Creative Writing: The Pines

The scream is cut off when a meaty hand covers my mouth. No longer wearing shades, I can now see Paul’s face smiling a devil’s grin at me. One of his eye sockets is a horrible, gaping hole. I focus on the other one and instantly regret it when I see the malice there.
“How are you, my little siren?” His laugh is low and malicious as I start to struggle in his grasp. “Thought you were going to get away that easy? Well, you thought wrong. Now that the compound has moved to police headquarters, there can’t be any loose ends. This means that you…” his free hand touches the tip of my nose,” have to die.” I’m about to aim a very sharp fingernail into his good eye when the door to my room swings open.
“Mother wanted to know if-“ Tahlia stops speaking
She doesn’t seem surprised to see Paul’s dead body. Taking my hand, she shoves the gun into it and looks at me with solemn eyes. “You know what you have to do, Odile.”
I look down at the gun in my hand and then down at Paul’s limp body. She’s talking about the other vampires in the house. She’s telling me to kill them all just like she trained me to do back at the compound. I let the gun fall from my hands.
“No, Minerva, I will not be the reason for another dead life,” I say to her. She gives me a small smile and offers her free hand to me. When I take it, she leads me out the door to the living room where all the other officers are sitting. They take in our appearances with confused expressions.
“Paul is dead.” Minerva’s statement clears the confusion on their faces and several vampires get up to leave. Some take a few more cookies and nod to my mother, who watches her retreating guests with a mixture of relief and confusion.
I walk slowly to my mother and put a hand on her shoulder. “Mom?” She flinches at my touch, but looks at me for the first time since I got here. Arms suddenly engulf me and tears start uncontrollably falling from my eyes. I gesture to Tahlia behind us and she joins our hug. “I’m home, now. Everything’s okay. I’m finally