Andrew thought everything would be fine. He decided to go to work. If he missed another day, he'd be fired.

His boss had been patient, understanding his situation, but Andrew knew he couldn't keep pushing it.

This little town had seemed safe. Five months without a single strange occurrence: no monsters lurking outside, no clawing at doors in the night.

It was only Alice's growing paranoia.

'I need to get her to a therapist,' he told himself as he stood before the bakery display case, eyes on the strawberry cheesecake Alice loved most.

'She'll calm down if we share this, maybe watch a movie together. Should I take her to the cinema?' He rubbed his chin.

'No… no one can watch Seamus. And she won't leave his side anyway.'

His hands tightened into fists. He was restless, stressed, but he couldn't show it. He had to stay the pillar for his wife and son, the one who held everything together. He had to be strong.

But as he drove home, the back of his neck prickled. Cold sweat rolled down his temple.

Something's wrong.

His instincts were never wrong.

He pressed the accelerator, heart pounding, and pulled into the driveway within a minute.

When Andrew arrived, his house looked fine but the Inside was chaos.

The living room was wrecked. The table overturned. Family portraits lay shattered on the floor. As if there'd been a struggle.

"ALICE! WHERE ARE YOU, ALICE!"

Andrew's voice cracked as he sprinted up the stairs. Silence answered. His mind spiraled with possibilities he didn't want to name.

At Seamus's nursery door, he froze. The baby's thin, wavering cries seeped through, mixed with a metallic tang in the air.

Blood.

His shoes stuck to something wet on the floor. Dark red seeped from under the door.

For a heartbeat, he couldn't move or breathe. However, hearing his son cry turned even more desperate, he forced his hand to the knob and pushed it open.

What he saw was a nightmare.

Alice lay on the floor, blood pooling beneath her from two gunshot wounds in her chest.

Even in her final moments, her hand had been reaching toward the wardrobe, toward the place where Seamus's cries echoed through the room.

Andrew moved forward slowly and dropped to his knees beside his wife's body.

He gathered her into his arms as though she were still the most precious thing in the world, because she was.

Even if the future stopped his breath, she would always be the love of his life.

"Alice… I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." His voice shook, tears sliding down his cheeks.

He had failed as a husband. Too naïve to believe no one could find them. Too incompetent to prevent this tragedy. Too weak to protect the woman he loved.

He kept murmuring apologies even as police sirens wailed outside, even as boots thudded up the stairs in response to the neighbors' report of gunshots.

He didn't hear them. He heard nothing but the ringing in his ears, the echo of Seamus's cries, the sound of his own breaking heart.

He clung to Alice, hoping this was a nightmare that would end if he just held her tight enough, that she would breathe again, open her eyes, whisper his name.

"Mr. Danford, please step away from your wife. We need to get her to the hospital," one officer said gently, reaching for her.

"No!" Andrew screamed, voice cracking. "Don't take my wife from me!"

His voice was wild and unsteady, his heart shattered into pieces. He no longer registered the uniforms, the authority, the urgency.

For three agonizing hours, they tried to coax him; finally, they had to pull him away by force.

Only then did Andrew truly understand: his wife, his Alice, his love was gone.

After that night, everything became a blur. Andrew didn't even remember how he'd taken care of Seamus. His body simply moved on instinct, like an automaton.

But that morning was different.

He could hear a heavy thud sound from the nursery, followed by a sharp cry. As usual, his body moved on its own.

He rushed in and scooped Seamus up from where he'd slipped from the cradle. As he crouched, something caught his eye beneath the crib: a baby monitor.

His eyes widened and he picked it up. Andrew remembered it linked to a tablet in the master bedroom and somehow kept recording.

'This… could it have recorded what happened that day?'

As if waking from a nightmare, Andrew soothed Seamus back to sleep, laid him gently in the cradle, and bolted to the bedroom.

"Please… show me what happened. Please," he muttered as he unlocked the tablet, scrolling through the stored footage.

Three weeks back, he found it!

His finger trembled as he pressed play. On the screen, Alice looked fine that morning… and then the evening came.

Three men stormed in, demanding to know where Seamus was. Andrew's heart stopped, but Seamus stayed silent inside the wardrobe. Such a smart little boy.

Alice fought back. She spat at them, insisting Seamus was dead, that he wasn't there. One of the men raised his gun and shot her.

Andrew flinched in the present, anger and grief crashing over him as he watched his wife's final moments unfold on the screen.

But it didn't end there. The men searched the room, rifling through everything. One pulled something from Alice's pocket. They froze and started to talk in panic saying they were in trouble.

Then the three of them bolted, fleeing without finding Seamus.

"That… those three men…" Andrew whispered. "Vampire hunters."

He knew them. He rose from the bed, yanked open the nightstand drawer, and drew out the silver dagger. Light caught on the coiled viper etched along its hilt.

"Velstarth."

He gripped the dagger tightly, slipped it into his jeans pocket, then picked up Seamus. His face was set, his eyes cold.

He carried his son to the car, buckled him in, and started the engine.

He was going to the other side of town.

To kill those bastards.

***

Seamus watched his father exhale; smoke curled upward as the man looked strangely composed, even after recounting something so traumatic.

"Did you kill them all?" he finally asked.

Andrew nodded. "I did. I also hunted the one who pulled the strings." He flicked the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his boot.

Slowly, he turned to meet his son's gaze. "Seamus, I'm sorry for abandoning you all this time. What I did can't be justified, even with your mother's death."

Seamus froze. His father's voice was genuine—he could feel it—but instead of comfort, it only made him step back.

"I know," Seamus said, his fists clenching.

"I won't just forgive you because of that. You know Velstrath are vampires, aren't you?"

"And you still gave me to them?!" His voice rose, emotions spilling over.

Andrew had thrown him into a viper's den, fully aware of what would happen.

"I did it to protect you. Ever since we've been in their territory, no one has come after you."

Andrew stepped forward, reaching out to touch him, but Seamus slapped his hand away.

"Don't touch me!" Seamus snapped.

"You never tried to protect me, you just abandoned me once again like you always did! You played the fool when you knew everything!"

"I didn't have a choice!" Andrew's voice cracked for the first time.

"And I regret it… What did they do to you, my boy? Tell me, the way I told you about your mother's death!"

Seamus gritted his teeth, torn between lying, telling the truth, or simply running.

"How can you use dream manipulation?" Andrew pressed, eyes narrowing. "Humans can't do that. Did they turn you into a vampire?"

For a heartbeat Andrew's presence grew: his frame seemed larger, his aura colder, almost suffocating.

Seamus felt as though an unseen force was squeezing the air from his lungs. For the first time, he stepped back not in anger, but in fear.

"I'm not… I'm still human. I think." Seamus swallowed hard. "I—I just borrow their power. I don't know how."

Andrew's eyes widened. His shoulders eased, his voice lowering. He placed a tentative hand on his son's shoulder.

"Then you were the one who twisted those three boys' nightmares? Why?"

The invisible pressure faded. Seamus drew a sharp breath, then answered.

"Because they wouldn't leave me alone. You wouldn't know that, would you? You weren't even there." He hit Andrew's hand off his shoulder again.

"Forget it, Dad. So what if I can use vampire powers? You should be glad. I can protect myself now, just like you always wanted."

"Now you can go drunk and fuck around like you always did!"

He turned and walked away. Andrew followed, a silent shadow.

"Stop following me! You bastard! I can't believe even my father lied to me!" Seamus shouted.

He wasn't even sure Andrew wanted to protect him in the first place. What if he just wants money to pay for all his gambling?

He wasn't the heroic father he believed he was.

"What you've done was wrong, people died, Seamus!" Andrew called after him. "We can't trust the hunters—"

He broke off mid-sentence as the university gates came into view. His hand shot out, gripping Seamus's arm tightly. Andrew leaned close, whispering to him.

"Be careful, Seamus. Something's not right."

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