Love Me Forever. Rosemary Laurey

      He was half asleep. “Do you like Dr. Corvus, Mom?” he asked. What a question! And one she should have expected. “He’s been a good friend.”

      “Wish he was a real vampire.”

      “They’re only make-believe, you know that.”

      “I know.” He opened both eyes and smiled. “But he looked like a real one when he grabbed Johnny Day like that. Lifted him off the ground!” She’d noticed. For a few seconds she’d been scared Justin would go too far, but she knew in her heart he never would. Even hurting a street punk was something Justin would never do without extreme provocation. “Can’t wait to tell Tony, and everyone at school, how Johnny peed his pants on our sidewalk!”

      She hoped there were no repercussions about that.

      Stella fell into bed and all but collapsed into a deep sleep. If she’d overheard the conversation a few blocks away, she wouldn’t have slept so easily.

      “I’m going to get her…and him,” Johnny Day hissed.

      “Yeah?” Warty Watson, his right-hand man and part-time sycophant, muttered. He had a sore jaw from the punch he’d gotten earlier for laughing at Johnny’s stained pants.

      “I’m gonna see to the bitch,” Johnny said. “She’ll get what’s coming to her.”

      “And him,” Warty added. “You owe him too. What you gonna do?”

      Johnny thought a minute. Thinking wasn’t his strongest point. “Plug her with lead!” he announced. “Shoot her dead. And him. Thinks he’s so great with that big car and that stuck-up voice.” He paused to smile. “Let’s see how he sounds as he gets bullet after bullet in his chest.”

      “Maybe we should get them separate,” Warty suggested.

      “One at a time like.”

      Johnny thumped him between the shoulder blades. “Maybe we just will. Of course, we could get the kid first.”

      Warty shook his head. Even he had his limits. “No, leave the kid. He’s harmless.”