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“Trust me, Gem, you’re going to love this.”
Ella glanced over her shoulder, an amused smile on her lips. “Am I?” She locked the door to the diner and finally finished closing up for the night. The chefs were already long gone, probably out to the bar to celebrate yet another successful night of work, like they didn’t do the exact same thing every night. There were a few customers who had lingered, but getting the front of house cleaned up and in tip-top shape for the next day’s opening had been easy enough to do. She had been finishing the workload earlier than usual these past two weeks, courtesy of one customer.
Lizzie was incredibly sweet and had been overly helpful since she had started eating at the diner. She “loved the service so much” that she simply felt compelled to help out where she could. Ella had since learned that it was quite a fruitless endeavor to try and dissuade her new favorite customer.
Lizzie was quite a striking woman, tall and lithe, pale as could be, but with thick hair that walked the fine line between auburn and a rich brown, and big, dark eyes that anyone could find themselves getting lost in. She was put together all the time, with freshly pressed clothes that fit in with modern fashion trends, like she had walked straight out of a fashion magazine. They chatted while they cleaned and put the diner to rights. They chatted about life, work, and occasionally about current events.
“Have you seen the news lately?” Lizzie had asked two nights ago as she cleaned coffee mugs.
“Which stories?” Ella had looked over from where she was wrapping silverware. “There’s a lot going on internationally, but I try not to look at it too much. It just upsets me.”
“The missing women,” Lizzie clarified.
“Oh, those poor ladies.” Ella shook her head. She paused and bit her lip, wavering in her spot. “You know… the cops love to come in here and eat before and after their shifts. One of them, Eddy, was in here tonight, and he told me something about the case.”
“Oh?” Lizzie raised an eyebrow, though she didn’t look away from the coffee mugs she had been cleaning.
“Yes,” Ella nodded. She stopped rolling silverware. “I don’t know if I should tell you, though.”
Lizzie looked over to Ella with a small smirk, “You would tell me the littlest nugget of gossip and then rip it so cruelly away, would you?”
“Oh, alright, alright. So,” she pushed the wrapped silverware to the side and leaned on the counter, “Eddy said—and don’t you go spouting this off to everyone—that they found one of those missing women this morning.”
“Oh? Good news then, I should hope?”
“Oh no.” Ella had shaken her head quickly. “Not at all, the poor lady was dead as a doornail. Her neck looked like it had been mauled, apparently.”
“Could it be an animal? A wolf, perhaps?”
Ella sighed, “I don’t have any clue, but isn’t that just terrifying?”
“Quite. I read they were all pretty little blonde things.” Lizzie had stopped washing the mugs to watch Ella. Lizzie’s gaze was unwavering, to the point where it made something distinctly uncomfortable settle in Ella’s stomach.
“Yes, I’ve heard that too.”
“Worked late night shifts around town.”
“Yes,” Ella acquiesced, her discomfort had crept into her tone.
“Did you know any of them?”
“Just one. Ashley Willingham. She was a sweet girl,” Ella said, though the words were stilted.
“You should be careful.” Lizzie turned and started washing the mugs again. “I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
The discomfort fluttered out and died just as quickly as it had come. “That’s sweet of you, but I go straight home after work. You don’t need to worry.”
Tonight, they didn’t talk about the missing women and all the things that made Ella uncomfortable, though. Tonight, they talked about love.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lizzie said as she wiped down a table. “The world has become so much more open, and yet, I feel like love constantly eludes me.”
“Why’s that?” Ella asked, shoving sugar packets into little cups for the customers to pilfer like candy.
Lizzie hummed and tilted her head in consideration, “I find it so hard to find a woman who suits me. Clever and hardworking, certainly. Someone who has the time for me and isn’t lost in frivolous things. A sweet smile, dazzling like the most perfect gem. Perhaps even blonde and quite short,” her gaze flicked over to Ella. A dark blush filled her cheeks. She shoved the sugar packets in harder and tucked a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear in an unconscious gesture.
“You never know… I don’t imagine it’s that hard to find someone like that.”
When Ella looked up again, Lizzie stood in front of Ella, a full head taller than she was. Lizzie’s gaze was filled with something like hunger. She reached out, her fingertips ghosting over Ella’s cheek as she freed my hair from its confinement behind her ear. “No,” she breathed, her voice low, “Perhaps it isn’t that difficult after all.” The silence between them had been tense, filled with warm breath and thudding hearts. She smiled, slow and near-predatory. “Do you have any plans for the rest of the night?”
And that led to now. Ella had finished cleaning the diner and now, she had locked the place up securely. She tucked the keys into her pocket and spun on her heel, a bright smile pulling at her lips. “Where would you like to go?”
Lizzie returned that smile and held out her hand. “I have somewhere in mind. Care to play passenger for a minute?”
“Oh,” Ella blinked in surprise, but was quick to acquiesce, slipping her hand into the taller woman’s grasp. “Sure! I don’t work tomorrow, so we can stay out as late as we want.”
“Sounds perfect,” Lizzie purred. She tugged Ella to her car, a nice-looking sedan, perfectly ordinary from the outside. The inside, however, behind dark tint, was undeniably luxurious.
“Oh wow,” Ella smoothed her hands over the leather interior, polished and pristine. “This is really nice.”
Lizzie visibly preened at the praise. “It is, isn’t it? I find it quite lovely to take people out in such a nice car.” The engine started with a low, nearly inaudible hum. “And if you think this is nice, just wait until you see the view.”
“Now you have me excited.”
“My, I thought the mere prospect of a date would have you excited,” Lizzie pressed a hand to her chest in mock offense. The car slipped out of the parking lot and onto the nearly empty street. There, Lizzie was quick to treat the speed limit less like a rule and more like a suggestion.
Ella’s gaze flicked to the speedometer and then to the sides of the road. “Aren’t you going a little fast?” She asked, nervous.
“Worry not, Gem, I know what I’m doing.” Lizzie winked at Ella and turned her attention back to the road. They wove through the streets with a practiced ease that Ella was fairly certain that Lizzie should not have had. She had, as far as Ella was aware, only been in town for a month, at most.
“I suppose I’ll have to trust you, then.” Ella offered Lizzie a small, slightly strained smile.
“That you will, Gem.” There was something in Lizzie’s tone that almost unsettled Ella. It was darker. Victorious. Possessive. She pushed aside the unsettled feelings, however, to focus on the way that the street lights illuminated Lizzie’s face. She looked near to a ghost in this darkness, almost translucent under the wash of yellow and golden lights.
The street lights were gone soon enough as Lizzie drove out of town and down a winding road. Ella knew exactly where they were, and she had a pretty good guess at where they were going at this point. The high schoolers called it Lover’s Lookout, as cheesy and ridiculous as it was. The rest of the town just called it Eagle’s Crest, because that was its name, as much as the high schoolers refused to use it.
Just as predicted, Lizzie’s car pulled into one of the not-officially-designated spots. The area was, blessedly, vacant of any high schoolers who thought they could sneak out in the dead of night to do things their parents and most of the town absolutely would not approve of.
“Isn’t the view simply divine?” Lizzie asked, reclining her seat to get a better look at the stars, sprinkled above like spilled granules of sugar.
Ella hummed and leaned back as well. “You know, I suppose it is.”
Lizzie’s hand grasped her own, and she turned to look at Ella. “As lovely as the stars are, I do believe I have an even better view in front of me.” Her lips brushed against Ella’s knuckles.
Ella’s eyebrows shot up, and she looked over to Lizzie. “I-”
“Shh,” Lizzie slipped over the center console with all the feline grace in the world. She settled into Ella’s lap. Her dexterous fingers worked into Ella’s hair, loosening her, admittedly, already falling-apart bun, until thick waves of hair tumbled over her shoulders. “So pretty,” she hummed. Lizzie picked up a lock of Ella’s hair and pressed a soft kiss to the loosely defined waves.
Lizzie leaned in further and began to pepper kisses, soft and sweet things, along the side of Ella’s jaw. Ella turned her head to give the other woman better access, a soft and pleased hum leaving her throat. Her gaze, slightly hazed, caught sight of a plastic card in the backseat—carelessly placed and forgotten about. An oddity in the otherwise perfectly put-together car. Her brows furrowed as she forced herself to focus on it.
Lizzie pressed open-mouthed and warm kisses to Ella’s neck, her tongue laving over the skin in an inherently erotic manner. With a free hand, she pulled the lever on the seat until they were nearly horizontal. She slipped her other hand under Ella’s shirt, her cold hand palming at Ella’s warm skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
Ella’s breathing was heavy with arousal, but even still, she found it in her to reach out with the hand that wasn’t occupied on Lizzie’s waist to snag the card. She narrowed her eyes in the darkness to get a better look at it. Ashley Willingham’s bright and cheerful face stared back at her, with a smile like a gem and bright blonde hair pulled back for the photo. Fear, cold as ice, shot through her veins, and the hand on Lizzie’s waist quickly moved to her chest, trying to push the woman off.
Lizzie didn’t move, though, sturdy as a year’s old coffee stain in wood. One hand grabbed Ella’s wrist, and her thumb pressed into the muscle until Ella’s hand spasmed with pain, and she was forced to drop the card. Ella whimpered and tugged at her hand while the other pounded and pressed at Lizzie’s chest. “Stop, stop, stop!” She cried out. The bones of her wrist creaked as Lizzie’s grip tightened. The once pleasurable sensations turned wicked as teeth scraped along her neck, thinner and sharper than human teeth ought to have been, layered row upon row upon row.
“Such a perfect little Gem,” Lizzie hummed against her pulse point. Ella’s heart beat faster than the whisks when the chefs were making whipped cream. Her breath was stuttered and thick, and she shook her head.
“Stop,” She begged again, but Lizzie continued on as if she hadn’t heard her. Tears began to burn at the corners of Ella’s eyes.
“I’ll make you mine. Forever and ever and ever and ever….” Lizzie trailed off as though she had become distracted by the thunderous, fearful beat of Ella’s heart.
“Please,” Ella’s voice came out as a cracked whisper, wet at the edges. “Lizzie, please stop.”
“Trust me, Gem,” Lizzie whispered. “You’re going to love this.” Needle teeth sank into flesh, and Ella screamed until she was gurgling on her own blood, drowning in it as it poured down her neck and was taken in large gulping drinks. Ella’s blood, tasting of coffee she had served cup after cup of until it tasted like the metal that built the machine, stained perfect leather and a much-too-perfect woman, and her freshly pressed clothes, whose skin was now a slightly healthier shade, with an unmistakable glow of vitality.
Elizabeth, sometimes Lizzie, and forever Erzsebet to none but herself, with thick, dark brown hair that bordered on auburn, and dark eyes that had captured the attention of the secretary, stood in a waiting room for a meeting she knew would be canceled. Elizabeth, with skin that had paled over time and needed a touch of life once more, leaned on the desk and smiled at the petite secretary, who twisted blonde hair between her fingers as rosy cheeks blushed as she basked in flirtatious attentions.
Elizabeth, with a warm and practiced smile and human teeth, leaned in and asked another woman on her last date. “Trust me, Gem, you’re going to love this.”