16-BLUE AND RED

I hung up the phone, my pulse hammering so hard it drowned out everything else, only to see Kaelyn lowering his own, his expression unreadable.

“I’ve dealt with it,” he said.

The words didn’t land.

“I need to get to Viv’s house,” I shot back, already moving past him. “Your psychotic ex-girlfriend is there trying to kill her.”

“She is not trying to kill her,” he replied evenly. “I just spoke with her.”

I didn’t slow down.

“Take me there. Now.”

He watched me for half a second, measuring something I didn’t have the patience to care about.

“Very well.”

He pulled his keys free.

I snatched them from his hand before he could react.

“I’ll drive. I know the way.”

For a moment, it looked like he might argue, but when I planted my hands on my hips and held his gaze, something in his expression shifted, not quite surrender, not quite amusement, but close enough.

He moved around to the passenger side.

I didn’t wait.

The engine roared to life, tyres biting into gravel as I tore away from the barn, the night opening up ahead of us in a blur of darkness and headlights.

“If she has harmed one hair on Viv or her kids,” I said, my voice tight with fury, “you can say goodbye to that jealous bitch right now.”

“I told you,” Kaelyn said, calm in a way that grated against every nerve I had left, “I spoke with her. She got word that the inquisitors might have been looking for you. She went there to protect your friend.”

My jaw locked so hard it hurt.

“You believe everything that woman says?”

“You’re acting jealous,” he said, glancing at me. “It’s not a good look.”

I let out a sharp, humorless laugh.

“No, she’s the one acting jealous, and you’re too blind to see it. I can’t believe I was about to…”

I cut myself off, gripping the wheel tighter as I took a corner far too fast.

“About to what?” he asked.

“Forget it,” I snapped. “It’s not happening now.”

The road opened up onto the highway, and I pushed harder, the engine responding, the world narrowing to speed and distance and the ticking clock in my head.

“Do you always drive like this?” Kaelyn asked after a moment. “I may be difficult to kill, but the rest of the people on this road are not, and there are laws you seem determined to ignore.”

“I only drive like this when my friends’ lives are on the line,” I shot back.

He didn’t argue, he just watched.

What should have taken an hour took half that, the city lights thinning as we reached the outskirts where Viv lived, the roads quieter, darker, too still for the storm sitting in my chest.

I tried her phone again.

Nothing. It was still dead or turned off.

We pulled up hard outside her house.

The lights were out.

The front door hung open, broken and clean off its hinges.

I was out of the car before the engine even died, stepping over the welcome mat without thinking, the smell of garlic hitting me immediately as I passed the threshold.

Bulbs hung from doorways, draped over handles, dotted like someone had tried to build a wall out of superstition.

Kaelyn was beside me, silent now, as we walked further into the house.

“Viv!” I called out. “It’s me, Rose.”

For a second, the house answered in silence.

Then…

A small broken noise from down the hall.

I moved quickly.

The bedroom door at the end was shut, locked tight from the inside.

“Viv, it’s me,” I cried out. Knocking hard at the door. “Tell me you’re okay?”

“Is she still out there?” Viv’s voice came through, thin and shaking. “She tried to kill me, Rose, she tried to kill my babies and me.”

“I’m here,” I said, forcing my voice steady. “You’re safe. Open the door.”

“I don’t know if it’s safe,” she cried. “She came inside. She was in the house.”

I cast a glance back at Kaelyn.

“Where is she?”

“That,” he murmured quietly, his eyes sweeping the room, “is what I would like to know.”

His phone was already in his hand.

“She’s not answering,” he added. “And she is not here.”

My chest constricted.

“I thought vampires had rules,” I said. “Protocols. They can’t just walk into a human’s home.”

He looked at me then, something glimmering behind his eyes.

“They can’t,” he said.

His eyes fell to the floor.

To the mat I had passed over.

He turned without a word, walked back to the front door, picked up the mat, and tossed it outside.

“There’s your first problem,” he said. “A vampire cannot enter where they are not welcome. Remove that, and the invitation disappears.”

My stomach was in knots.

I hadn’t even thought…

He glanced at the garlic, his nose wrinkling slightly.

“This does nothing,” he said. “It smells unpleasant, that’s all. At best, it might make us ill if consumed in excess.”

“Tell that to Viv,” I snapped. “She was trying to protect her children.”

His gaze flicked back to me, something sharper there now.

“And she nearly removed the only protection she had.”

The door behind me creaked.

I turned.

Viv stood there, pale, shaking, her arms wrapped tight around herself, her eyes wide with fear.

Then she saw Kaelyn.

The door slammed shut again.

“No,” she cried from the other side. “I’m not coming out while he’s here. I’m human, Rose, I’ve got kids. I’m not taking that risk.”

My temper snapped.

“You see what she’s done?” I turned on him. “You still think she came here to protect her?”

“Bianca would not attack a human without cause,” he said, his tone sure.

“She violently broke into her house!” I answered back in disbelief. “What more cause do you need?”

“She believed there was a threat,” he replied. “She acted on it.”

“She terrified a mother and her children,” I said, my voice cold. “That’s not protection. It is clearly an act of aggression.”

His jaw tensed.

“She is my right hand,” he said. “I know her.”

“I know what I heard,” I fired back. “I know what Viv felt. And if I see her again after this…”

I stopped, but the threat hung in the air.

“I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”

His eyes went black.

“You forget who she is,” he said. “She is not someone you want to challenge.”

I met his stare without flinching.

“And you forget who I am.”

The space between us shifted; it was colder now.

A chasm that hadn’t been there before.

The sound of engines cut through the tension outside.

Both of us turned.

Two bikes pulled up hard out front, Luke and Sebastian dismounting quickly, taking in the broken door, the dark house, the tension that practically vibrated in the air.

Luke stepped inside first, his eyes flicking between us.

“What the hell happened here?” he asked.

“The door needs fixing,” Sebastian muttered, already moving toward it.

The bedroom door opened again, slower this time.

Viv stepped out, still shaking, her eyes looked toward Kaelyn before fixing on me.

“She put my children's lives in danger.”

Kaelyn didn’t reply.

Luke seemed to pick up on the charged atmosphere.

“Okay,” he spoke with a fake brightness. “Everyone is alive. We can fix this door. No harm done.”

The air stayed thick.

And then…

Blue and red lights washed over the walls as a cop car pulled up out front.

Luke swore under his breath.

“Well,” he muttered, “looks like things just got worse.”