02:35

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We waited until dark.

Conner gave us another rundown of our plan, smacking me in the head while he gestured.

"You guys got all that?"

Nate shrugged, "Mas o menos."

"Sure," I added.

"Okay, confidence inspired. Let's go."

"Hang on, hang on!" Courtney put her hands out, "In case we don't make it speech!"

Con sighed, "Go ahead."

"Okay! I say this with nothing but love, you guys are all a buncha fucktards and I wish I never met you, but in a good way."

"Enlightening as always, thanks."

She blew us a kiss and started up the trail with Aaron.

When they got in their positions so did we.

Nate asked Conner something, I took the chance to climb one of the millions of trees before I got yelled at.

"Great." Conner sighed when he realized I was gone, "Parker! We don't have time for this!"

"Pendejo!" Nate yelled. It's kinda cute that he has pet names for us.

I looped my legs around a branch and hung upside down so I was face to face with them, "Yo?"

"You're going to get stuck." Con started to reprimand me.

"And I'm not gettin' you down again." Nate crossed his arms.

I rolled my eyes, "I'm fine! Besides, I have a better advantage point."

"The advantage is being a dumbass in a tree."

"Hey!"

"Just get down here!" He swatted at me

"Jesus. Yes, Dad." I straightened out and jumped, barely landing on my feet, and splashed Conner's shoes with mud.

He glared at me, his glare was less intimidating when he was in the sun, and his eyes kind of looked like a Van Gough painting, "That's the other thing, the next time you call me Dad you owe me twenty bucks."

"Ooh, prostitution, kinky."

"Get in position." He barked.

I winked at him and zipped by before he could yell at me again, I hurled myself up the tree behind Aaron and Courtney.

We didn't have to wait long, a vamp snuck up behind the tree. It got close before a bullet whizzed by, ripping through its chest, the vampire disintegrated into ash instantly.

"Nice shot!" Courtney hollered to Conner as she got up and started to go after the few that were starting to trickle in.

I watched for a second as one got closer to my tree. The irony of what I was doing isn't lost on me, and I think about it a lot. Maybe it's some kind of masochistic way of killing the parts of me I don't like, I don't know, those were Conner's words.

Other than the title of vampire I find it hard to draw similarities between what I am and what we hunt. The vampires we hunt are like rabid animals, they don't care about anything except their next meal. They walk around like corpses, most of the time shriveled and bony and occasionally decomposing if they hadn't fed in a while. The only sign of life was in their glowing yellow eyes. I can't wrap my head around how I could be the same thing.

I stopped my thought process, it wasn't very long anyway and I had a job to do.

I targeted a bigger one, he was about twice my size but his eyes were dull, and he had a gaping wound on his side. I plunged my knife through his heart, it came back out with a squelch and splattered syrupy ash on my clothes. I couldn't help but feel like I was doing them a favor.

There weren't many and we got through the hunt quickly.

"Okay! Five," Conner yelled once the area was cleared.

"Four!" "Three!" Aaron and Courtney responded as we shuffled into the middle of the field.

"420," I answered.

"69." Nate one-upped me.

Conner crossed his arms, "Can you guys ever take this seriously?"

"What?" I shrugged, "We said numbers..."

I trailed off, Conner said something but I didn't hear him. The air around filled with the scent of something metallic, a ball of anxiety grew in my stomach as I pushed as far back to the tree line as I could.

"Parker?" Conner said my name, but his voice sounded far away like a tunnel even though he was standing right in front of me.

My head quieted enough for me to at least think of something. I fumbled for the flask in my pocket, it was filled with holy water and I downed as much as I could handle.

"Parker!" All four of them yelled at me.

It burned, like drinking boiling vodka. I could feel the searing all the way down to my stomach, but the pain was enough of a distraction for things to settle back to normal.

Conner grabbed the flask from me, "What are you doing?!"

I coughed and soot smeared on my hand, I wiped the rest off my mouth with my sleeve as I walked away, "Nate's bleeding." I mumbled on my way.