I love you too.

“Do you even know where we’re going?” Key demanded as you drove through an unfamiliar part of town in the Lamborghini you and Jonghyun shared.

“Take the next left,” you muttered to Jonghyun, scrutinizing the small map you had pulled up on your phone.

“Answer me, damn it!” Key said.

“We’re going to a cemetery on the edge of town,” you answered him.

“Is that where the vampires’ lair is?” he asked warily.

You shrugged. “I mean, yeah,” you said. “I think so.”

He raised an eyebrow at you. “You think so?”

You nodded.

He sighed. “Well, does any of this scenery look familiar to you?”

You looked out the windows at the passing neighborhood, which was full of overgrown trees that hovered over the narrow street and old crumbling houses. Then you turned back to Key and shook your head.

“Do you remember any landmarks or anything from the last time you were there?” Key asked.

You thought back. “Well, I was unconscious when the vampires were taking me there,” you answered.

“Of course,” Key muttered under his breath.

“And we left it by teleporting out,” you finished.

Key gaped at you. “So you’ve never even seen the outside?” You shook your head again, and he sighed exasperatedly. “Why are you taking us to some random cemetery then?”

“Where else would a lair full of vampires be?” you reasoned. He made a sound in protest, but you cut him off before he could say something to deter you. “Come on, Key, it makes sense. An old cemetery with a mausoleum is the perfect place for vampires to live. Trust me,” you assured him. “I’m the Chosen One.” Then you turned back around in your seat.

“So what’s the plan when we get there?” Amber asked.

“Assuming we’re not just walking aimlessly into a death trap or wandering around an empty, unextraordinary graveyard,” Key muttered.

“When we get there,” you answered, “find the device, figure out what it does and whatever other information we can find, leave before any vampires can catch up to us.”

“I like it,” Key said in an upbeat voice. “Simple, to the point, and it operates on the naïve assumption that everything Mary Sue suggests is reality.” Then he started grumbling about dream logic and the rest of you pretty much ignored him at that point.

You pulled up to the wrought iron gates about ten minutes later and exited the car.

“So, Mary Sue,” Key said cheerily as you walked between headstones. “Where’s the entrance to the vampires’ lair?”

You pointed ahead to a small stone building in the center of the plot. “I would think it’s in the mausoleum,” you said.

“Of course,” Key agreed. “The mausoleum.” He sighed and trudged ahead toward the structure. “Let’s get this over with,” he muttered.

Once inside, the four of you slowly looked around, inspecting the small markers on the resting places of the dead.

“What are we looking for?” Jonghyun asked.

“Well, I’m pretty sure their hideout is underground,” you said. “So…”

You strode to the center of the room where a large, marble edifice stood proudly. You placed your hands experimentally on the side of it and started pushing. It wouldn’t budge.

You heard Key scoff, so you stood up and faced the other three. “A little help?”

Jonghyun and Amber immediately rushed to your side, and Key did as well, albeit reluctantly. The slab ground against the cement floor as it slid away, revealing a large hole where it once stood and some ancient-looking stone steps. “Damn it,” Key hissed to himself.

“Okay,” you said, straightening up. “Let’s go.”

You took a few steps downward, but Key stopped you.

“Woah, wait a minute,” he said, holding out his hand. “I know we’re not supposed to be down there.”

You scoffed at him. “At what point did you expect to get the vampires’ permission for going into their lair?”

He just gave you an incredulous look before rolling his eyes and heaving a great sigh. “I really hope I wake up soon,” he muttered, following you into the chasm.

Underground was like a labyrinth. Hallways upon hallways, all lined with torches and speckled with mysterious-looking doors here and there. You continued down random corridors, with Key grumbling every time you turned around a corner.

“You’re going to get us lost down here,” he hissed. “And then we’ll be trapped, and we’ll die down here of starvation or suffocation or insanity!”

“Relax,” you told him. “The vampires would find us and kill us before that could ever happen.”

You ignored his protests and kept walking.

You were trying to imagine just what a device that would be used to block out the sun would look like when you stumbled upon a vast room, made of stone walls and full of lit torches. In the center of the room was a large stone… thing.

As you approached it, you could see it in better detail. It was round. Cylindrical, actually, and layered with different sized cylinders, with the largest on the bottom and the smallest at the top. Every inch of it was covered with what looked like carved runes in the stone. The thing looked ancient and temperamental.

You couldn’t fathom what it could possibly be used for.

“I think,” Amber began to say, approaching the thing. “I think this might be it.”

“Really?” Jonghyun asked, eyes full of amazement as he beheld the object.

You considered the thing before you. “How would I be used for it?” you pondered aloud.

“Are you guys ing crazy?!” you heard Key’s voice hiss from behind you.

The rest of you turned around to see him slinking against a wall in a shadow behind a pillar, staring at the three of you in the middle of the vast room.

“What are you talking about?” you asked him.

He scoffed at you incredulously. “You just waltz up to some giant … thing in the middle of some vast room in what is presumably a lair of vampires, and none of you stop to even look around in case there’s somebody else in here, or even to think, ‘Hey, maybe this isn’t such a good idea, and we should turn back now before we do get caught by somebody who wants to our blood!’” His gestures became increasingly more flailing as he said this.

You just stared at him in response, before smiling assuredly at him. “Calm down, Key,” you said. “We’re not going to get caught. There aren’t even any vampires around.”

Just then, you heard voices coming from the entrance, then close footsteps. You hurried to hide behind the pillar Key was hiding behind, followed by Amber and Jonghyun.

“Everything’s almost in place,” whispered a deep voice, which you recognized. It was TOP. “The device has been recovered and restored. It will be ready by the twenty-first.”

You heard a chuckle. “Will you have the girl by the twenty-first?” This voice was higher pitched and unfamiliar. “Or will you let her slip through your clutches once again?”

TOP let out a low growl. “I will get her in time for the eclipse,” he responded irritably. “Don’t you worry about that.”

“Make sure you do,” the other retorted. “You’ve had many chances to capture her, and you’ve failed every time.”

“I’ve succeeded in capturing her before.”

“And yet, she got away.” The higher-pitched voice chuckled again. “I don’t understand why Ga In hasn’t just sent another to do the job.”

TOP snarled at him. “I will be the one to bring her to the ritual. And I won’t let her escape again.”

“I don’t understand why you insist to be the one to handle the Chosen One,” said the other after a pause.

TOP sighed. “If you were there,” he said. “If you had been close enough to her…you would know.” There was another short pause before he continued with a hint of defense and passion in his voice. “If you experienced her essence, her scent, you would understand why I can’t resist her.” The vampire inhaled deeply and let it out in a sigh. “I can smell it now,” he breathed. “It’s like she’s here.” He took another deep breath.

You swallowed, trying to stop your heart from jumping out of your throat. He could smell you. He would find you soon enough, there was no way for you to get away quickly.

“She’s here,” you heard TOP whisper. “The Chosen One is here.”

You looked back at Key, Jonghyun and Amber, who were all staring at you with expressions of terror. You couldn’t let them all be captured as well.

“Chosen One,” boomed TOP’s deep growl, reverberating off the stone walls. “Come out. I won’t bite…” You could picture him grinning as he said it, sharp teeth glinting in the torchlight.

There was no way out of this one.

After a quick gesture telling the others to get away quickly and find help, you stepped out slowly from behind the pillar to face the vampires.

Chanyeol quietly approached the vine on the side of Mary Sue’s house leading up to her bedroom window. He had come to apologize to her for kissing her out of nowhere. It was unfair to her for him to selfishly let his own feelings take over without even giving her an explanation. He really wanted her to know his intentions, and he couldn’t wait until tomorrow to tell her.

He could never wait to see Mary Sue.

And since it was much later than the last time he just showed up at her house to tell her something, he figured he should probably forgo the rock throwing and just climb into her window to tell her.

When he reached the window, however, he found it was already open, and once he crept inside, he found the room was empty. No Mary Sue in sight.

Drawing his eyebrows together in worry, he looked around the room for anything out of the ordinary, but he couldn’t really find anything. There was no sign of a struggle. There were no strange notes or anything that offered an explanation for Mary Sue’s absence. There was nothing that told him anything about Mary Sue’s current location or state of being.

Then something flashed and caught his attention, and his eyes alighted on his Phoenix Talisman hanging from a hook by the mirror.

Chanyeol knew that wasn’t a good sign.

Jonghyun sped down the creepy unfamiliar roads as fast as his Lamborghini would take him. He, Amber, and Key had managed to escape the vampires’ lair unnoticed, and now Mary Sue’s life was depending on him to get to the Hunters fast enough to get their help.

He screeched the luxury vehicle to a halt in front of the old church, trying not to imagine what must be happening to Mary Sue right now, and the three of them rushed inside. He was slightly surprised to see the Hunters already in a bit of a frenzy, with Chanyeol arguing with a few of the others.

“We don’t know for sure that’s what happened,” Suho was saying. “She could have gone for a walk.”

“No!” Chanyeol shouted. “Not Mary Sue, she’s smarter than to leave the talisman behind on purpose. She had to have been kidnapped!” He shook the talisman in front of their faces as if to emphasize just how urgent the situation was.

Jonghyun, who had gone completely unnoticed thus far, approached the Hunters with an, “Ahem.”

They all turned toward him, and Chanyeol’s eyes became even wider than Jonghyun thought possible.

“Mary Sue’s in trouble,” Jonghyun stated firmly.

“She was kidnapped by vampires?!” Chanyeol exclaimed.

“Not exactly,” Key answered.

Chanyeol looked at him confusedly. “What do you mean, not exactly?”

“Oh, she’s with the vampires,” Key explained. “But she wasn’t kidnapped. She sort of just…” His arms trailed in front of him as he visually explained. “Walked willfully into their clutches.”

Jonghyun thought Chanyeol was about to explode with the way he looked suddenly.

“What?!”