So You Used to Be Human - Book 3 (Original Version)

Chapter 32: A Girl's Life

It was deadly quiet without me there.

That's the thing that shocked Jaime the most out of everything that had happened, just how quiet it was when I wasn't around. She told me later that it reminded her of when we'd finally broken up after the months of me stealing from her and racking up her credit cards with stupid purchases and cash advances at ridiculously high interest rates. Once the yelling was done and my stupid fucking mood-swings were out the door, there was just this sense of quiet and calm that she hadn't realized had been missing. Having me around was like having a television set on full blast with someone constantly changing the channels the instant something caught your attention and you can never find out the punchline of that really clever commercial even if you try to go back.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm kinda out of the story for a little while. Unless you want to hear about my thrilling adventures of being thrown into the trunk of an ancient Cadillac with blacked-out windows and then being locked up in a windowless room while blindfolded and with earplugs in my ears. That makes for a thrilling tale doesn't it? Yeah I know, I hate those kinds of movies too.

All of the good fun stuff was happening outside so we're gonna stick with them for a bit. Anytime you miss me and wonder what I'm up to, just picture me tied up. In a tiny room. Bored out of my skull.

Okay, now we got that out of the way...

"We have to get him back," a very stoned Jaime had said only seconds before she had fallen to her knees and begun to giggle like a maniac.

Sammy's head was somewhere else entirely.

"The sun's coming up. We about forty minutes before full light."

The King nodded, one eye to the sky.

"There's a motel about ten miles back, right off the freeway," the King volunteered and Sammy nodded grimly. She hopped into the car, deliberately not looking around at Jimmy's armless body on the ground. She paused with the door still open. "You're going to have to get Jaime and put her into the car."

"She's going to be a bit of a handful," the King said. "I might need your help peeling her off my leg in a few minutes." He glanced over at Jimmy, concerned. "You mind if I take a moment to cover him up? It's not right what they did to him."

"Do what you need to, just do it quickly."

Ten minutes later they were speeding away from the trailer park, leaving the devastation of the camp behind them, but the memory of all of the broken bodies seared into their eyeballs. The Gentlemen had left a trail of destruction and bodies in their wake; it didn't seem like anyone had been left alive. Jaime was passed out on the back seat while the King drove, the vehicle seeming like a natural extension of the man. Sammy just stared straight ahead still processing everything that she had seen and experienced.

"What the hell is Jesus? I thought I saw him change into something... definitely not human."

"Jesus is older than anyone I've ever met. He knocked around Central America for a couple hundred years where they apparently worshipped him as a god. For all we know he is one. He had the name Jesus when I first met him about eighty years ago and told me he had taken it on as a joke but he'd forgotten the punchline."

"Wow." Sammy thought for a long moment. "They're going to kill Bob aren't they?"

"It's what they do. They take out the trash."

"Hey! That's my friend you're talking about? Do you really want me pissed off at you again?"

King knew when to back off. "My bad. Old habits and hierarchies die hard baby doll. But it's true.  From the view point of the other vampires, especially the gentlemen, Bob is the trash and nobody like to look at the trash for too long."