The Augustine File
After infiltrating an old Augustine Society building, Freya successfully steals a file that serves as the only key to finding a powerful serum. The escape goes sideways, leaving her stranded in the woods with Enzo, a British guy with an annoying accent. Despite the fact that they can’t stand each other, they’ve struck a deal to help each other survive the trek and get out alive.
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Chapter 3:
The sunset was a jagged, blinding glare through the canopy, and to Freya, it felt like a physical weight pressing on her skull. She kept her eyes locked on the uneven ground, her boots heavy with the mud of the vault, her fingers cramped around the strap of her satchel.
Behind her, the rhythmic click-snap of the lighter was a persistent, metallic taunt.
"You're remarkably dedicated to the bit, I'll give you that," Lorenzo said, his voice light and jagged with mock admiration. He stepped over a fallen log with a grace that made her blood boil. "The wide-eyed stare at the ring, the 'vampire' this and 'nuisance' that. It’s a touch dramatic for a woman who clearly knows her way around a dark arts textbook."
Freya didn't turn. She didn't have the energy to spare for a full rotation. "I told you, Lorenzo. I don't care for your toys. And I certainly don't care for your commentary."
"Oh, come now. You’re telling me you’ve lived this long and never seen a bit of enchanted jewelry? Or are you just that committed to the 'mysterious traveler' persona?" He surged forward, closing the distance until he was walking just a shoulder's width behind her. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, serrated hum. "It’s a bit late for playing dumb, darling. You were tossing filing cabinets like confetti back there. You know exactly what the world is. You're just annoyed I'm not bowing to the 'Mikaelson' brand."
"I am annoyed because you are here," Freya hissed, finally cutting a sharp, lethal side-eye toward him. The soot on her face was cracked by the tension in her jaw. "You almost incinerated the only thing that can keep me awake. If you think I’m playing a game, you are even more of a fool than those doctors who carved you up."
She stopped abruptly, the world tilting beneath her feet. The trees seemed to shiver, the green darkening into a bruised purple. She needed to know where they were—how far the nearest sanctuary was before the sleep claimed her.
She raised a hand, her fingers trembling as she began a low, guttural locator chant. She didn't need a map; she needed the earth to speak.
The magic flared, a weak, sickly amber light that sputtered like a dying candle. A sharp, stabbing pain erupted behind her eyes, and before she could finish the incantation, a hot, metallic tang filled her throat. A single, dark drop of blood escaped her nose, splattering onto her soot-stained collar.
Lorenzo stopped a few feet away, leaning against a trunk with his arms crossed. He didn't offer a hand. He didn't even look concerned. He just watched the blood trail down her lip with a dry, cynical tilt of his head.
"Lovely," he remarked, his voice cold. "So that’s the play? You’re going to pretend to bleed out in the dirt to get me to lower my guard? It’s a bit cliché, don't you think?"
Freya wiped the blood away with a shaking hand, her eyes flashing with a desperate, fractured gold light. "I am... not... pretending."
"Then you’re incompetent," Lorenzo countered, flicking his lighter open one more time. Click. "You’re pushing yourself into a grave for a book you can’t even read properly while you’re dizzy. If you’re waiting for me to play the worried suitor, you’ve got the wrong man. Now, wipe your face. There’s a logging trail south-west, and I’m not carrying your corpse if you decide to drop dead before we hit the pavement."
Freya stumbled, her hand catching a branch. To her, it felt like cold, rusted metal. "Ek vil eigi sofa," she rasped, the Old Norse slipping out of her cracked lips like a reflex. "Ek verð at ljúka þessu... áðr en hún kemr."
"I’m sorry, was that a spell or did you just have a stroke?"
The voice was sharp, cutting through the fog in her mind. Lorenzo was walking a few paces behind her, moving with a steady, predator’s ease that didn't show a hint of exhaustion. He wasn't even breathing hard, while her lungs felt like they were filled with glass.
"Speak English, darling," he continued, the rhythmic click-snap of his silver lighter punctuating the quiet of the woods. "I left my Viking-to-Modern dictionary in my other suit."
Freya stopped and whipped her head around. Her eyes were bloodshot, her pupils blown wide with a mix of dehydration and a simmering, ancient rage. "Silence, vampire. Your voice is a grating itch I am seconds away from scratching out of existence."
Lorenzo didn't flinch. He just leaned against a nearby tree, watching her with a dry, cynical tilt of his head. "There she is. I was worried you’d gone soft on me. But seriously, why the crawl? You were tossing filing cabinets like confetti back in that hole, and I’ve got speed that could have us at a motorway by breakfast. Why are we playing 'Follow the Fainting Witch' through the brambles?"
Freya didn't answer. Her gaze drifted past him, locking onto a patch of shadows between two thick oaks. She didn't see the forest; she saw a tall, draped figure—Dahlia—standing perfectly still, watching her with that predatory, disappointed look she remembered from a thousand years of nightmares.
"She’s here," Freya whispered, her voice cracking. "She’s waiting for me to falter."
Lorenzo’s smirk flickered and died. He looked at the empty space between the trees, then back at her soot-stained, trembling face. "There is no one there but us and the squirrels, love. You’re losing your grip. Is this part of the act, or are you actually going mad?"
"I am not mad!" she shrieked, the force of her voice causing the leaves above them to rustle violently. She clutched the leather satchel to her chest, her knuckles white. "And if you’re so eager to leave, then run! Use your parlor tricks and disappear! I didn't ask for a shepherd, and I certainly didn't ask for you."
"And leave you to wander into a ravine while hugging that book?" Lorenzo stepped into her personal space, his eyes dark and serrated. He didn't know her name, and he didn't care about her lineage; to him, she was just a dangerous, delusional girl holding the only thing he wanted to destroy. "Not a chance. I’m staying until that ledger is ash, or until you finally admit you're too thirsty to find your own shadow. Why aren't you using that magic of yours to fetch us a drink, then?"
Freya stared through him, her eyes unfocused as the iron bars of her hallucination seemed to tighten around them both. She wasn't just angry at him for the bunker; she was livid that she was forced to stand in the sun with a man who looked at her like she was a broken machine.
"You understand nothing," she whispered, her voice trembling.
She pushed past him, her shoulder hitting his with a desperate, weak force. She was a walking ghost, her mind half-buried in a thousand years of trauma
The ground fell away with a jagged, sudden violence. They stood at the lip of a steep ravine, the far side a good twenty feet away, separated by a drop into a rocky, fast-moving river that hissed against the stones below.
Freya stopped at the very edge, her boots kicking a few loose pebbles into the abyss. She closed her eyes, trying to pull the thread of magic she needed to simply step across the air, but the dehydration had turned her internal well into a muddy puddle. The amber light flickered at her fingertips—a weak, dying spark—and then snuffed out completely.
"Oh, marvelous," Lorenzo drawled, coming to a halt behind her. He didn't look tired; he looked bored, flicking his lighter open with a sharp clink. "The great bridge-builder has run out of bricks. What now? Do we wait for you to grow wings, or are we going to acknowledge that you’re effectively useless in this state?"
Freya whirled around, her face pale save for the dark, dried streak of blood under her nose. "I am not useless! My magic is... temperamental. This terrain is beneath me."
"The terrain is fine, love. It’s your legs that are the problem," Lorenzo snapped, the mask of the charming rogue slipping to reveal the jagged edge of his frustration. He took a predatory step forward, his hand out. "Give me the bag. I can jump that gap in a heartbeat. I’ll get the ledger across, and then I’ll come back and haul your shivering self over so you don't end up as a stain on the rocks."
"You will stay exactly where you are," Freya hissed, clutching the satchel so hard the leather groaned. "I know your game, Lorenzo. You get that book in your hands and you’ll be halfway to the coast before I even hit the water. I would rather drown in this river than give a common thug like you my future."
"A thug?" Lorenzo let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "I’m the only reason you aren't currently melting in that basement. You’re a liability. You’re slow, you’re delusional, and you’re holding onto a piece of history. Give it to me, or so help me, I’ll take it."
"Try it," she challenged, her voice dropping to a low, lethal whisper. "See what happens to your hand before you can even touch the strap."
They stood there, two prideful, broken things snarling at each other over a bag of secrets, until the wind shifted.
Lorenzo’s head snapped to the left. His pupils dilated, his nostrils flaring as he caught a scent on the breeze that made his entire posture go rigid. It wasn't the smell of the forest or the damp river; it was the clinical, metallic scent of sterile equipment and heavy-duty tranquilizers.
"Shut up," he whispered, his voice suddenly void of all mockery.
"Don't tell me—"
He moved faster than her eyes could follow, his hand clamping over her mouth and dragging her back into the thick shadows of a cedar tree. Freya struggled, her hand already sparking with a desperate hex, but he leaned his weight into her, pinning her against the bark.
"Listen," he breathed into her ear.
Through the trees, the faint, rhythmic thwump-thwump of a low-flying drone reached them, followed by the crunch of heavy tactical boots on the dry brush a few hundred yards back. These weren't local police looking for a hiker.
"Augustine," Lorenzo hissed, his eyes flashing with a cold, renewed terror. "They didn't all die in the fire. They’ve got scouts, and they’re tracking us."
Freya went still, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looked at the satchel, then back at the ravine. The bickering was over. They were being hunted by the one thing they both feared more than each other.
The ravine offered no easy path, but the sound of the approaching scouts—the distinct, heavy crunch of tactical boots—left them no choice. Lorenzo hauled Freya down the steep embankment, his vampire strength the only thing keeping them from tumbling headlong into the jagged rocks of the riverbed.
They found a narrow crawlspace beneath the moss-covered stone footings of an old, collapsed timber bridge. It was damp, cramped, and smelled of ancient rot, but it was deep enough to hide two bodies from the thermal drones humming overhead.
Freya collapsed against the cold stone, her chest heaving. The dehydration was a physical fire in her throat. She looked at the murky, sediment-heavy river water churning just inches from her boots.
"Don't," Lorenzo hissed, his eyes darting toward the lip of the ravine above. "That's a one-way trip to a fever you won't wake up from."
Freya didn't answer. She reached out a trembling hand, her fingers dipping into the icy flow. She closed her eyes, her lips moving in a faint, melodic hum. A pulse of soft amber light rippled from her fingertips into the water. The silt settled instantly, the grey cloud vanishing to leave a pocket of crystal-clear liquid. She cupped her hands, drinking greedily, the magic-cleansed water finally cooling the heat in her lungs.
"Better?" Lorenzo asked, though his tone was more a jagged jab than a question.
"Adequate," she rasped, wiping her mouth. But as the immediate thirst faded, a deeper, more terrifying cold began to set in. it was the bone-deep chill of the . Her body was trying to shut down, her internal temperature dropping as her magic flickered. She began to shiver violently,
"Stop that," Lorenzo commanded in a harsh whisper. "They’re right above us."
"I... can't," Freya managed, her breath hitching. "I have to... cloak us. If I don't... they'll see us."
She tried to raise her hands to weave a veil of invisibility, but they were shaking too hard to hold the thread. The cold was turning her skin blue under the soot.
Lorenzo looked at her, his expression a mask of pure irritation. He looked at the satchel she was still clutching, then at her pale, vibrating frame. He had two choices: let her freeze and hope the scouts missed a cold corpse, or interfere.
With a low, frustrated growl, he shifted. He didn't ask. He slid behind her in the cramped space, pulling her back against his chest. His body wasn't "warm" in the human sense, but compared to the supernatural ice in her veins, his vampire heat was a furnace. He wrapped his arms around her, pinning her shaking limbs against his own.
"If you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you myself," he breathed into her hair, his voice vibrating through her spine. "Now, focus. Use the heat. Mask us."
Freya stiffened, her first instinct to strike him, but the warmth was an anchor. She leaned into the solid weight of him, using his steady presence to still her hands. She began the incantation, her voice a low, steady thrum that blended with the sound of the river. A shimmer of golden light expanded from them, clinging to the underside of the bridge like a cobweb.
Above them, the boots stopped. A flashlight beam cut through the gaps in the timber, sweeping inches from Lorenzo’s boots.
Freya held her breath, her heart drumming against Lorenzo's arm. In the silence, the proximity was suffocating—the smell of his leather jacket and the metallic tang of his blood mixing with the scent of the wet earth. They were trapped in a hateful, necessary embrace, two enemies held together by the singular goal of not being dragged back into a cage.
The light flickered away. The boots moved on.
"They're gone," she whispered after a long minute, but she didn't move. She couldn't.
"Not far enough," Lorenzo muttered, though he didn't let go either. He looked down at the ledger tucked between them. "And we still have five miles of woods and a tagged book to deal with. You ready to move, or are you planning on nesting here for the winter?"
The silence under the bridge was heavy, broken only by the rhythmic rush of the river and the distant, fading crunch of boots. The invisibility spell held, a shimmering veil that made the world outside look like a distorted dream.
Lorenzo didn't pull away; he remained a solid, begrudging wall of heat against her back. He hated this. Every instinct he’d honed surviving the gutters of 19th-century London screamed at him to stay alert, to stay moving, and to never—under any circumstances—get comfortable.
"You're twitching," Freya whispered, her voice barely a thread. "Stop it. You're breaking my focus."
"I’m not twitching, I’m agitated," Lorenzo snapped, his breath hot against the back of her neck. "I don't like being pinned in a hole like a rat. It’s a bad habit I picked up in the East End. You wouldn't understand."
Freya let out a weak, jagged breath that was supposed to be a laugh. "The East End? You’re acting like a frightened child, Lorenzo. We are hidden. We are safe for the moment. Your restlessness is... childish."
"Childish?" He tightened his grip on her shoulders, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low vibrato. "I spent my youth sleeping in doorways with one eye open so I didn't get my throat slit for a loaf of bread. I don't 'rest,' sweetheart. I wait."
"Then wait quietly," she murmured. Her eyes were already fluttering shut, the exhaustion finally winning the war against her pride. The warmth of his body was a drug she couldn't fight anymore.
Lorenzo started to retort, something sharp and biting about her arrogance, but he felt her head heavy against his shoulder. Her breathing had slowed, turning deep and rhythmic. She was gone, pulled under by a fatigue he couldn't begin to comprehend.
He looked out at the dark water, his own eyes feeling the leaden weight of seventy years of sleepless nights in a cage finally catching up to him. The adrenaline was gone, leaving only the cold damp of the bridge and the steady heartbeat of the woman in his arms.
"You're a nightmare," he muttered to the shadows.
"Freya," she whispered, her voice drifting from the very edge of consciousness. It was the last bit of strength she had—a tiny piece of herself offered up in the dark. "My name... is Freya."
Lorenzo didn't respond. He stared at the mossy stone inches from his face, the name echoing in the small, cramped space. Freya. His eyes finally drifted shut, his chin resting against the top of her soot-covered head. Under a collapsed bridge in the middle of a forest, the vampire and the witch fell into a heavy, hateful sleep
