The hunters and the newcomer began speaking. Eloise picked up more than a hint of tension and thinly veiled hostility in their exchange, though she remained mostly clueless as to what they were actually talking about. She did, however, learn the man's name-Hank.

A sliver of fear ran through her as she noticed all the weapons everywhere, both concealed and visible. The hunters were definitely armed-they always were. And this Hank person was openly holding a gun. They obviously had some sort of history; otherwise, why all the hostility?

One of the hunters grabbed Eloise roughly and pulled her out of the trunk. Eloise stood unsteadily on her feet, struggling to remain clear-headed in the sunlight.

Then, without warning, Eloise felt herself being yanked to the side, and suddenly she was pinned against Hank's body, the barrel of a gun pressed against the side of her neck. Eloise whimpered with fright. She was shaking like a leaf, though she tried her best to keep still. She dimly heard Hank whisper something about getting out of there.

One of the hunters, the one who Eloise had identified as the leader, gave Hank a brittle smile. "You're hurt, Hank. You won't kill her; she's the only one with the ability to heal your wounds in a couple of minutes, leaving no trace but a scar. Besides, if you try to take her, you won't get far. We've got a tracker on her. Would you like a demonstration?"

He pulled out a small device that looked vaguely like something Eloise knew to be a TV remote, and Eloise instinctively shrank away from it. He pressed a button, and Eloise arched her back and screamed into the cloth tied over her mouth as pain shot through her. "Please, please, make it [i]stop[/i]," she tried to say, but all that came out was a muffled groan. Tears sprang to her eyes, and Eloise writhed, still pinned in place by the man named Hank.

After what felt like an eternity, the hunter pressed another button, and the pain subsided. Eloise went limp against Hank, her breathing shallow. Through the pain and fear, Eloise smelled something...off. Hank was bleeding. 

Eloise then realized that she felt the blood on her fingers, too. She wriggled them around a bit-not an easy task, considering that her wrists were tied behind her back-and determined that the source of the blood was from some point near his ribs. Was it a gunshot wound? If so, then Eloise could heal him; she needed to be able to reach the skin. 

"You don't want him to take you away, do you? You're a [i]good[/i] girl," the leader practically cooed at Eloise, like she was a puppy and he was her master. Eloise had never felt more like an object than at that moment. The Covenant was a hundred times better than her sire, that was for sure, but Eloise wasn't delusional-she was their prisoner. Her bound wrists ached as a testament to this fact, and she was suddenly acutely aware of the cuff-like tracker around her ankle. 

And then there was Hank. What of Hank? She would have thought that she was just a bargaining chip that he could use to save himself to him, had she not heard him whisper in her ear. So Eloise would help him in the only way she knew how. The Covenant would hurt her if they found out, of course, but Eloise had endured over a century of pain. And humans, Eloise had found, didn't have very long memories (unless they were aristocrats. Both aristocrats and vampires had [i]extremely[/i] long memories).

Eloise reached deep inside her, and silver sparks began flowing from her fingertips. Hopefully they would be able to heal the gunshot wound without much guidance from Eloise-she couldn't see what she was doing, so she would have to trust the sparks. In fact, [i]nobody[/i] could really see what she was doing, given her proximity with Hank's ribs at this very moment.

There was a tense silence, and then a girl twirling a black parasol appeared. The parasol was strangely anachronistic-it vaguely resembled the parasols that some of the wealthy women who had passed through Eloise's village carried (her sire had carried one too, if Eloise was correct), though it was very obviously not from that time. Nobody had [i]black[/i] parasols unless they were in mourning, before Eloise had been turned. And this girl didn't look like she was in mourning at all.

But no...she wasn't a girl. She was a vampire, and a very old one, too-Eloise could smell it in the air. She wasn't entirely sure what the other vampire was talking about, but whoever she was, she was bound to be dangerous. So Eloise didn't move, hoping that she would somehow get out of this volatile situation alive.