“Yeah. I’m a good vampire.” I paused. “Like Angel. With a soul and everything.”
“But Angel wasn’t always good. Do you turn all evil when you have sex?”
I rolled my eyes. In the name of all that was holy, I shouldn’t have lent her those Buffy DVDs. “You’re just going to have to trust me on this one. I’m good Angel. All the time.”
I waited for another minute in silence.
“Amy,” I finally said. “Are you okay in there?”
I heard the toilet flush. Then the latch clicked and the door opened slowly. Amy peered out at me nervously. Her bottom lip quivered. “I’m so sorry I set you up with that jerk!” She staggered out and hugged me tightly.
I patted her back. “Me too.”
She sniffed, then backed away from me. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! That’s not very nice.”
“I’ve been hoping I could get back to life as usual before anyone noticed anything different about me. Unfortunately, it’s not turning out to be that simple.”
“Why would you want that?” Her voice was getting stronger, and her wide smile was making another appearance. “My best friend is a vampire. I am so completely jealous.”
“Don’t be. Trust me on that.”
“So, what about Quinn?”
“What do you mean, ‘What about Quinn?’ ”
“Does he know?”
I took a deep breath. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to bring you in here to tell you. Quinn’s a vampire, too.”
“Get the hell out of here!”
“Wish I could. Long story short, Quinn used to be a vampire hunter. He even tried to kill me a couple of times. Then he got turned into one of us.”
“And you two fell in love.” She sighed. “Oh, my God, that is so romantic.”
“I’m not in love with him,” I said firmly.
“But you two are so cute together. The wedding pictures would be amazing.”
“Not enough of a reason to fall in love, I’m afraid. But there’s something else I have to tell you. Something bad.”
Her breath caught. “What?”
“Peter’s a vampire hunter.”
She gasped. “But he said he was in pest control.”
“Yeah, let’s put it together now, Amy. Pest control. As in killing vampires. They think vamps are evil, but take it from me on this one, we’re not. He’s the bad guy.”
“Do you think he hurt his eye out hunting vampires?” Amy looked so confused that I felt sorry for her. It was usually hard enough for her to follow the plot of The Young and the
Restless, let alone The Fanged and the Fashionable.
“That’s the thing, Amy. I was the one who did that to his eye last week. I had to. He was trying to kill me, and I was just protecting myself. I haven’t seen him again until tonight.
There’s no way he’s going to let me out of here alive. And to top it off, he has no idea that Quinn’s been turned. He just thinks that he’s still one of the boys. Ready to go out later tonight and do some more hunting.”
“Peter tried to kill you.” Her voice was full of disbelief that her shiny new boyfriend would be capable of anything so unsavory.
“Yeah.”
“And you think he’s going to try to kill you again.”
I shrugged. “He’s a vampire hunter. That’s what he does.”
“But you’re my friend.”
“I don’t think he sees things quite that simply, unfortunately.”
“Well, that’s not good.”
“Major understatement. I just can’t believe that out of all the guys in Toronto, you ended up dating him.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” I sighed. “It’s not your fault. Just fate giving me a swift kick in the ass.”
“So, what’s the plan?” she asked.
“Plan?”
“The plan to get you out of here safely.”
“We’ll have to kill Peter,” I said.
Amy gasped and put a hand to her mouth.
“Kidding.” I patted her shoulder and tried not to laugh out loud at her reaction. Maybe I was evil, after all. “Just kidding. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I don’t know how to get out of here. There’s no way he’s going to let me go this time, after what I did to his eye.”
Amy opened her purse and pushed through the contents. “I think I might have an idea.”
There was always a first time for everything.
“What are you looking for?” I said.
“I know I have them in here somewhere. Oh, good, here they are.” She pulled out a bottle of pills.