"Oh, I didn't think of that," Stephanie said, glancing down to the can on the floor beside her. Harper's can too sat on the floor at his side since the two were on either end of the nest, but, in the middle, Drina hadn't had anywhere to put hers and would have had to hold it through the movie. Now, however, she settled on the couch in the corner behind Stephanie, far out of Harper's reach and temptation, and set her can on the end table beside the couch.
"Can you reach the popcorn?" Stephanie asked with concern, as Harper used the remote to skip through the commercial trailers.
"Just put it between the two of you, and I can reach down," Drina assured her.
Stephanie did as she suggested, and then they all fell silent as the movie began. It started with a bang, of course, or actually an axing, and Drina rolled her eyes at the antics on screen. Truly, she liked horrors because they were always rather comedic to her. It never failed to amaze her how mortals could paint their own kind so damned stupid. She'd lived a long time and met enough mortals to populate a small nation but had never met a female mortal she thought would be stupid enough to go creeping out into a dark yard at night, unarmed and in a skimpy nightie, to investigate after hearing or seeing something there that disturbed or scared her.
And while Drina had dipped into enough male mortal minds to know that the majority of them seemed to think about sex with every fifth or sixth heartbeat, she was quite sure even they wouldn't think it clever or exciting to drag a female away from the safety of the herd to indulge in a quicky when dismembered bodies of friends or partygoers were falling around them like snow in a Canadian winter.
Seriously, at one time she had actually considered it insulting to humans as a whole, but lately she'd started to find it an amusing reflection of the lack of intelligence of the moviemakers. Between that and the fact that a great majority of movies today appeared to be remakes, it made her wonder how the devil they made any money at all in Hollywood.
Drina almost groaned aloud as one of the characters locked themselves in a windowless bathroom to escape the axe-wielding psycho killer who simply axed his way through the door while the girl trembled in the tub waiting to die.
Couldn't she even find something, anything, to try to hurt the guy with? Granted, perhaps not everyone kept scissors or other deadly items in their bathroom, but there was shampoo to squirt in his eyes and blind him, or even conditioner to squirt on the floor just inside the door so that the killer might slip and fall when he finally entered. That would at least give her the opportunity to race past and make a run for a smarter escape route. Surely anything was better than just standing there wailing and squealing and waiting to die with her boobs jiggling about? And it wasn't like she didn't have time to think while watching him slam the axe repeatedly through the door.
Shaking her head as the wailing, screeching, jiggling girl got the axe in the head, Drina reached for her drink, and then paused as motion in the backyard caught her eye. Frowning, she squinted, trying to make out what she'd seen. From her position, all she could see was the very back of the yard, and she'd thought she'd seen motion out there and a brief flash of reflected light.
Stephanie gasped in horror, and Drina glanced back toward the girl to see her cuddling a pillow and watching the screen wide-eyed as another character pretty much threw himself under the axe, or into it as the case may be.
Drina glanced back out the window, briefly, but then stood and stepped over Stephanie, heading for the door.
"I'm going to the bathroom," she said quietly.
"Do you want us to pause it?" Stephanie mumbled, eyes glued to the screen.
"No, I won't be a moment," Drina said, and slipped quickly from the room.
Chapter Twelve
Drina walked quickly into Elvi and Victor's bedroom and right past their en suite bathroom, headed for the door to the hall. She didn't have to go to the bathroom, of course. She'd only said that to keep from worrying Harper, and fortunately, Stephanie had been too wrapped up in the movie to read her and call her on the lie.
Not that there was anything to worry about, Drina thought. She'd probably just seen a neighborhood cat or something skulking across the yard or over the fence. But she was going to check it out anyway.
Armed and not in a nightie, she thought with a wry shake of the head as she hurried up the hall to the stairs and down to the first floor. Teddy, Alessandro, and Leonora were in the living room talking quietly while they awaited their shift sitting with Tiny and Mirabeau. They glanced over at the sound of her descending the stairs and Teddy immediately came out of the room.
"Problem?" he asked.
Drina shook her head. "I thought I saw something in the backyard, and I'm just going to take a quick peek around. I probably won't even leave the deck."
"I'll come with you," he said, moving to follow, but she shook her head as she walked into the pantry to don her coat and boots.
"There's no need. In fact, it's better if you watch from the window. If there is trouble and you're with me, we could both be taken out. If you watch from inside, you can shout the alarm and warn the others, so they aren't taken by surprise," she pointed out sensibly. "Besides, it was probably just a cat skulking about or something. There's no sense both of us getting cold."
"Alessandro can come watch from the window to give the alarm if anything happens," Teddy said grimly, dragging on his coat as she pulled on her boots. "I'm not letting you go out there by yourself. I'm police chief of this town, and if there's trouble, I'm going to help take care of it. You're not going out there on your own," he finished stubbornly.
"What? Are you trying out for the role of the cop in a slasher movie?" she muttered with disgust, thinking they were usually just as stupid as the other characters in the movies.
"What?" he asked with bewilderment.
Drina straightened with a sigh, and said solemnly, "Look, Teddy, you're being very brave and strong to want to accompany me. Unfortunately, you're also being stupid. If there is a problem out there, you could only be a detriment rather than a help in this situation."
He puffed up indignantly. "I know you immortals are stronger and faster and all that nonsense, but I have a gun and wouldn't hesitate to use it."
"Which makes you even more dangerous," she said firmly. "Any immortal worth a spit could take control of you and make you turn the gun on me before I even realized they were there." He blanched at the possibility, and she added gently, "The best thing you can do in this situation is watch from the window and shout to alert the others if there is a problem. That isn't a reflection on you. It doesn't mean you are weak and helpless. It is the smart thing to do, and you're a smart man. So act like it and stop letting your pride make foolish decisions for you. And please try to remember I'm basically the immortal version of a cop. I am trained for this. I'm not some helpless female creeping out in her nightie."
Confusion flickered across his face, telling her he didn't recognize that reference either, but Teddy heaved a disgusted sigh, and nodded. "All right. But give me a signal if you see anything, anything at all."
"I will," she assured him, dragging on her coat and hat before turning back to the closet to retrieve one of the large suitcases Anders had stored in there when they'd thought they were basically babysitting. Opening it, she rifled through the contents, noting that a couple items were missing. Anders was already armed and she should have thought to arm herself before this, she knew. It was that old "new-life-mate" distraction thing getting in the way, Drina thought on a sigh as she retrieved a quiver of arrows, a crossbow, a gun, and a box of drug-laced bullets that should knock out any rogue for at least twenty to thirty minutes . . . enough time to secure them for pick up.