This arrangement went on for several months. Rebecca and Lyssa quickly became the second home for little Nora while Rooney worked and Joan rested. Shortly after the start of the arrangement, Darci had her own baby.

Bex and Lyssa offered to help watch her, but Jaden was very protective of his little baby girl Destiny and took some time off work to help out for the first few months. It seemed like all her friends were having kids. Mike and his wife Annalee had their son only two months after that. And then they found out that Aron had a son with his girlfriend 6 months before Nora was even born. It was baby season as Bex liked to call it.

Lyssa called it Baby fever, everywhere she looked there was a baby.

Bex and Lyssa would help all their friends out by watching the kids on some days. But none of her other friends depended on them as much as Joan did. They practically had Nora every day. Lyssa even converted a room into a baby room for Nora.

Though Joan didn’t want to talk about it, she was going through a very rough time. Her mom had just passed away a week before Nora was born. Plus, Joan’s brother stayed away.

At a time when Joan was supposed to feel so happy in her life, she felt hollow and sad. Rooney couldn’t stand it. She missed Joan, her Joan. She blamed it all on Nora. Before Nora things were great, after Nora it all started to fall apart.

Rooney never wanted a child to begin with. It was all Joan’s idea and now with Joan going through what she was going through, Rooney was stuck to pick up the pieces and raise baby Nora. At least until Joan could get a handle on her depression.

Sometimes Bex would watch Nora alone while Lyssa went to Joan and helped her out around the house. Cleaning, buying food, getting Joan to eat, and take her medication.

Joan wasn’t a bad mom, she just needed a little more time to get back on her feet. Some days she was even a really great mom. She would take Nora out with her as she went for walks. Spend the whole day with Nora. She really loved and cared about Nora even when the two were apart. Joan had a system so that she could call and get a live check-in on Nora whenever she needed.

She even got Bex and Lyssa to start making video diary entries she could watch later. That way she wouldn’t feel like she missed out on anything important.

About seven months into this arrangement is when tragedy struck.

The day had started out normal enough. Bex and Lyssa picked up Nora and took her to their house. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood that day. Joan had even gotten up and gotten dressed, wanting to try and go back to work. Bex and Lyssa were happy and encouraged her to.

So now they really were on their own. With Joan and Rooney at work, Bex and Lyssa had Nora all to themselves. Nothing they weren’t used to. But it was a little uneasy because if something came up or happened, they would have Nora with them.

While they stayed in Thorndale their pack continued to grow and spread, but so did the upset and malice towards them. The reports started coming in slowly at first, then almost daily as members of her pack would stop by to let her know of the latest attack or incident.

Though Lyssa wanted to be there for Joan, she knew her time in Thorndale was coming to an end. She had duties and a pack to lead after all. Still, she never expected her last day in Thorndale to end like this.

“Hello, say hello.” Bex grabbed Nora’s baby hand and waved at the camera. It was time for their daily diary entry. “Say Hi to mommy.”

“Rebecca she’s a baby, she can’t talk.” Lyssa shook her head before sitting next to Rebecca.

“Oh hush Lyssa, she will talk. I’m going to be the one that gets her to say her first word. Isn’t that right Nora, who’s going to say their first word for me, you are, that’s right.” Bex held Nora with both hands as she shook the baby lightly.

“Anyways, Joan this is our daily diary entry. Just showing you that your daughter is in safe hands.” Lyssa said to the camera.

“Say hi to mommy, say hi.” Bex waved Nora’s hand.

“Hheee” Baby Nora cooed.

“Did you hear that Lyssa!? She almost talked!” Bex said in excitement.

“Hardly,” Lyssa rolled her eyes.

“Oh don’t listen to her, aunty Lyssa is so negative all the time.” Bex talked to Nora in a baby voice.

Lyssa smiled at Bex as Bex played with baby Nora.

“You really like babies.” Lyssa pointed out.

“Only cute little babies like you, that’s right, who’s a cute baby?” Bex tickled the baby causing her to laugh.

“You would have been a natural.” Lyssa moved behind Bex and wrapped her arms around her as they sat in the meadow behind the house.

“You think so?” Bex smiled at Nora.

“I know so.”

“It’s like in a way… she’s almost like my own. Like I get to experience being a mom through her. That’s silly right?” Bex turned to face Lyssa.

“Nonsense. She is like your own. You are her godmother after all.”

“I don’t know, I think Joan might have some protest, isn’t that right, mommy won’t like it if I take you away.” Bex pinched the baby’s cheeks.

Baby Nora grabbed Bex’s finger and began to teeth on it.

“I think she’s hungry, can you get her bottle?” Bex asked Lyssa without turning to face her.

“Of course my love,” Lyssa got up and seemed to vanish into thin air before reappearing again this time with a bottle.

“Who’s hungry?” Bex grabbed the bottle and held it over Nora who reached for it.

“I think she’s getting too warm; we should take her inside,” Lyssa said.

“You think so?” Bex felt Nora’s face for a fever.

Bex made a face before turning back to the camera.

“Alright, say bye to mommy.” Bex got Nora’s hand and waved bye as the baby drank from the bottle.

There was a loud boom that caused both of them to flinch and the baby to start crying in shock.

“Rebecca watch out!” Lyssa said as a large tree came falling towards them.

Lyssa caught the tree with her bare hands and held it up as Bex disappeared with baby Nora in tow.

Lyssa’s eyes flashed red and she threw the tree to the side like it was nothing.

“Who’s there!?” Lyssa demanded.

In a blur, Lyssa was punched hard in the gut. Lyssa flew back and into the fallen three and rolled to the ground. A man picked Lyssa up as if she was weightless, his eyes blood red.

“You’ve made your bed vampire; I hope you’re prepared to lie in it.” The man threw Lyssa at the camera set up, shattering the glass screen.

Bex hadn’t gotten far either, they were surrounded. She held the crying baby close to her chest. Her panic quickly rising.

“Leave us alone,” Bex’s eyes turned red.

“Like you left us alone?”

“We didn’t do anything!? Your pack joined us willingly.” Lyssa spat at them as she struggled to her feet.

“Then we’ll tell everyone you died willingly if that makes you feel better.”

They stepped towards Bex and Bex hissed, holding Nora even closer.

Lyssa appeared in front of her, shielding her from the other vampires.

“Let us go, we have a baby, please.” Lyssa pleaded.

Nora screamed louder.

“We don’t care. There’s a reward out for your heads and we plan to collect.” A young male vampire stepped forward.

“We don’t want to fight; we can work this out.” Bex tried.

It was 6 on 2. Plus Bex was holding Nora, so technically it was 6 on 1.

Bex and Lyssa shared a worried look.

“Go,” Lyssa said to her.

“But Lyssa—”

“Do it for her. I’ll be okay.” Lyssa assured her.

“No.” Bex shook her head.

“Rebecca, you have to. Nora is our number one priority.”

“Is that so?” a female vampire cocked her head to the side.

Before Lyssa or Bex could react she charged Bex head-on. Bex went flying, but her arms never left Nora. She shielded the baby from the fall with her body, sliding to a stop. All the while Nora was screaming and crying.

“Bastards!” Lyssa ran after that girl.

They all quickly ganged up on Lyssa. Four on one.

Two went after Bex.

Bex sat up and looked into her arms, Nora was okay. She sighed in relief, but her relief was short-lived as someone picked her up by her neck. The other person snatched the baby from her hands.

“No!” Bex screamed.

The goal of the vampires was to separate Lyssa and Bex, so the one with Nora took off into the woods. Bex went into pure instinct mode. Her eyes glowing bright red. She grabbed the man's arm and snapped it in half, throwing him before chasing with her full speed after the vampire with Nora.

They weaved in and out of the trees as Bex quickly closed the gap between them.

Lyssa eyed the direction Bex went in before attempting to go after her but vampires blocked her path.

Lyssa didn’t want to fight but she had no choice.

Bex grabbed the vampire by his shirt and slammed him to the ground, grabbing Nora out of his arms.

Nora cried and cried, Bex quickly took off with her. Trying to get away as fast as she could. But they had planned for that. A silver bullet hit Bex in the shoulder and she cried out loudly, nearly dropping Nora.

Before she could react bullets were flying at her in all directions. She jumped up into the trees to get away. Two more vampires appeared and chased after her as she jumped from tree to tree.

One tackled her into another tree, she barely grabbed onto the branch and pulled herself up in time. Still holding the baby.

The vampires weren’t dumb, they knew Bex was the weak link. If they killed her, Lyssa would die too. So while Lyssa was distracted they put all their efforts into killing Bex.

Bex was quickly overwhelmed as three vampires closed in on her.

She was thrown into another tree, a branch stabbing her in the chest. Even still she held on. she didn’t get to recover though as two vampires went in to break her neck while she was stuck.

That’s when it happened.

When she felt the baby slip from her fingers.

The world seemed to slow down as baby Nora fell 20 feet to the ground. Bex did everything she could. She lost her mind. Throwing the vampires off all at once before jumping to save Nora her hand reaching out as far as it could stretch.

But she wasn’t fast enough.

When the baby hit the ground, the crying stopped.

And all of the world fell silent.

Bex landed hard but was up on her knees in seconds. She was shaking, her eyes wide. She crawled over to the baby who lay unmoving.

She picked up the limp baby in her hands and watched as blood dripped down the baby’s nose.

Ringing. All Bex could hear was ringing.

Lyssa stopped fighting and turned in the direction Bex was in. everyone stopped, noticing the crying had ceased.

“No.” Lyssa took off. “No, no, no.” she appeared next to Bex.

“Rebecca, Rebecca look at me.” Lyssa tried but when Bex looked at her, her entire eye was red. Bex was shaking, silent tears of rage streamed down her face. She handed Nora to Lyssa and turned to the 6 vampires. They all stared at her.

They had triggered a rage of the likes that no one had ever seen.

Lyssa didn’t stay to watch, she ran as fast as she could to the nearest hospital. She was also shaking, tears streaming down her face.

“Please! Somebody help me!” she cried out when she ran into the lobby.

Doctors rushed over to her and took Nora from her hands.

“You have to save her, please,” Lyssa begged.

“We’ll do all we can.” A nurse said.

Lyssa called Joan who answered the first ring.

“Hey, what’s up? How’s Nora?” Joan asked.

“Joan,” Lyssa sobbed.

“What happened?” Joan turned somber.

“You have to come to the hospital. I’m so sorry.”

“What happened,” Rooney took the phone from Joan.

“Oh god,” Lyssa covered her mouth.

“What the fuck happened!? Tell me!” Rooney demanded.

In the background, a code blue was being called.

Lyssa dropped the phone and covered her ears, curling into a ball on the floor. She shook her head and tried to block it out but she could feel all of Bex’s emotions running through her and a loud cry tore itself from Lyssa’s lungs. She cried out in rage and pain. Rooney had never heard Lyssa make that sound before.

They arrived at the hospital shortly after but it was too late.

“I’m sorry, we did all we could.” The doctor said.

Joan cried out in horror and buried her face into Rooney’s chest, not wanting to see her unmoving baby. Rooney just stared in shock.

“How did this happen!? What did you do!?” Rooney demanded.

Lyssa couldn’t look at the baby either, she faced the wall.

“Answer me!” Rooney demanded.

They all flinched when Bex appeared in a rush, covered in blood and holding Aron.

“Jesus!” The doctor cursed.

“Bring her back.” Bex pushed Aron into the room.

“Oh god… no. Nora?” He eyed the dead baby.

“Now!” Bex demanded, still in a rage.

Joan looked at Aron.

“Can you?” she asked.

“I mean I don’t know, I’ve never—”

“Do it or I’ll kill you!” Bex grabbed him by the shirt.

“Rebecca no,” Lyssa pulled her away.

“Bring her back!” Bex demanded.

Lyssa held her down as she thrashed around.

“Shh, Shh, Rebecca no.” Lyssa tried to soothe her.

“Aron please, please, take my life if you have to. Please.” Joan begged.

“No! Not you, don’t you dare do that. Take me.” Rooney said.

Soon everyone was arguing on who should die. Aron ran his hands through his hair over and over, very stressed at his sudden predicament.

“Shut up!” he shouted.

They all looked at him.

“I’ll… do what I can.” He said.

This kind of magic was forbidden for several reason but the most important is that it always came at a cost. Greater than anyone could ever repay. One day Nora’s life, if she did survive would be changed forever. After all, nothing is free.

the doctor watched the room light up a bright purple and in the hall, the nurses turned when the sound of a baby crying filled their ears.

The doctor couldn’t explain what he just saw, but he knew it wasn’t natural.

Joan broke into tears of joy, scooping Nora into her arms.

Bex finally felt relief and her eyes turned back to normal but her body was exhausted and she passed out right there, falling to the floor. Lyssa quickly scooped her up.

“What the hell happened!” Rooney demanded.

So Lyssa told them everything.

“You stay away from my baby, you hear me!” Rooney spat at Lyssa.

“It wasn’t our fault!” Lyssa tried.

Joan walked over to her and slapped her; Lyssa flinched.

“I want you gone.” Joan locked eyes with Lyssa.

Lyssa’s lip trembled and she opened her mouth to try and say something but Joan didn’t give her a chance.

“Out of this town. For good. Don’t ever come back. Either of you. Is that clear?” Joan asked.

“But Joan—”

“I mean it.” Joan threatened.

“I’ll put up a barrier if I have to, to keep you out,” Aron said.

Lyssa backed away from them, slowly.

With a heavy heart and tears in her eyes, she glanced at baby Nora one last time before nodding in compliance.

“Okay. Goodbye. If you ever need us, we’ll be there. I hope you have a wonderful life. Remember, we love you.” She said, then she left.

When Bex came too she knew what happened, she and Lyssa were connected after all. Lyssa had already bathed her and packed up all their stuff.

“I… killed them…” Bex said softly.

Lyssa stopped what she was doing and sat next to her.

“I killed them.” Bex’s eyes watered.

Lyssa pulled her into her arms.

“You did what you had to do.” Lyssa soothed her.

“I killed them, Lyssa I…” Bex sobbed into her.

“Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

And so that was the day Bex killed someone for the first time, and the day she and Lyssa left Thorndale, for good.