Their next target was another female vampire caught on the wrong side of the agreement. She looked to be about thirty in her picture and was an average looking brunette with blue eyes. She was supposed to be five feet tall with a heavier set build. Chloe wondered about the vampire's life before she'd been turned. Who had she left behind? She memorized the details of her face and body and then set out with her friends into the City of Rome. She had grown to love walking around the city at night. The lit up streets had become and warm and friendly place... until they located the targets, of course.

They went running through the streets in an orderly fashion, looking for signs of vampire activity. Chloe saw two vampires walking down an alley behind a man dressed in rags. She swallowed hard and looked the other way, knowing she and her friends couldn't afford another interaction with the Pope. She said a quick prayer apologizing to the powers that could forgive this inaction of hers, though she didn't know who or what would hear or forgive.

They kept to the shadows, working their way out from the meeting place. Chloe was surprised at how far they had come, seeing minimal activity on this beautiful clear night. They had been looking for a couple of hours when she finally saw a figure ahead. She turned to look at the woman and she made eye contact with Chloe as well. Chloe saw the woman's expression turn to one of alarm as she turned and began running. She was fast.

With a yell to her friends, Chloe took off after her, taking her gun from her belt. She was surprised to see that she was faster than this vampire and was gaining ground as they ran, block after block. The woman jumped a high fence and Chloe followed with no trouble. Finally Chloe was close enough that she took a risk and jumped to tackle her to the ground.

She felt her arms come into contact with the vampire's waist and then the ground. She heard the vampire's face hit the pavement with a sickening thump, and winced in empathetic response. No, she thought, no empathy. Not now. She dropped her gun and quickly grabbed the vampire's arms from behind. She stood up with one foot on the vampire's back. She yanked hard and the arms came out of their sockets. The vampire screamed in pain, but Chloe didn't stop. She grabbed a stake out of her belt and rammed it hard through the vampire's back, right through her heart. And then the vampire was gone and Chloe was standing in a pile of ashes.

She turned to see if Felicity and Quinn had caught up, but they weren't right with her. She looked around the ashes and saw her gun a few feet away. She bent to pick it up and when she stood back up she saw another vampire coming her way. He was running so fast that she barely saw him before he kicked her hard in the face. Her body flew backwards and she landed hard on her back. The gun flew from her hand.

She felt herself panic as a foot pressed against her chest. "You killed her!" cried the voice full of anger and grief. She opened her eyes and saw him look back at the pile of ashes. She didn't wait for the grimace to turn back her way. She grabbed his foot and twisted with her whole body, rolling over his leg. She forced his knee to bend with the pressure of her momentum. His whole body went over and he fell hard on the ground. She continued to hold on to his ankle as she kept rolling, causing his leg to bend backwards. She heard his ankle snap and then his knee. He cried out in pain, but she knew she couldn't stop or else he would gain the advantage and she would be dead.

She let go of his ankle and reached over to the other side of her body, looking for his head. She felt hair in her hands and grabbed a solid hold as she turned her entire body and put her knees in his back. Then Chloe gripped his head in the way that Quinn had taught her and twisted until she heard the snap she'd heard so many times in training. She reached naturally for one of the stakes in her belt, but there wasn't one there. She started to panic as she realized she must have lost one during her run. She looked around for a weapon that would work. Her gun was about twenty feet away. She could hear the bones in his neck repairing themselves, so she snapped his neck again to give her some extra time to get to the gun. Then she jumped off of his back and ran for the gun.

She picked the weapon up and turned around to face the vampire who was now standing with murder in his eyes. He started to run towards her and she raised the gun. She took a breath as she aimed for his heart, and she pulled the trigger with as much calm as she good muster. She saw him smirk at her and his mouth open, "Guns don't..." he started to say, and then he was gone. Chloe looked at the pile of ashes with a mixture of relief and disbelief.

"Chloe," came Felicity's breathless voice from behind her. "are you okay?"

Chloe turned to see Quinn and Felicity standing by the fence, looking at the two piles of ashes with concern and interest. "Yeah, I think so," she replied with shock. She felt the blood rush back into every part of her body and she felt alive like she had never felt before. A smile slowly spread across her face and she looked at her friends, "I feel great. I feel alive!" she said. She pulled out her cell phone and texted the rest of the Red Guard.

Quinn looked at her with a frown, "You feel great?" he asked.

"My blood is humming," she said.

"It's the adrenaline," said Felicity.

"That was crazy! The second one just appeared from nowhere!" said Chloe.

"Who was the second one?" asked Quinn.

"I have no idea. It must have been her boyfriend or something. I thought he was going to kill me for sure. If he hadn't looked back at her ashes, I would have been dead."

They heard several footsteps approaching and turned to see the rest of their troupe. Jessica was in the lead and she grinned as she took in the scene. "Who killed her?" Jessica asked.

"It was a solo mission completed by Chloe," said Quinn.

"Really?" asked Jessica with excitement.

"Not only that," said Felicity, "The target had a boyfriend and Chloe took him out as well. She killed two of them on her own."

Jessica appraised Chloe with a new-found respect. "Impressive, Desjardins, impressive indeed."

Chloe couldn't help it, she smiled widely at Jessica. "Thanks," she said.

Jessica raised an eyebrow, "Oh, my God! You loved it, didn't you?" she grinned.

Chloe faltered a little bit. She knew she shouldn't have loved it, but she couldn't deny that she did. "I think so," she replied.

Jessica walked over to her and threw an arm around her shoulders. "It's okay to love it," she said. "It's better to love it than hate it. It's hard to argue with the feeling of victory, Chloe. It's hard to argue with being alive at the end of the night. This is your life now, so you might as well love it."

After the Red Guard celebrated and congratulated Chloe, they headed back to the bright lights of the Vatican.

~~

A/N Thank you for getting this far! ❤️❤️  Please consider commenting and voting to support my book!