Chapter 15

Tessa’s POV

“I’m sorry…” I said hoarsely. “Did you say that you found them dead?” I asked, my voice trembling.

The last I saw them, they were alive. They were running off into the darkness once the sirens could be heard. But maybe that was part of my imagination as well.

I felt sick thinking about it.

How much of that night was real and how much was the hallucination?

“Yes, they were found dead. With interesting wound marks. We are going to need to ask you a few questions at the police station. Do you have a few minutes to stop by?”

It was after class and it was late in the evening, so I didn’t really have much more going on.

“Yes, I’ll be there soon,” I said just before hanging up the phone.

“Are you ready to go?” Ruby asked as she came out of the bathroom. I was going to return home with her initially.

“Actually, something came up,” I told her quickly. “I’ll see you at home later.”

I didn’t want to tell her that I was going to the police station. At least not until I knew for sure what was going on.

Against my better judgment, I walked to the police station, and I recognized the officer at the front desk as the officer that called Joseph to verify where he was the night of my attack.

As I entered the police station, I was in a clear daze.

The officer stood to greet me and motioned for me to take a seat in the chair in front of his desk.

“As we said on the phone, those hooligans were found dead,” he began to say. “I’m just trying to figure out what exactly happened that night.”

“I already told you everything I knew,” I said to him trying to keep the nervousness out of my tone. “They attacked me and then they ran when they heard the sirens.”

“But you also said that there was someone else with you. Which was how you were unhurt because he saved you. Their bikes were also crushed as well,” the Officer went on to say.

“Yes, but I thought you said that man was a hallucination,” I said to him in return.

“No, I said that the man being Joseph Evergreen was a hallucination. It could have been someone else.”

There was no way that he could have been anyone else other than Joseph.

When I didn’t say anything more, the officer asked, “Are you sure there’s nothing more you can remember about that night? Something that really happened?”

I shook my head slowly as I got lost in my thoughts.

“How about if you took a look at some of these images,” he said, sliding a folder across his desk and into my direction.

I frowned at the folder, but I opened it and gasped at the gruesome images that the folder contained. These men were shoved inside a dumpster in a dark alley. Their bodies were pale and bruised with blood splattered on their ripped clothing.

They look as if they have been dead for weeks.

Looking closer at a couple of the pictures, I noticed that each of them had a bite mark on their neck. These marks resembled the bike mark on my neck the morning after I slept with Joseph.

I instinctively touched my neck and felt that there was nothing there. Only a couple of days ago it was swollen and red, but now it was like it was never there.

It healed so quickly, just like the wound on Joseph’s neck healed quickly.

I’ve been trying to convince myself that the wound was never there, and that it was all part of this hallucination, but something inside of me was telling me otherwise.

Could these murders have anything to do with Joseph?

“None of these looks familiar to you?” The officer asked, peering over at me from across his desk.

I closed the folder, sliding it back in his direction, unable to stomach looking at them any longer.

“No,” I answered. “I’m sorry I can’t be much help to you.”

I stood up from the chair.

“I still have some more questions,” the officer said, standing up as well. “Can you tell me how the bikes got crushed like that?”

He took out a small recorder and placed it on his desk. I stared at it with disbelief.

Was I really being interrogated?

I sat back down slowly, just as the cop sat as well.

“I know it’s not easy to talk about, but we really need to get to the bottom of these murders. So, please answer my questions, Miss Tessa. How did those bikes get crushed?”

“A man did that with his bare hands,” I answered, keeping my eyes locked on his. “He came out of nowhere and stopped the bikes from crushing me. I would have been dead if he didn’t show up as he did.”

I saw the disbelief on his face and then it turned into annoyance.

“This would go a lot easier if you told me the truth,” he said, his tone hardening.

“If you don’t believe me, then ask Joseph for himself. He saw everything from his window, remember?”

“What about those wounds on their necks? Have you ever seen anything like it before? They look like bite marks.”

I wasn’t about to tell this officer that I had the same wound on my neck only a day or so ago. I definitely wasn’t going to tell him where I had gotten it.

“I have never seen wounds like that before,” I lied.

He stared at me for a long moment, like he was waiting for me to say something else.

“If you think of anything more, you’d like to share with us, give me a call,” he said, sliding over a business card across his desk.

I nodded and took the card, shoving it into my pocket before leaving his office.

I let out a breath of air as I made my way outside. My heart was thrashing violently against my chest.

None of this made any sense.

With a heavy and conflicted heart, I went home and curled up on the couch. Ruby was already asleep by the time I got back to the apartment, and I was glad for that because I wasn’t in the mood to answer any more questions tonight.

I definitely didn’t think I was going to be able to sleep tonight. I couldn’t stop thinking about Joseph and those images I had seen.

It was all so strange, and it couldn’t just be a coincidence.

I grabbed my laptop and started searching the web for similar cases. After only a little research, I found some articles that describe similar murders in the area.

These were the type of mysterious cases that the Nightwalker police would take care of and there were quite a few news articles on the topic.

There were at least 3 cases this year alone.

Examining the pictures, I noticed they all had the same bite marks on their necks.

There were a lot of online conspiracy theories saying that it might be a vampire.

My breathing grew shaky as my heart continued to race. I pressed the palm of my hand to my chest to steady the heartbeat, but to no prevail.

I worried I was about to have a panic attack.

Joseph Evergreen couldn’t be a vampire. They were fictional characters.

But the first night I met him, his eyes were red, and then the mark he left on my neck the next morning. The way he saved me with those gang members and then denied ever being there. He could hear everything clearly, even from a distance. The wound on his neck healed quickly and his ability to move without a sound and quickly.

The fact that he had connections with the Nightwalker police.

All the clues were there, and they were circulating in my mind.

A chill went down my spine at the very thought of it.

I looked back at my computer and this time, I couldn’t help but type the word, ‘vampire’.