Heartbreaker

T H I R T Y S I X

"This isn't a joke Jared, stop fucking around," Sam scolds him.

"I thought it was funny," Jared says, wrapping his arm around Kim. "Did you think it was funny Paul?"

"No."

"Liar," Jared smirks at him.

Paul gives him a look but slowly breaks out into a smile, "Okay it was a little funny."

"Not the time, though," Sam says, giving both of the boys a warning look. "The redhead keeps coming back. And we don't know why. She could bring immediate danger to this town."

I look at Paul, "Danger?"

Sam was right, this wasn't something to joke about. If people's lives could be in danger from the red headed vampire, it's pretty serious.

"She could slaughter everyone in town," Embry says.

My eyes widen, and I look over at Paul again. To which I saw the anger grow rapidly within him.

"Really?" Paul snaps at him. "He's kidding Josie."

His arm tightens around me, pulling me closer to his body in some sort of protection.

"There's one of her, and four — well now five, of us," Embry states, "Nothing will happen."

"We will make sure nothing happens Jos," Paul tells me. "I will for certain."

The imprint thing, right.

"You have a werewolf living with you Josie, and a boyfriend that's also one too. You're the one that's the most protected here," Embry reassures me.

Boyfriend. Yeah, we haven't discussed that label yet.

I glance over at Paul to see what his reaction was, but he seemed to have beat me to it. He was already looking at me.

"Circling back to my point, we should increase patrols during the week."

No one seemed to answer to that. I'm sure patrol wasn't everyone's favorite thing to do. No sleep,  running around to God knows where, just to go to school the next day. It's exhausting I'm sure.

"How many?" Jake asks, finally chiming in.

"Four a week, instead of two," Sam states, "We'll cycle through so we each get some time to sleep. I'll take the first shift, who else?"

"I will," Jake says, "That way I can get it out of the way for the week."

I felt uneasy about that. The nights that Jake would now have patrol would leave my dad and I vulnerable in the house. Normally, it wouldn't bother me too much. But since she tried to attack me that night a couple weeks ago and wasn't successful, makes me think that she'd try again.

"That settles it then," Sam says.

"Why do you think she keeps coming back?" I ask, out of curiosity.

"Not sure. She must find something she likes about the area."

"Like... a person?"

Everyone was silent. Paul's arm squeezes my shoulder, once he realized what I was thinking.

"She won't touch you," Jake says, "I'll make that much very clear."

"So will I."

Jake's head snaps over to Paul, and eventually he lets out a very obvious eye roll. I was praying that Paul didn't see, but somehow, he must've caught it.

"Do you have an issue with that?" He asks my brother.

"You don't need to act all macho because she's here."