanced at the GPS and noted that their destination was only a few miles away. She pulled on a pair of black leather gloves and absently noticed that he was already wearing some.

As they neared a turn-off comprised of a narrow dirt road leading through dense trees, Alton muttered. "Remember, let me do the talking. You're my silent business associate."

"Fine," she agreed neutrally. It's not like I'm here for a conversation.

They pulled up in front of a large, sheet metal barn with a curved canopy roof. The poorly maintained building had peeled silver paint interspersed with rust along its façade. Two large metal sliding doors remained wide open, but Alton stopped their vehicle outside the entrance and cut off the engine.

Just inside and to the right was a white panel van parked to the side of the large bay area. A number of battery-powered spotlights placed inside the barn in various locations provided ample illumination to the interior.

Wearing their long, black leather coats over dark jeans and sweaters, they exited the vehicle into the cold night air. Katrina had suggested that the subdued wardrobe might be useful at night, and power colors were always helpful for business meetings. Alton had merely chuckled and acquiesced.

Two rough-looking men, an older man with a graying beard and a clean-shaven younger man, were pointing small submachine guns in their direction as they walked towards the barn entrance.

"Please, come in," came a man's gruff voice from inside. "But I'd appreciate your removing your coats and leaving them outside."

Alton's eyes darted to Katrina long enough to see her shrug, and both of them removed their coats to lay them on the hood of their Jeep.

"Much better," the man said congenially.

They entered the barn and counted four other men inside. Each was a hard-looking figure with his own gun, and they wore a mixture of hunting clothes and military camouflage. A person stood at each interior corner of the barn, and two more men stood at the middle of the dirt floor towards the back.

Katrina glanced around the room as they entered and saw no additional people present.

Before they were halfway into the building, a tall, middle-aged man with a cropped haircut and faded U.S. Army Special Forces emblem on his camouflage jacket spoke up. "Please stop there so we can perform a quick search for weapons."

Alton and Katrina silently stopped, and the younger of the two men flanking them shouldered his submachine gun and patted down Alton. He moved to Katrina, but took a noticeably protracted time to pat her down, his hand lingering at her hips and thighs longer than she was willing to endure.

"Move them or lose them," she growled angrily. If this goes badly, you get to die first, she silently promised the fellow.

The man quickly stepped back and nodded briskly to the man at the center of the room.

"Mister Alton," the middle-aged man greeted with a northeastern accent. "So good to do business with you again. Please approach."

Alton gave Katrina a motion with his head to indicate that she should stand where she was while he neared the dealer.

"Mr. Preston," Alton greeted with a slight nod as he halted approximately two feet from him.

Within a span of a few seconds, Alton's eyes observed a small table to Preston's left sporting a large plastic container left open to reveal small wrapped packages of plastic explosives. There were detonators and priming wires visible as well. To the side of the container, Alton noticed a small, handheld crossbow with a quiver of wood-shafted and metal-tipped arrows.

Preston took notice of Alton's glance to the table before he offered, "If you look at the table, you'll see that everything you asked for is there."

Alton nodded. "I'm confident that's the case."

Preston raised an eyebrow, but his expression returned to a more neutral manner as he ventured, "Despite the small order and manageable quantity of explosives, they were difficult to acquire on short notice. I'm afraid there's going to be a slight price mark-up."

"How much of a mark-up?" Alton asked evenly.

Preston exhibited a calculating expression and stipulated, "Fifty."

"Another fifty thousand," Alton muttered irritably.

Katrina's jaw tightened at the exchange taking place between the two men. She just wanted to get the transaction over with because they still had key items to acquire for their mission, although from more conventional sources.

"That's fine," she snapped impatiently.

Preston looked sharply across the length of the large area to Katrina before focusing on Alton again. "The lady has good hearing," he observed with a frown, adding pointedly: "And appears to be in a hurry."

The man nearest to Katrina made an effort to point the barrel of his gun at her menacingly, but she merely ignored him.

"Fifty thousand will be fine," Alton remarked levelly.

"Ah, no. I'm afraid you misunderstood. That's fifty percent," Preston explained with a straight face. "Not fifty thousand."

Alton's eyes narrowed. "That's not at all what we agreed upon."

Preston merely shrugged. "Like I said, it was hard to come by on short notice. And from the lady's comment, you appear to need these items in a hurry. Just business, nothing personal, you understand."

Alton started to reply, but Katrina's cold, hard voice cut him off. "That's too bad for you then," she stated lethally. "Because my business is personal this time."

Preston's eyes narrowed, but Katrina was already in motion. She grabbed the younger man standing next to her by the neck and swung him around, so when the older man next to her fired, the bullets impacted the younger man's back. He screamed, and she grabbed at his waistband with her free hand to seize a combat knife from a leather sheath.

She simultaneously snapped the younger man's neck with her left hand while deftly slashing at the neck of the older man before her. The older man's neck was nearly severed in half as his body fell to the ground, and blood spurted around his fallen form.

Alton slammed his right fist into the side of Preston's head, knocking him to the ground as the vampire lunged at the man standing behind Preston. The guard started firing in Alton's direction, but the tall vampire sidestepped the firing arc and lashed out with his hand. It took only one swift motion to break his neck, and Alton snatched the submachine gun from the dead man's hands.

The two men at the back corners of the room were firing at Katrina, but she had already dropped the body of the younger man and moved in a blur across the room towards the man in the rear left corner. It took only a second to cross the distance, her eyes blazing bright green with rage. She stepped past the man while holding the combat knife outwards slightly with her arm to catch him in the chest with the blade. The force of her impact knocked the man to the ground with a gasp, and his body thudded heavily to the dirty floor.

Alton swiveled the dead guard's gun in his gloved hands to the remaining guard to his left and behind him. The guard was firing across the room at Katrina as Alton aimed and fired two quick belches of gunfire. Bullets riddled into his neck and head, and the guard spun to the ground in a bloody arc.

Katrina glanced over to Alton and noticed Preston lying on the ground but bringing an automatic pistol upwards in an aimed arc towards Alton, who was still torso-twisted away from the arms dealer. Her hand swooped down to pluck the knife from the chest of the guard at her feet, and she hurled the blade at Preston just as Alton was turning back to face him. The blade imbedded in Preston's arm, causing his gun to fire wide and to the side of Alton.

Alton snarled angrily and jammed the butt of his gun into Preston's forehead with brutal force, causing the man's cranium to be shattered by the impact. His body hurled back to the ground with a bloody thump, and Alton discarded the gun absently as he glanced towards Katrina.

"I was right. You're the heavy artillery, just like I told Caleb," he quipped darkly. "But your negotiation skills could use some work."

She scowled as she walked over to her former mentor. "I thought I did pretty well, actually. We get the merchandise and keep our money."

He smiled grimly as he moved to the small table to close the fabricated case containing the explosives and detonators. He glanced back long enough to see Katrina standing over Preston's body and glancing down at his crushed skull.

"You don't overcharge a vampire," she muttered lethally before moving to the table to pick up the crossbow and selection of arrows.

Katrina looked over at Alton and demanded with a note of incredulity, "Are you sure that you actually dealt with these people before?"

Alton shrugged. "As I said, I conducted two successful transactions with them in the past. I suppose they simply don't treat repeat customers very well."

She gave him a withering look as they loaded the items into their vehicle, and both turned back to gaze at the old sheet metal building.

"Should we use some of the explosives?" he asked absently as he considered their options.

"No, it will tip the authorities, as well as associate this scene with Chimalma's fate," Katrina estimated. "Load the bodies into the van and set fire to the gas tank. It should be just enough to cover our tracks. We won't worry about their blood around the building because there's nothing left to tie it back to us."

Alton raised an eyebrow at his former pupil. "You're good."

She smiled back with a menacing grin. "Killing is a specialty of mine."

He frowned and warned, "Fine for now, but I want you to let go of this when you get back to Caleb."

Her facial expression fell slightly as the vision of Caleb appeared in her mind's eye. She knew that he brought out the best in her and realized that he might be the only one who could tame her renewed savagery in the end. At least I hope that he can.

"I'm going to try," she replied quietly.

She steeled herself for the task ahead and walked deliberately back into the building. Alton followed quietly behind her.

Within twenty minutes, they had stacked the bodies and firearms into the panel van. Katrina punctured the vehicle's gas tank and drained a large amount of fuel to spread underneath it and onto the bodies using an old bucket she found inside the building. She used a match to ignite the spilled fuel as Alton watched from near their Jeep. Afterwards, she sped from the building as the fire erupted throughout the interior of the van.

Katrina slid the two main doors closed and walked calmly back to where Alton stood. She picked up her coat from the hood of the vehicle and tossed his to him. Moving to the passenger door, she suggested, "Still lots to do tonight. We better get going."

He watched her for a moment, marveling at her initiative and efficiency, and then slid into the driver's seat. They pulled away into the night, leaving the abandoned building behind.

"Where to next?" he asked as she selected various options on the GPS.

"The nearest all-night department store," she replied. "We need some heavy length of chain."

Alton frowned and looked at her curiously.

She noted his expression as she looked up from the GPS. "Well, Chimalma's not going to just walk into a booby-trapped kill zone, is she?"

Alton raised both eyebrows and considered the idea for a moment.

"There," she offered in a satisfied tone. "I found a store not far away from our route back to the cabin."

He glanced at the GPS and headed in the designated direction after they returned to the paved roadway.