Chapter 6 #2
It only made sense if slayers weren’t powerful enough to kill all vampires eventually.
Leandro was supposed to be my enemy. I was supposed to be killing his kind as well as the ones they had turned.
And instead I was considering him as a sort of owner, or boyfriend, or whatever the relationship could be called.
Thinking about him reminded me that I still hadn’t decided what I was going to do about the cruise I had been booked onto.
It was in the next ten days or so and I still hadn’t booked any flights or even responded to check in or anything.
If I was going to go on it and hopefully see Leandro again, I needed to decide soon.
“We seem to have put you in a funk with our questions,” Alan said. “You’ve not touched your drink since and you look like you’ve got a lot to think about. Was it so bad working with the vampires?”
Naomi glared at him. “Don’t say it too loudly. We promised to keep the secret.”
“Sorry.” Alan gulped and looked at me to check if I was okay with everything.
“It’s fine. Just be careful about it in future. Perhaps we should only talk about that part at home.” I tried to smile, but he had noticed that I was lost in thought correctly and I knew I was about to get more questions.
“Yeah, sorry, we can do that. Are you okay though?” Alan replied, confirming my thoughts.
Although I nodded, all three of them were staring at me again. I had let my guard down. It was probably a sign that I’d drunk too much and needed to be more careful and drink less in future.
“Has a certain someone contacted you again?” Tess asked.
I shook my head but then nodded and this only seemed to make them more curious about what was happening. “I don’t know, but I’ve had a strange offer from an unknown source. Might me them, might not.”
Naomi lifted an eyebrow. “What kind of offer?”
“I’ve been booked onto a cruise in the Mediterranean in less than two weeks’ time and I don’t know who did it or why.
It’s like an invite to attend something or be somewhere and I don’t know if it was them or someone else.
” I stopped talking, knowing I was waffling and letting out the anxiety it made me feel.
“Have they said anything else, or given you a way to contact them to ask?”
There wasn’t really a way. I had told him where I lived, and I knew where I could go if I wanted to find him, but he’d asked me only to use it if it was serious. Was this serious?
“Not really?” I eventually replied. “We can find each other if necessary, but... not to just ask random questions.”
“Would anyone else have booked this for you?” Alan asked. “Is it the same cruise boat or company or whatever it would need to be to be the same person?”
I frowned despite appreciating the question. This was all stuff I had considered, but I knew I was giving them the information to attempt a sound decision as well. “It’s the same company, but a different boat, I believe. It is the company that is important from what I have been told.”
“So it could be... this person?”
“It could. But it could also be anyone in their... group.”
Naomi folded her arms across her chest. “That sounds like a risk. Does the cabin have room for another person?”
It was my turn to lift an eyebrow in curiosity and surprise. “I believe so. One person at least.”
“And can others book the cruise still?”
I shrugged, having no idea whether that was possible or not. It wasn’t a solution I had considered and I wasn’t sure I wanted to encourage my team.
Naomi glanced at Alan and Tess and I could see a sort of understanding pass between the three of them. “It sounds simple to me. We all come with you. If it’s safe, great, we all get a wonderful holiday, and if it’s not, we face the danger as a team, like we’ve been doing the last two weeks.”
“You’d all do that?” I asked, looking at each of them in turn.
“Of course,” Tess said first. “We can afford it as well since we’ve been getting all these much higher-paying jobs and living with you. It is going to make us a lot more money and we’ll have plenty of time to earn more between now and then.”
Alan nodded. “Yup, all that is very true. We’re the new dream team, remember. The academy might have thought we’d be a problem, but they can’t deny that we’re effective and we can tackle bigger threats than a lot of the other teams.”
“We shouldn’t get cocky. It’s still incredibly dangerous and there have been plenty of teams who got this far and climbed this high only to get one of their team, or more, killed.
” I wasn’t sure how much I liked their offer.
That they were willing to come with me was touching and made a huge difference, but I couldn’t ask this of them.
Nor expect them to spend the money they’d made so far on keeping me safe.
If I could pay for them, I liked the idea better, however. It would mean spending money on four flights and another cabin, but they were right, we had made a lot more money, and splitting the bills for the small apartment was also saving us a lot.
“I’ll look into how easy it would be to bring you with me and think about it.
I still might not go at all.” It was the only sensible response, but it gave me a lot to think about.
“And with that, I think it’s time for me to head home.
If we’re going to take on plenty of jobs and earn loads either way, I need some sleep. ”
To my surprise, they all agreed with me and we finished up our drinks, grabbed our jackets and made our way back out of the bar. Perhaps this was the team I’d needed all along. People who had truly got my back and were able to let loose and enjoy life around taking our job very seriously.
Either way, I felt better than I had in weeks as we made our way home. I’d opened up and they’d not judged.