God's Lonely Man

Bail Me Out

"Popcorn hog," Laura teases.

"Excuse you," Carmilla says, mocking offense. "You're the one who kept the bucket in her lap the whole movie!"

"That's because if it was remotely tilted in your direction, I would blink and half of it would go missing," Laura snaps as they turn the corner leading to her house.

"Are you sure when you thought you were blinking, you weren't actually sleeping?" Carmilla drawls.

Laura giggles and playfully swats her.

They walk up to her front steps and stop.

"You really didn't have to walk me home, Carm," Laura says, her joking tone replaced with sincerity.

"Hollis, you have a propensity for getting every square inch of your tiny body kicked whenever you're left alone," Carmilla replies with a smirk. "Plus, it was an excuse to spend more time with you."

"Well, if you want another excuse... " Laura blushes. "Do you want to come in? There's a great Chinese take-out place we can order from."

Carmilla nods and gestures for Laura to go first. "Lead the way, cutie."

Laura walks up the stairs and goes to unlock the door, but it's already cracked open. Her eyes widen as she pushes the door open all the way and starts to step in. Carmilla grabs her by the arm.

"Are you suicidal? Your house just got broken into and you're just gonna walk in?"

Laura bites her lip and nods. "Well, yeah. If it has something to do with your mother, calling any cops will alert my dad and that'll just start to unravel all the lies I've been telling."

She gently pulls her arm free and steps into the house, turning the lights on.

"My, my, you do not learn your lesson, do you?" speaks a voice from an armchair.

Carmilla steps in front of Laura protectively before she recognizes the voice. Her eyebrows furrow together. "Will?"

He settles into the chair with a self-satisfied smirk. "I'm out on bail, courtesy of your mother."

Laura tries to step around Carmilla, but she holds out an arm and keeps Laura in place behind her.

"Speaking of your mother, I'm pretty sure she told me you two were to stay out of each others' lives," Will continues smugly.

"Then why did she have me dropped off at Carmilla's?" Laura demands. Carmilla nods, having had the same question.

"Wow, come on you two," Will remarks. "She was hoping that it would scare Carmilla enough to leave you alone, and hoping it would make you so angry at Carmilla for dragging you into this whole mess that you'd cut ties with her."

Laura and Carmilla look at each other.

"Clearly it didn't work," Will surmises.

"Why are you even here?" Laura asks, stepping around Carmilla, who stiffens but doesn't move to block Laura again since there doesn't seem to be any danger at the moment.

"Well, I was going to threaten you with more bodily harm," Will says, grinning widely. "But now that I see you two are defying the wishes of both the chief and the Dean, I have another idea."

He stands up and walks over to Laura, sneering down at her. "You drop the charges, and I won't tell the Dean that you two are still spending time together."

Carmilla shakes her head. "No."

Laura gives her a look as if she's considering the deal.

"No," Carmilla says, more urgently. "You can't!"