We have been on the road for about 3 ½ hours now meaning that we have 4 ½ more hours of driving. Josie conked out on the bed after we put away all of her belongings, and now she is full on spooning Maz while they're both in a deep sleep.

I take a picture of them on my phone so I can keep the endearing moment forever.

I pull off the highway to find a gas station, I wanted to get a drink. Josie is still out cold so I walk in and get two mango Arizona's, and walk back out.

There's some guy circling the bus. He looks to be around late thirties and just looks creepy, you know, like the men that send a chill down your spine and make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

"What the fuck are you doing." I see him jump up like a kid who was caught doing something they aren't supposed to.

"Oh um, is this yours?" He asks in a nervous tone.

"Yes it is. Why are you circling it like some freak?"

"Hey woah I'm not a freak I just saw a girl in the back, she might've needed help."

Curse Josie for not closing the blinds because the sun feels nice.

"She's literally peacefully sleeping, what do you mean needed help?" I say, narrowing my eyes at the man.

"You could be some sort of killer who drugged her."

"Me, really dude that's what you're going for? I am literally holding two drinks, one for her and one for me, and the fact that she is on a bed with a window open for the world to see her. So how about you step away from my bus."

"And what if I don't huh, what do you think a girl like you could do to me." He says as he walks closer and puts his hand on the back glass.

He keeps eye contact with me as he does so but it doesn't stay there because all of a sudden there are two paws on the glass with a snarling and barking Maz there.

As soon as his attention is diverted I vamp to him and grab him by the neck before I bring him behind the building.

"Now how about you tell me the real reason you were by my bus." I say as I look straight into his eyes, effectively compelling him.

"I watched you get out, and I saw a pretty lady in the back. I am lonely and wanted to see if I could get her to come with me."

"Forcefully?"

"If I had to."

"You're disgusting, people like you make my fucking skin crawl. Don't scream, don't run, don't make a single move." I watch as his body freezes.

"What are you?"

"Fuck, I'm still kinda new at this, I should have said don't talk." I watch as his throat bobs with the terrified swallow he takes. His heart is beating so fast.

I lean in closer to the vein on his neck and I feel my fangs extending from my gums.

"You know I was quite thirsty." Just like that I tear into his throat and the warm metallic blood takes over my senses. The taste has gotten better the longer I am a vampire.

I should have been more careful with the placement of my bite, as soon as my fangs leave he will bleed out, but I had no intention of letting him live.

I hear as his pulse slows and gets weaker as the blood it is trying to pump is rapidly leaving his body.

"Cypress?" I hear in a voice that is impossibly small and fragile. Unlucky for me it's a voice I know all too well, I pull away and I look at the voice. 

Josie is standing right there looking all too horrified.

"What are you doing?" She continues.

"What does it look like, I'm getting a drink." I hear the man let out a struggled breath as the hole in his neck is starting to let out the remaining blood.

"He's going to die, heal him!"

"You don't know what I caught him doing, Jos."

"I don't care, you don't have the power to decide if he lives or dies."

I shake my head before I rip into my wrist and heal him. "Don't tell anyone about this, this never happened, you just went to the gas station to try to get free beer, that's all you remember. Now go home and take a sick day tomorrow and stay inside the whole day." I watch as he takes a blink and starts walking away. I wipe my mouth with the inside of my sweatshirt sleeve.

I start walking to the direction of the bus and walk up the steps inside and leave the door open for Josie as I walk in. She shuts the door as she walks in.

"What the fuck was that?" Josie asks and she stands defensively with her arms crossed and a clear scowl on her face.

"What do you want me to say Josie, I found a guy being creepy towards you and I was hungry." I say as I slide back into the bench and put the bus into drive.

"No, we're talking about this, don't try to distract yourself with something else Cypress."

"I'm not, we can talk about it all you want, I'm good at multitasking."

"Why are you acting like this isn't a big deal, you almost murdered that guy."

"Josie, that's not new for me. I know you understand the werewolf curse, it activates for a reason."

"That's different, that was an accident."

"And I held Finch's life in my hands before and you watched, you know what I am capable of."

She doesn't say anything but she takes the empty seat beside me and grabs my hand. "But you didn't kill her."

I retract my hand from hers. "I would've." I keep my eyes directly in front of me on the road.

"How many people have you killed Cypress?"

"One." I answer immediately.

"How many people have you fed off of?"

"More than one." I say in an exhale of breath. "How did you know that?"

"Vampires who feed on people for the first time are usually freaked out and compel them frantically, leaving out important things. What you said seemed rehearsed."

"I couldn't drink those stupid cold bunny bags, alright? It felt like I had to drink them constantly to keep my strength up."

"So you've been lying to me."

"I can't lie if we have never talked about it, what you don't know doesn't hurt you."

"You think I don't know vampires have problems with the ways of the school? Kaleb was on the council the same time I was. I heard his voice saying almost the same thing you just said." She takes my hand into her own again. "I just wish you had been honest with me."

"I wanted to, okay. I wanted to, but I don't want you to worry about me like that. There's no reason to, I am just doing what my dna tells me to."

"I know what your dna tells you to do, and if you talked to me you would know I was onboard with Kaleb's idea. My thing is, I was with you all the time, did you feed off people at the school or--"

"No Josie, of course not. When I would go to stores, or go for a run or something, that's when. I always healed them and sent them on their way and told them to take a sick day and stay inside the next day so we don't have any new vampires running around. I'm careful and I really didn't think it was anyone's business except my own. I was wrong, I'm sorry."

"I'm not blaming you, it is your business. But, taking someone's life off of one instance isn't right. Don't base someone's life off of their lowest point."

"I don't agree."

"What?"

"Josie, that man admitted that he was going to try to abduct you, in my opinion that is a clear reason to die. Maybe I was the karma he deserved."

"I can protect myself Cypress, the karma he deserved was to get his hand demolished as soon as he stepped into this bus by Mazey" I take a deep breath into my lungs to try to process what she's saying.

She rubs her thumbs against the back of my hand. "I will never understand the things you go through with you being a hybrid, but I know you are not a killer. You are not a bad person but I would really appreciate it if you are honest with me when you are feeling those things. Relationships are messy because people are messy, I am no exception to that, and you don't have to be. I know it's going to take a little for me to get your walls down and that's okay but I meant it when I told you I was all in, just know that I am going to put effort in every day until you feel comfortable enough to do so."

I feel my fingers start to shake as the tightness in my throat constricts, warning me of the incoming tears, even before my lip starts to wobble and the tears in my eyes start to well up. The first tear that escapes is immediately wiped away by the attentive thumbs of Josie.

"Pull over into that truck stop, baby."

"But we have to keep driving." I say through my rough throat while pulling off to the exit anyway.

"No we don't, we have all the time in the world, plus I would like to cuddle you right now."

"Okay." I say as I park next to a truck and try to get my emotions back in check.

I walk through the bus while closing the curtains and thinking about the fact that even though I said I would be honest and open, Josie still holds no ill will towards me when I have broken that in a big way.

I walk over to a gently smiling Josie Saltzman as she opens the blanket for me to crawl into bed. She immediately wraps her arms around me and I am trying so hard not to break down, but she knows that. She reads my body language all too well for her not to.

"It's okay to let it out sometimes, you're safe." She says in an even tone as she raises her mouth to my head for a kiss.

That sentence does make me break but not because I am going through a lot, or that I just have so many emotions, it's because of the way Josie just so willingly opens herself up to love in a way that I haven't reached yet. Also giving me the time to do the same and not being angry about that fact.

"What's going on in your head right now?" I hear Josie ask so quietly that if I didn't have the hearing I do, I wouldn't have heard her.

"That I don't want to be crying right now."

"Why?"

"Because when people see you crying they think you're weak."

"Who cares. Cypress, when was the last time you let yourself cry while someone was with you who wasn't your parents?"

"Probably the night Pen told me she was leaving."

"Baby." She coos softly in a sad tone as she tightens her arms around me.

"Thank you." I say even though everything in my body is telling me to get up and forget that all of this happened.

"Why are you thanking me?"

"Because I messed up pretty badly, after we have already talked about this and you weren't mad. You didn't even yell at me or walk out, and here you are holding me even when I have kept something from you that many people would criticize me for, and you sat there and talked to me about it."

"Did you think I was going to leave you?" I can hear her disapproval of the question in her voice, like she had to force the words out of her mouth.

I turn around in the bed to face her and she again wipes the tears on my face before they can stray too far.

"I didn't know, I was fully prepared to drive you home if you asked me to. You only get one chance, and I messed it up, I understood if you wouldn't want to be with me anymore."

She lifts her hands to both sides of my face, just holding it there.

"Whoever in your life led you to believe that you only get one chance, obviously didn't deserve you in the first place. I might have been upset, but I am not giving you up because you had innocent motives behind not telling me."

"You're my favorite person in the world, you know that."

"Well luckily for me, those people didn't know how to treat you. Now I can have you all to myself." She says as she brings me into a sweet kiss, pouring all of our emotions for each other into it.

We stay in bed for a little just holding onto each other as the intense emotions we were both feeling start to mellow out. As soon as I feel less emotional, I speak again.

"I adore you, Josette Saltzman."

I smirk erupts onto her face. "Say that again."

"I adore you, Josette."

"You know I used to hate my name, it sounds like a grandma's." She swings her leg to the other side of me, trapping me under her straddle. Not that I am complaining. "But when you say it, I somehow immediately love it." She says as she traces her hands down my arms and grabs my wrist and lifts them until they are pinned above my head.

"You should, it's a beautiful name." I say as I break free from her hold and wrap my hand around the back of her neck and pull her down to kiss me.

We stay tangled up with each other for a while, like there's nothing else in the world except for us. Our hands are exploring our bodies in the moment. Just then Maz jumps on the bed and effectively makes Josie jump as she knocks her head into my nose, I groan as the impact makes my eyes water.

"Oh my god, Cypress, are you okay?" She says frantically as she brings her hands up to my face and starts rubbing her thumbs on my cheek in worry.

"Yeah I'm okay, thank you Maz, that was very graceful of you." Maz just gives me an unimpressed look before turning away and making room for herself on the bed, like we were occupying her space.

"I think that's our cue to get back on the road, baby." Josie says as she leans in to kiss my nose better even though it is already healed.

"Yeah I think so. Can you come sit by me while I drive?"

"Yes."