We had a pretty much uneventful weekend, which was great because it meant that we could take a detour out to a river that Julian likes and go swimming. There was a whole selection of rocks of various height to jump off of, which if I’m honest kind of triggered some anxiety but that’s a price I’m willing to pay for not letting Neal Hawthorne out cliff-jump me. But listen that’s not super important and I’m honestly in sort of a hurry right now.

We got a call yesterday from Leopold. Remember Leopold? Head vampire of that nest in LA? Well apparently one of his contacts informed him that a group of young vampires were planning to rob a blood bank. This is obviously catastrophically stupid. Like, who holds up a blood bank? Literally, only vampires. So it’s a whole security issue, and we set off immediately to try and head them off.

Well, easier said than done. We were expecting them to arrive as the sun set, right? So we got there nice and early and went inside to get a feel for the place. It was no later than 3:15 in the afternoon, so we thought we had all the time in the world. Like, at least until sunset, right, since it’s vampires.

There was a spot of trouble trying to decide who would donate blood as our cover. I offered to do it, but the Hawthornes wouldn’t let me because we don’t know what fuckery resurrection might have done to my blood, Neal isn’t technically allowed to because he bangs dudes sometimes (which is BULLSHIT btw) and Julian just couldn’t for some reason.

When I asked why not, Neal made a face. “I swore not to lie to you,” he said. “So I won’t, but I’m not going to explain either.” And that’s all I got.

Luckily Neal didn’t swear not to lie to blood banks.

The phlebotomist, who cheerfully yielded us all sorts of information about the blood bank as she worked, was just easing the needle out of Neal’s arm when out in the lobby someone started screaming.

By the time we made it out there, there were vampires standing at each exit, a couple vampires threatening the receptionist, and a vampire drinking out of a blood packet like it was a capri sun.

The leader was a very thin woman vampire in her mid fifties and a power suit who said, “Everyone stay calm, we’re not here to hurt anyone.”

“Here we fucking go,” Neal sighed.

“I’d like for everyone to put their phones, their electronics, their watches, their anything that I might mistake for a way to contact the outside world, into this bag. They will of course be returned to you when you leave.”

There was a moment of quiet.

“They don’t have weapons,” a man said. He was a big guy, more than a match for the shoulder pad vampire — if she’d been a human and not literally a supernatural creature designed to hunt him, that is.

“Don’t test them,” Neal said, and he must have been having some blood sugar issues from his blood draw because he didn’t even try to be convincing and this guy ignored him entirely.

“You’re insane if you think I’m giving you my phone,” he said and made for the door.

The vampires were on him like snakes striking.

People really started to panic then.

“Don’t kill him,” shoulder pads vampire drawled as the vampires fed noisily.

The poor blood donors and nurses and phlebotomists and receptionists were really starting to panic now, which seemed to be about what Shoulder Pads Vampire had in mind. She was content as a cat as we put all our valuables in her bag, and all lined up behind the reception desk against the wall, just like we were told.

They had a refrigerated van pulled up to the side entrance and cleared the place out within the hour. Which we sort of thought would be the end of it, but it’s been hours and they still haven’t let anyone go.

Yeah, that’s right, I’m currently writing this on my phone from inside a hostage situation. I hid my phone by tucking it into the band of my bra, under my left tit, flat against my stomach hah. If they’d frisked me a little better I’d have been screwed.

It looks like the vamps are waiting for there to be some news coverage, because they’ve got the TV on and they’re watching our situation unfold on the news.

Neal literally just said, “what are they thinking? What is their fucking plan here?”

And Julian replied, “they’re waiting for a phone call. They want more than just the blood in here.”

But no one’s called yet. It’s dark now, and I can see cop cars out the window, so I know they’ve got a perimeter for us bufdasdi