Starting Over

His eyes stared back at me from the canvas. Talon had been haunting my nightmares ever since the night I killed him. I just kept reliving that night over and over again in my head. He was dead, and I killed him. It was still hard for me to except and get over even though it was two years ago.

Other than my nightmares, life was good. Rosabelle, Evelyn, Graham and I had become highly skilled and legitimate vampire slayers. It wasn't easy to become legit. It took a lot of convincing and swaying to everyone who doubted us.

Now, our town and many others knew about vampires and they all had our number in case something went wrong. We had all gotten involved in things such as boxing, karate, and Tai Kwan do classes to refine our fighting skills. We'd also acquired guns loaded with wooden bullets, licenses to carry them and classes to teach us how to use them. We'd even started our own business and hired out a few more people. We had our own office to work from and we were actual government hired employees.

I finished drawing the umpteenth portrait of Talon and ripped it to shreds. This was an exercise I had been using to try and get rid of the images of him in my head. It didn't seem to be working.

As much as I hated to admit to anyone—especially myself—I missed him terribly. Before I had found out he was a vampire, I was falling hard for him. We had spent so much time together. We had been seeing each other for a little over a month before I found out. And then I killed him. I guess if you want to be technical, I didn't kill him by choice. It was his father, Keenan, who had grabbed me and forced my hand to stab his son in the heart with a wooden stake.

It was something I struggled with on a daily basis and I was going to therapy for it. I was trying to better myself and make myself focus on my work. It was something I was good at and I loved that I got to work with my three best friends. Not to mention, I was the boss of the business. Everyone had to answer to me! I wasn't bitchy about it of course, but it still made me feel good that I had done something with myself.

My dad was all tuned into the vampire thing now and we still weren't on speaking terms. Shortly after Keenan was killed, I turned eighteen and moved out. My friends and I now lived in an apartment together and it was great. I didn't need my dad. He could just live his life and leave me out of it. It didn't bother me.

Our business was usually pretty busy. We had people come in and tell us when they thought they knew, saw, or talked to a vampire of any kind. Half, or otherwise. Our team would then do some investigating to make sure the story wasn't some bogus thing where the girlfriend was trying to get one over on her boyfriend by telling is he's a vampire. If the story pans out, then we promptly exterminate the vampire.

I mostly did paperwork nowadays. I wasn't as good at the extermination process as Rose, Ev and Graham. I frequently had flashbacks of the night I killed Talon and that had almost resulted in my death once. After that, I decided to step back for a while and hire out a few more people to pick up the slack. I still rode along on missions all the time; I just did more of the investigative work.

Evelyn was the same way. She was my partner for the investigations and we liked it that way. She was the one who had killed Keenan and she was having as much of a problem with it as I was having with Talon. Graham and Rosabelle handled the exterminations with a little help from Neveah and Gage.

I grabbed my keys and headed out the door. It was time for me to go to work. I knew I had a lot of paper work to fill out and it was going to overtake my office if I didn't do something about it. I walked out to the parking lot and hopped into my Dodge Ram. I had just bought it and I loved it. I felt ballsy when I drove my Dodge and I could run pretty much anything over with it if I wanted. It was pretty fast too.

I drove slowly to work and pulled up into my usual parking space. My friend's cars were already here. I hopped down and walked into the office. Seraphina, our secretary, was sitting at the front desk typing away at her computer.

"Hello Sera." I said to her in passing.

"Hi Lailie." She smiled. I walked passed her and into my office where Evelyn, Graham and Rosabelle were arguing.

"No freaking way!" Rosabelle shouted.

"Ya huh!" Graham snapped, sounding like a four year old.

"You guys are nuts!" Evelyn sighed. I rolled my eyes.

"What the hell is going on now?" I asked.

"Their arguing about peanut butter." Evelyn told me. I stared at Rose and Graham like they were the two stupidest human beings on the planet.

"Peanut butter?" I demanded.

"Yes. I think crunchy peanut butter is best." Graham told me.

"Let me guess Rose, you like creamy peanut butter?" I asked.

"That would be correct. He's crazy if he thinks crunchy is good." Rose sighed. I pinched the bridge of my nose with my thumb and pointer finger and squeezed my eyes shut.

"Don't you two have some vampires to slay?" I asked, sounding tired.

"Actually, we have to finish training Neveah and Gage." Graham admitted.

"Well get on it then." I told them. I sighed as they left the office and plopped down at my desk.

"You would think they were four years olds." Evelyn commented.

"Sometimes I wonder." I told her. We fell into silence after that, each typing away at our computers. I was filing some of our cases away. Most of them were solved and the unresolved ones were with Graham and Rose. They were close to finishing off their cases and it was only a matter of time before a new case came in. It seemed there were a lot more vampires around here than we originally thought. The phone on my desk rang and I answered on the second ring.

"Hello Vampire Slayers, this is Lailie speaking, how may I help you?" I asked giving my proper phone routine.

"Hello Lailie, this is Officer Blayne Heart. We have a homicide victim here and I would like you to come and look at it to see if it was done by a vampire." He said. I nodded writing everything down.

"Sure thing. What's the address?" I asked. He rattled it off to me and I wrote it down, knowing exactly where I was going. "Absolutely, I'll be there shortly." I assured him. He thanked me and we hung up.

"C'mon Ev. We might have another case." I told her. She hopped up and followed me to my truck. We got in and motored off to the crime scene.

A/N: please review me and tell me what you thought!
~KML92