Fleeing

The next day the disaster that had been lived little by little began to show. When I turned on the television, I could see what the war that had just begun had left behind. There were dozens of dead and wrecked cars in various parts of the city. All from fights between the two races. We were going back to the old war between wolves and vampires that happened centuries ago because of the adventure of two young men.

I saw the news and tried to wake up Cassandra, as the day was beginning, and we could not sleep all day. However, we heard someone knocking at the door in a somewhat violent manner.

I had a small pistol and did not hesitate to use it. I watched as Cassandra was awakened by the noise, grabbed it and grabbed a pistol that I had stored in a vest that I had hanging down. He moved to the side of the door and I went to open it, but with some care, slowly. Until I saw someone who looked like Cassandra's father, I guessed that he was one of the uncles they talked so much about, and he wanted to be the main branch of the family. He didn't hesitate to say a few things to me when he saw me.

"So you're the one sleeping with my niece!"

I felt a little offended, as if he wanted to belittle me for having something with her, I just tried to be a little respectful.

"Yeah, maybe we'll get married at the end of the month!"

He got angry when he heard what I said, apparently he didn't like that very much, and he almost slapped me. However, Casandra came up to me and spoke to him.

"What's up, man, how did you know we were here?"

"Only the family knows about this place, and it was obvious. Well, from today I will be making the family's decisions, so you can leave town and I will sort this out."

I didn't like hearing that, it was much worse, as the exits were going to be watched at any moment. The most powerful families were going to be hunted, so leaving could be worse.

"We can't, it's too dangerous. We'll stay here for a week, and we'll be much better off."

"It's okay, you know, I'll take care of everything. Please, Cassandra, give me the accounts and all the money. I will manage everything."

That didn't please her very much, it was obvious that he would abandon us and wouldn't let us die to keep everything for himself. Luckily, Cassandra wasn't stupid and had a plan.

"I can't do that, that's done with lawyers and signatures. I don't have how to communicate with them and very recently they gave me that, since when dad disappeared, I had a share of all the money because of my previous engagement with my ex-boyfriend."

The guy was very disappointed, he wanted the money, but he only had the power to talk to the rest of the families; however, he did not hesitate to give us a piece of news that would change everything.

"Your dad died, they haven't found the body, but he was one of the main targets of those vampires and most of his bodyguards were already found dead near some vans."

He didn't have any sensitivity to tell us that. He turned and left without saying goodbye.

Cassandra looked a little sad, but it seemed that she still had hope of finding her father alive, since they still hadn't found his body.

[...]

The day went on without much news, we were just watching news and about the war, but more happened in that short time. We were starting to get bored of the confinement. So I decided to invite her upstairs, because there was a restaurant on the terrace, and it was almost dark.

Cassandra looked very worried about her father, but I tried to interrupt her so that she would forget about it a little.

"We can go upstairs to eat."

She looked at me a little annoyed.

"We can't do those, we're at risk."

"For now, there has been no movement anywhere. Don't worry, only a few people are here. No one will bother us. It's just a date."

She looked at me a little worried, but decided to play along, took her coat and stuffed the cards in there.

"I don't feel confident leaving them lying around. Let's go, I'm really hungry. I'm tired of those canned goods. You're right, we can't stay all day like this."

Casandra was the first to leave the room, I had my gun in my pants. I wasn't sure what we would find in that place, but it was better to be prepared.

[...]

When we got to the terrace, we saw that there were some people in that area. It was not such a lonely place, you could tell there wasn't much confidence from the atmosphere. Everyone was far away from the rest.

 The table was almost three meters away from the rest, most of them were made of wood and more chairs too, only in a light brown color.

We sat in the farthest place and started talking.

"Are you feeling better already?"

"A little, but I already want to go back, people stare at us a lot."

"Don't worry, it's normal, they all look like businessmen, we are a couple."

She turned red and tried to calm down, apparently she still couldn't believe that I had already assimilated, that we were really boyfriend and girlfriend, so she played along.

"Well, my love, here comes the waiter, you can order anything."

It made me feel strange, the tone of voice with which he told me that. So I did the same. I took her hand and kissed it.

"As you wish, my love."

The waiter came in front of us and spoke.

"What do you want, are you going to order?"

"Today's special meal"

"Ok, two special meals too"

Casandra looked at me, she looked quite serious, maybe because she didn't expect me to do this in a restaurant like this. She didn't say anything to me, but she looked embarrassed.

"Are you mad?" I asked her.

"No, but next time, let me. It's too embarrassing. He will think we are ignorant. Next time, look at the letter. The few people here are watching us a lot and now with that special dish it will be worse."

"Ah... I see, it won't happen again."

I felt embarrassed about that, but I had already ordered the food. I tried to talk to him and explain everything, but suddenly we saw how the waiter in a matter of minutes was already bringing us the food on a wooden tray. It was a series of seafood dishes with some legumes and a small portion of rice on ceramic plates and quite unique.

The waiter served it on the table and put a pile of silverware there. Cassandra didn't mind the food, it looked quite tasty, so she just decided to eat as if it was nothing. I didn't know how to handle all those spoons, though. I tried to imitate her and took the middle spoon, without her noticing that I was copying her. I didn't want to upset her, or make her feel embarrassed again.

[...]

We were a little happy to get out of the room a little bit made us feel better, the worry we had went away a little bit, but when we went down to the floor where our room was. We noticed that there were some pretty strange guys around. We saw that they were in front of our room. They smelled like vampires and were kind of pale. They had black suits and guns in their hands and were trying to force the door open.

"Let's leave this hotel now" I said to Cassandra in a low voice.

She was shaking badly, she was afraid of what might happen to us. We had not taken out all the guns. I took her hand slowly and without them noticing, we walked away from there and headed for the elevator. Luckily, there was no one inside, it was the only good thing about being in a luxury hotel like that. Not many people could come to a place like this.

We pressed the button several times to go to the second floor, but I remembered that there might be more vampires down there and pressed the second button to go down to the second floor and go to the basement.

Cassandra saw me and didn't say anything. She was too nervous. I grabbed her hand a little and said a few words to her.

"Everything will be fine, we just have to avoid being seen."

[...]

When the elevator opened, we both got out of there. There was no one on the second floor, so we tried to go down the stairs that went to the basement, lucky for us there were some people on the second floor, but they weren't looking at the stairs at that time. They only talk to the hotel receptionist, and he was armed.

With some caution we were already in the basement, we saw several cars. There was very little light, so no one was visible nearby. Only the guard who allowed the entrance to that area. He didn't say anything to us, although he didn't seem to understand what was going on. He was dressed in a dark blue uniform and had a gun in his hand. Maybe at some point he thought we were thieves.

It was almost 10 o'clock at night, and we had to walk fast, avoiding the highway and busy areas. We had been saved from those men; however, we had to look for a place to stay and get some rest.

It was almost midnight. We were already far from the hotel, in an area where they would not look for us. 

It was a dangerous place, but we had to go there, we walked a lot. Through very steep areas. Until we found a motel. It was the perfect place to go unnoticed. Like a typical couple going to have sex.

However, there was a lot of activity at that hour, despite the incidents of the last few days. The vampire smell was everywhere, but there were a lot of wolves, so the smells were mixed, and it was hard to tell who was around.

The room we were in was very small, no more than eight meters and there was only one bed, very close to the wall. We only had our clothes on, and the cards that Casandra had taken from the hotel as a precaution. I had 150 dollars in cash to pay for the motel, we had to avoid staying too long here.

I didn't hesitate to turn on the TV and see what had happened in the city in the short time we had been on the run. Without hesitation, she spoke to me as she analyzed everything.

"My uncle betrayed us. I'm sorry my family is the worst."

"Don't worry, it was to be expected, he looked very eager to take all the money from you. Luckily, we got out before they arrived. Our only option is to buy a cell phone and call one of more families."

Casandra looked very depressed, the situation had led us to spend the night in a place that was totally unsafe where the only thing we could do is avoid, draw attention to ourselves and look out for each other. I remembered that motels had cameras, so I was to avoid Casandra undressing with light on, but before that she said a few words to me.

"Let's get married."

"What?"

"Yes, let's get married."

I got a little nervous. I knew she was just saying it because of what was going on. It was too rushed, so I tried to calm her down a bit.

"It can't be that fast. Besides, we'd have to go to a church or the notary's office to get married by a judge."

"Never mind, let's do it. If I get killed at least my uncle won't get all the money" She said rather disappointed.

It was very sudden, I didn't know what to answer her, but under the conditions we were in I preferred better to do what she asked me.

"All right, we'll get married tomorrow."

She nodded her head and lay back on the bed. She was tired, as was I, since we had to run away from that place and getting to this place felt so dangerous. For two hours we walked aimlessly.

I lay down on the bed next to her, my feet were aching too. I took off my shoes and hugged her back to make her feel better. I just hoped that the whole atmosphere would change. I tried to hug her back and give her some comfort.