Chapter Text
After glancing around the room one last time, Ezra zipped up the duffle bag that sat on his bed. Settling it on his shoulder, he carried it out of his room and dropped it beside the front door, nudging it with his toe as if it would do something. The bag held about a week’s worth of clothes, a few books, and the stuffed bunny he’d had since he was a baby. They were only taking the bare minimum with them for now.
After two months of searching, his mother had finally found a job and a place to live in another city, and they were leaving tonight. Once they got out of here, all of this would be behind them. They hoped.
Guilt gnawed at the inside of Ezra’s stomach as he stared down at the backpacks that lay on the floor. None of this would even be happening if it wasn’t for him. His parents were uprooting their entire lives to protect him from someone who hadn’t shown her face in two months. If he had just fought harder, maybe…
A hand on his shoulder jolted him out of his thoughts. His dad stood beside him, looking down at him with concern.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Ezra nodded.
Just as his mom set a small box beside Ezra’s bag, there was a sharp knock at the door. Ezra grabbed his dad’s hand, clutching it tightly as his mother inched over to the door and looked through the peephole. After a moment, she let out a quiet sigh of relief, the tension easing out of her shoulders.
“It’s not her,” she whispered. That didn’t make Ezra feel any better. With each second he stared at the door, an unsettling feeling crept further and further up his spine.
The knock came again, harder this time. His mom jumped, backing away from the door.
“Open up!” a man’s voice called. “We know you’re in there.”
His mother grabbed his arm, pulling Ezra closer to her as she backed away from the door. Ezra looked up at her, terror clawing its way from his stomach up through his throat.
“Don’t open it,” he whispered.
There was a loud bang at the door, causing it to shake on its hinges. Ezra yelped, flinching against his mom’s side.
“Mira,” his father said. “Take Ezra. Go out the fire escape. I’ll –”
There was another bang and the door flew open before he could say another word. Three men stormed into the room, one of them staying in the doorway as the other two drew closer. As Ezra’s mother shoved him behind her, he couldn’t help but notice that his parents seemed oddly calm. They were afraid, he could tell, but they seemed… prepared? Like they had been expecting this.
Ezra peered around his mom’s side just in time to see one of the men pull something from beneath his jacket. His eyes widened, his breath catching in his throat as he saw that it was a wooden stake. They were vampire hunters. His parents had warned him about them. It was the reason he had to stay shut away inside all the time. And they’d found him anyway.
“We’re here for the kid,” the man said. “Just hand him over and neither of you will get hurt.”
Without saying a word, his father threw himself at the man, tackling him to the ground. His mother grabbed his arm again and shoved him ahead of her toward the back window. There was a shout, a thud of one body slamming into another, and his mom’s hand disappeared from his arm. Ezra turned and froze as he saw that one of the hunters had grabbed her, wrenching her arms behind her back. Another had his father pinned down on the floor. And the third was heading straight toward him.
“Ezra, run!” his mom shouted.
But Ezra couldn’t move. He couldn’t move and the hunter was getting closer and closer and –
“Now!”
His mother’s frantic shout was like a physical push. Ezra turned and ran just as the man got close enough to grab him. With a burst of inhuman speed, he bolted toward the kitchen window and the fire escape that lay just outside of it. The metal was still slick from the rain earlier in the day as Ezra scaled down the ladder until he was close enough to the ground to let himself drop.
His knees buckled as he landed on his feet. For a moment, he just stood there, staring upward, watching the window and willing his parents to appear. Maybe they could get away. Maybe the hunters would let them go to focus on him.
But seconds later, a different figure appeared on the fire escape. The hunter who’d nearly grabbed him. Ezra’s eyes widened, terror gripping him as he forced himself to run once again. He tore down the alleyway, not looking back as he turned the corner and fled.