“DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!” HUNTER shouts, fists balled at his sides, face shifting from red to a sort of purple. “They’re pumping her full of vampire blood and we’re supposed to sit here waiting for them to—to what? To let us go? To eat us? To turn us into one of them?”
“I’m tellin’ you . . . she looked a lot better. I’m not saying I agree—”
The crash of wood-meeting-tile as a nightstand hits the floor interrupts Logan, the drawer yawning and spewing forth its contents: a notepad, a pen, a couple bottles of pills.
“Dude, chill!” Kiley demands as a pill bottle rolls to her feet. She kicks it towards Hunter who stands amidst the immediate debris just a few feet away. The contents clatter to the floor, tiny orbs of pink and green and blue.
“Chill?” Hunter takes a couple long strides towards her, drawing back one fist.
Logan steps between them. Where his normally stockier build would typically dwarf Hunter’s slender frame, the latter, bolstered by his rage, seems nearly as large—and easily twice as reckless.
The first punch Hunter throws glances off Logan’s neck, pitching Hunter’s center of gravity too far forward. Logan puffs out his chest in anticipation, letting his shoulder catch Hunter in the jaw with a snap as his upper and lower teeth come together too hard. Logan shoves Hunter, sending him toppling backwards to the floor.
“Stop!” Kiley screams, but the two don’t seem to notice.
Logan takes a few steps towards Hunter who clamors to his feet and takes a step back, hands up in front of him in surrender. As Logan lunges, Kiley launches herself onto his back, wrapping her legs around his waist and one arm around his neck.
“I said stop!” she yells again as she starts pummeling Logan’s head with her clenched fist—more desperate in her flailing than exerting any real strength. “I. Don’t. Need. To. Be. Saved!” she yells, each word punctuated by a rap on Logan’s skull.
“What the—?!” Logan spins around a few times, trying to loosen her grip on him.
Hunter, now backed against a wall of the suite, starts laughing—at first quietly, then crescendoing to a deep belly laugh that has him doubled over. Kiley’s assault slows, her clenched fist now relaxed and its attached arm joins her other around Logan’s neck to hold herself on her non-consensual piggy-back ride.
“What’re you laughing at?” she demands.
“You! You’re . . . he’s . . . with your . . . ” Hunter imitates her flailing. “I don’t need to be saved!” He manages between laugh-choking breaths, flailing again.
“Shut up!” she yells, stifling her own laughter and twisting in an attempt to get Logan to put her down. “Let me go!”
“No way!” he laughs, clamping her legs with his arms. “I’ve got her—get her diary!” he calls to Hunter.
“Don’t you dare!” she yells, resuming her flailing on the back of a chuckling Logan. She yanks his hair and he tries to cry out, but the sound is swallowed by his own laughter.
Hunter scrambles for her bed, reaching under her pillow. He pulls out her black hardcover Moleskine journal and flips it open, reading aloud.
“‘Things that kill them: sunlight, garlic?’ ‘Crosses’ is crossed out . . . ‘Ash when dead like on Buffy?’” Hunter rifles through a few pages, pausing a couple seconds on each to scan the contents. “‘Get Lydia’s story,’” he continues. “‘To Interview: Victor, Lydia, British guy, thug guy, others?’ Are these . . . notes?”
Logan releases his hold on Kiley, letting her drop down. She lunges for Hunter and the journal, swiping it from his hands.
“Obviously! What else would it be?” she hisses, clutching the journal to her chest and glaring at the two boys. “How is that even a question?” she mutters under her breath.
“Kiley, do you really think that interviewing the people who kidnapped us is going to accomplish anything?” Logan asks, the concern in his voice mirrored in his gaze.
Hunter scoffs. “She probably thinks she’ll be the next Anne Rice once we get out of here,” he mocks. “If we get out of here,” he adds, returning her glare.
“Actually,” she announces, “I have a plan.”