My Precious Nightmare

9: An Angry Churro

Aster would have forgotten the stick of a Mexican female was still in his house if she hadn't come bursting into his office, followed by an apologetic Lane.

"Until you find the bastard who took Lea," she announced. "I'm not going anywhere."

Aster looked at Lane. Lane flailed his hands in the air, somehow managing to convey that he had done what he could to get her home like Aster had asked him to. Why the kid hadn't just called up a taxi driver to help haul her out was beyond him, there'd been the time for one to get here. It wasn't like his younger brother lacked the grit to do it.

He gave the girl another once over. Her honey complexion had gone so pale it was gray and he noticed her knees shaking. Since he was the one who had done that to her, despite her more or less asking for it by getting up in his face, he sighed.

"Sit down before you collapse."

She curled her fists.

"Tell your squirt to get off my case about kicking me out."

"That squirt is my brother." He folded his hands and leveled a flat stare at her. He gave her ten seconds tops. "You are hardly in the place to be giving me orders."

Seven. "You're the one who sucked me dry!"

Five. "Then you'd be dead. If anything, you owe me your life for having the will not to do just that. Go away."

Three. "No!" Two. She wobbled.

He smiled.

One.

The dark chocolate brown eyes rolled to the back of her head. Lane barely managed to catch her shoulders to stop her head from cracking against the floor.

Aster turned back to the computer screen, where a map of possible trajectories was displayed. Using satellite footage and accounts of some of his men and police reports around the area, he had narrowed down the monster's location to two places. He set to work pulling up images and square footage of each location.

"You gotta admire her will," said Lane. He grunted in effort as he started to pull the older girl onto a nearby couch. Aster took a moment to wonder what Lane found so difficult. They were about the same size.

"What are you doing?" Aster asked. "I said to get rid of her."

"She was rocking and pleading for someone named 'Lea' before she even noticed I was there. I think it would be crueler to send her off than just letting her stick around here for a day to recover. What harm could it do?"

Aster rolled his eyes. "Keep an especially annoying girl in the mansion of an overworked, irritated vampire and his junior co-vampire with no self-control. Great idea."

Lane scoffed, panting a bit as he got her upper half onto the couch. "Wow, she's way heavier than she looks. Must be all bone and muscle."

"If you don't get her out, I will." He finished typing in the URL specifics, picked up his phone, pressed speed-dial, and waited.

Lane managed to get the bottom half of the girl onto the sofa just as she gave a tiny, mewl-like moan. It made the hairs on the back of Aster's neck prickle.

On the other end of the line, the phone picked up.

"Mr. Morianton, sir?"

"I have a young lady in my office I need you to take home," he said.

"Aster," said Lane impatiently. "I really think she should stay."

"I will be there momentarily, sir."

Aster hung up. "Alright, then. Give me a reason I can actually accept."

Lane squared his shoulders in the way that meant business. A fleeting memory of his younger brother doing the same thing at nine when asking to go to public school ran through his head.

"If you were her and it was me that had been captured, what would you do if the only person you thought could help you find me kicked you out, what would you do?"

"Her friend's most likely dead."

"Even so."

The roll of images his brother's question elicited gave Aster pause. He didn't even need to wonder. He'd be beating down the door, sabotaging their car, going tooth and nail at any obstacle in his way until they gave in or he died.

He glanced at the pale, unconscious girl, who despite her blood loss had pushed herself across his mansion. She definitely had the spunk to do it.

Then he saw his brother glance at her as well. The look he saw flash across his gaze solidified in his mind that his brother wasn't telling everything.

He felt a modicum of guilt. But just a modicum.

"Fine," he said. "Do what you want. But she stays here. No rescue missions, I have better things to do."

Lane snorted. "Good luck with that."

Aster rounded a hard glare on his younger brother. "No. You will make sure she stays here."

Lane threw his hands up again, not unlike when he had come in with her. "Alright! I got it."

One of the girl's arms wriggled into the air. "Yessss." Came the triumphant hiss. Then, "Is there any way I could get, like, a blood transfusion or sumpthan? This blows."