Author's Note

Well, here we are, at the end. *wipes tears* I'm going to miss you all so much. LoL, yeah, I am a drama queen, aren't I? This is where you all laugh and say "Of course not!" Well, I am so proud of myself. I always start stories and never finish them, but I finished this one. *cheers* I want to thank everyone for their reviews. And Mo for giving me the idea.

See one day at lunch we were all talking and she mentioned something to me. Apparently these two actors got married and exchanged vials of their own blood and wore them as necklaces. Like most marriages in Hollywood... they divorced and the actress apparently was refusing to give the actor his blood back. So I said, that would make an interesting serial killer story.... vials of blood. Sure enough, three months later I sat down and began what I finished today.

And now lastly I would like to say... I can't believe so many of you actually stuck around to finish my story. I love you all. Alright, now in the last chapter, not the epilogue, I mentioned something about a surprise..... well you all took it as in a surprise in the story, but I really meant what I have at the bottom. It is the beginning of the story after this one and It is called, well, you can see the title it's just a little bit of the story i am going to start posting up soon. Enjoy!

Blood Red Roses

It was Christmas Eve. Children had gone to sleep hoping morning would come sooner while others waited in hiding to catch Santa Claus in the act. Their parents had settled down having cups of wine or eggnog while other families went to mass to spend Christmas with God.

It was going to be a white Christmas. It had been snowing since the afternoon and hadn't shown signs of stopping. The normally proud moon cowered behind clouds while gunshots rang in the air. Without the moonlight or the city lights, it was damned hard to find the right target.

Sierra Wickham had her back against a tree with a wide trunk. Bullets whipped into the snow and chipped away the trunk of her tree and other's nearby. She calculated there had to be at least three gunmen. They were drawing closer which terrified Sierra because she had nowhere to go. With precious little bullets left, she grabbed her cellphone and pressed speed dial. "I need backup now!" she screamed into the phone.

They could hear the bullets zooming by on the other side of the phone. "Sierra, they've blocked the way. You have to hold on for another five minutes. Just hold on!"

Sierra swore viciously. For an instant, she thought about how her mother would faint if she ever heard those words coming from Sierra's mouth. "I'll be dead in five minutes," she said, impassively into the phone. "When you find my bullet riddled body, remember that I want to be cremated."

Before they could tell her to think positive, she hung up. Her options were to think of a plan or die. She had to concentrate. The owner of this land, Owen Lamport had known the danger of his past catching up with him. One didn't go into a drug smuggling ring and then walk right back out of it, especially if he sold out secrets to the FBI. So he had known these men were coming and had to have a place to hide from them.

Sierra recalled he had been taking pretty long walks through this forest in the last few days before he had disappeared. She hadn't thought much of it then, but now she realized why. His hiding place was in the woods. If Sierra could find where and she might manage to get out of this alive. She scanned the area with an eye trained to pick up on the unusual and there it was. Broken branches, a lot of them, poked out of the snow. Sierra would bet her life that there was a bunker under that. In fact, that was exactly what she was going to do.

The gunfire came to a halt. "Hah! I think we killed that ol' bitch." It came out as bee-ach. That was gunman number one. He was an impressive seven feet tall and two-hundred and fifty pounds of muscle. What he made up for in size, he lacked in brains. She would say that he was dumber than a trained imp, but the trained imps everywhere would be insulted.

"Don't be an idiot. Boss ain't going to be happy if we don't check," gunman number two said. He was a bit smaller and a bit smarter than the first guy, but then that wasn't saying much.

"You are both idiots," the last gunmen snapped. This one was the one Sierra was worried about. He had brains. She could fool the other two bozos anytime, anywhere, but it was this guy who made her wary. "You lost the guy, attacked an FBI agent and didn't follow the fool-proof plan I set out for you. You better pray she is dead."

There was a moment where all Sierra heard was a single pair of boots crunching in the snow coming towards her. She got ready to bolt, but then paused when she heard gunman number one say, "Who are you calling an idiot? I'll have you know I have had more than twenty years of schooling!"

The smart guy turned and walked back. Sierra knew because she risked a peek. They were up in each other's faces. Sierra could already smell the testosterone. "Oh yeah," he challenged. "How?"

"Simple, I took grade ten twice. Ten plus ten is twenty and then there are all those other grades," the idiot replied happily.

This was the time to make her move. She jumped up and made a dash for it. She heard their slow-witted response to it and calculated the right moment to turn around and start shooting in their direction. She didn't expect to hit them, but hoped to make them dive for cover and buy herself more time.

She felt burning pain in her side and shoulder before she stumbled a bit. She had almost made it to the bunker when the branches moved and sure enough a door was opened. Owen Lamport grabbed her by the waist and tossed her into the bunker before closing the door. He glared at her. "How did you know?"

"I'm FBI," she managed weakly. "We just know." She fainted.