Selena scoffed. “What if, in trying to locate you, Cliff and his friends tried to eliminate me? Or they were involved in hiring a vampire to hurt me?”
Rosa glanced at Atreides to get his input.
He shrugged. “We don’t have any idea why he would have hurt her and not killed her then.”
“Okay, fine. My sister and I will do this together,” Rosa said, determination in her voice.
“Then Cliff and his friends will have a target on your back too." Selena sounded worried.
“I should have been there for you all along. So should our brother have been. I’m sure the word will get out before long that I’m working with the vampires to take down the rogue hunters." Rosa gave her another hug.
“So I’ll stay here with my sister then?” Selena asked Atreides.
“I think it would be better if you are separated in case anyone learns about one of you. Then you both won’t come under attack.” Atreides didn't want the women together. If hunters, or vampires, were out to get one of them, they would have both of them in the same location and could try to kill them then.
Rosa agreed, but Selena looked like she wanted to object.
Rosa said, “He’s right, Selena. Atreides is in charge. I think his plan is the best.”
Selena folded her arms and looked crossly at Atreides. He gave her a small smile. He suspected she was still annoyed he’d been in her bed last night, but he wouldn’t go there again. Now he knew just who she was and what she’d done to anger the hunters in her League. Unless she needed his protection, he was staying out of her room.
“We’ll go tonight, both huntresses stationed at different locations, armed, ready, a couple of vampiresses walking down the street to a vampire pub, talking, not paying attention to their surroundings, male vampires on the rooftops ready to swoop down, but we want the huntresses to initiate the fight, or the hunters can say rogue vampires attacked them. We need to record that vampiresses are being attacked for no reason," Atreides said.
Then Atreides had a telepathic communication and he wondered what had gone wrong now.
"A hunter and a couple of his hunter friends are here at the vampire club looking for Selena. The one is named Daniel and he said a hunter had arrived at the hunter club when Selena was just going inside while carrying a sword. The newly arrived hunter saw Daniel throw her out of the club and then a vampire showed up and then others came to speak with her, took her in a van and drove off. He recognized you, Atreides. Daniel is Selena's brother, and he wants to see Selena at once or he'll bring the whole League down on you."
"He didn't care anything about her when he threw her out of the club," Atreides said, annoyed.
"She was armed and shouldn't have been in the club. She knew better, the brother said."
"That still doesn't excuse him for abandoning her. At the very least, he should have taken her home.” Atreides paused. “Put him on the phone."
"Yes, sir."
"This is Daniel Townsend. Who am I speaking to?" The hunter sounded arrogant and pissed off!
"Atreides. I find it odd that you would kick your sister out of the club after she looked like she'd been hurt, and you realized her car wasn't even there so she had no safe way to transport herself back home, yet you did nothing for her. What did you think would become of her?"
"A vampire like you would take advantage of her?"
Atreides hadn't changed his opinion of the hunter. He was still an ass. "Take care of her, you mean, when your own kind won't watch her back. She's here with us, under our protection for now."
"Put her on the phone."
"Since you ask so nicely"—Atreides didn't want to make a worse situation out of this than it already was—"here she is."
"You have some nerve hassling the vampires who protected me when you didn't give a damn about me. I was injured! And they took me in. So get lost. I don't need your 'help,'" Selena said, putting the phone on speaker, to Atreides’s surprise.
"You know what Mom and Dad would say about this?"
"They've already said enough. Besides, do you know where Rosa is?" Selena glanced at Rosa who arched a brow.
"Off with a hunter friend, I imagine, like usual."
"That's who I was looking for, if you even gave a damn about that. Family is supposed to mean something. Family is supposed to take care of family, but that doesn't work in your book." Selena was angry and Atreides was glad she was letting it all out and not trying to hide how she felt. With a sibling treating her like a pariah, it had to hurt.
"I can't believe you're putting all the blame on me." Either Daniel just didn't get it, or he was in denial that he'd done anything wrong.
"Did you know Cliff plans to kill me?"
Daniel didn't say anything. Which bothered Atreides. Did he know or not?
"Well, he does. So just think on that. You have a hit out on your own sister for doing what was right and it's coming from your own hunter friends."
"I'll look into it, but you can't stay with a vampire." Daniel acted like he was still fully in charge of the situation, like he was her second dad, and she would have to do what he expected of her or else. Atreides hoped she didn't cave.
"Why? Will it hurt my reputation?" She scoffed. "And what do you care about it anyway?"
"You're my sister."
"You should have thought of that when you threw me out of the club and didn't make sure I got home all right. Atreides not only wanted to make sure I got home safely, he realized I didn't have any hunters to watch my back and wouldn't leave me alone." Good. Selena was standing her ground.
“I’ll…I’ll be in touch.” Daniel hung up on her.
"I'm so sorry," Rosa said to Selena. "Hearing more of the story, I am really angry with Daniel."
"I was carrying a sword," Selena conceded.
"But you'd been injured, and you didn't have your car to leave it in. You couldn't have just parked the sword outside the club. I would have taken you out of the hunter club and talked to you and learned what had happened, and then I would have called Mom and Dad and taken you home to stay with them. I never would have thrown you out of the club and made you fend for yourself like that. I'm glad Atreides and his friends protected you when your own family should have. For that, I'll forever be grateful. But you shouldn't have felt you couldn't give out your name or solicited our parents' help either. You could have died!" Rosa said.
Finally, the gravity of the situation was sinking in!
It didn’t take long before Daniel called back. “I’m helping you to find the hunters and turn them over to the League for disposition.”
Atreides was really surprised, but glad her brother was finally willing to help them out. He still felt Daniel needed to make amends to Selena. Still, it was better if more of the hunters sided with them in this effort than if they did it alone. As long as the word didn't reach the hunters' ears who were killing the vampiresses. Then what? They would lay low until everyone got complacent again?
He explained the plan to Daniel and the others who volunteered to help and then it was time to set up the traps.