FicWad

Gwen sat comfortably on her worn out couch, her eyes glued to her television. She shivered, tearing her eyes from the bright screen and toward the door. Nothing moved or made a sound, but she turned off the TV with her remote and sat very still, listening.

"Pete?" she called out, really hoping that he was playing some idiotic joke on her.

She'd been waiting for him for at least half an hour...without any luck. Pete was never late. Not in the six months they'd been dating, anyway. Which was apparently a record, according to Patrick. Just another one of a string of comments that Gwen was never sure were jokes or warnings.

She tried to smile, tried to keep her cool, but the hair on her neck stood straight up. Slowly, she got to her feet, moving toward her kitchen, so scared that she wanted to arm herself with a butcher knife. Gwen stopped in her tracks as she noticed a window wide open, the darkness of the night pouring inside. Something breezed past her too quickly to see what it was.

With a bloodcurdling scream, she ran toward the front door, but before she reached it, a pair of ice cold hands grabbed her.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," a voice told her calmly.

Before she could even scream, the hands slithered up her body, reached her neck, and tenderly tilted her head back. He laughed as she felt his fangs near her neck...

Gwen gasped loudly, jerking herself awake. For a moment, she inhaled heavily and gripped the blankets that surrounded her. Sweat poured down her forehead, but she ignored it and immediately took her cell phone from her nightstand. She didn't even bother to flick on the light until after she speed dialed his number. Something was wrong.

"Please, please, pick up," she murmured, getting up from the bed and pacing.

The cell rang and rang, but Gwen persisted. No way Patrick let anything happen to Pete. A promise is a promise is a promise.

"Hey," Pete said.

"Oh, thank God--"

"--this is Pete, Peter Pan, or Peter Rabbit, but whoever I am today, I'm out breaking hearts and looking damn good." He laughed, and Patrick yelled from the background. "Okay, make that staking hearts...AND looking damn good. Leave a message and maybe Trick will remind me to call you back."

"Shit," she muttered, quickly moving to her dresser.

Without any clear reason why, she was dressed and out the door in less than ten minutes. Something was very wrong, she could feel it. Pete was always extra careful, but what if tonight the Hunt went horribly wrong? Expert hunters are not, they were still human. Some of them didn't take that lightly, and the boys knew it. She had fought with him about his war against them so many times, but he never listened to her.
Even when she cried.

It was still dark out, so Gwen knew it was still too early, but she didn't care if he wasn't back from the Hunt yet. She'd wait at their hideout for hours if needed be. She wasn’t going to sleep comfortably in her bed while they were out there, maybe dying at this very moment. Pete would be angry that she risked going out at this hour just to see him, but none of that mattered.
She was speeding down the streets even though she wasn't afraid to be attacked.
Hell, let those bastards try.

Gwen didn't have much experience fighting them, but if they so much as dared to stop her right now, she'd kill them with her bare hands. With a screech of her poor, beaten up tires, she parked near the alley and ran to the door.

The door wouldn't even budge. What the hell was going on?

"Patrick? Andy? Joe? Pete?" she yelled, banging as hard as she could.
Her voice echoed through the alley and broke the total silence, but she knew they were there, and they'd have to let her in, vampire capture or not. Something was wrong! She just knew it.

"Patrick, please, please let me in! I have to see him!"

Tears were streaming down her face when Patrick finally opened the door a little.

"Gwen, I can't--"

"Patrick Martin Stump, if you don't let me in, I swear I will forcibly tear off a body part and feed it to you!" she screamed, clenching her fists.

Patrick stared at her and opened the door wide open.

"Thank you," she snapped as she swept past him.

"Gwen, wait, I need to tell you--"

"Shut up, and tell me where Pete is!" she yelled.

She didn't know why she was yelling. And she didn't care.

Before Patrick could answer, the muffled sounds of crashing and banging filled the room. She glanced at him more one more time before taking off into a left corridor of the hideout, in the direction of where they built holding cells. Could he have gotten badly hurt when they captured this one? Or maybe this last capture would end his obsession?

She sprinted down another corridor and turned to the right to see Andy and Joe standing before the largest cell, looking like they hadn’t slept in weeks and were on a caffeine high that wouldn’t let go.

"What, what is it?" she asked. She tried not to think about what their faces told her.

"Patrick, why did you let her in?" Andy said, shaking his head.

"Because she has the right to know!"

For the first time, she noticed that Patrick was completely white-faced and more upset than she'd ever seen him. Her emotional blocks started falling apart--he was never, ever upset unless something completely disastrous happened.

"Where's Pete?" she asked once more, slowly moving toward the holding cell.

"I don't think you want to see," Joe answered hopelessly.

She trembled as she looked through the window of the cell. The prisoner raised his eyes to hers from his seat near the back of the cell. His fangs glistened, his face held a tormented expression. And as she looked into her boyfriend's eyes, Gwen screamed and screamed.