2.48am. Watching her through the gym window, he smoked his cigarette and searched for some recognition of the old Star. Something in her movements, in her attitude and he tried to see through her new image, from the top of her head anyways, as she ran on the treadmill. This thing in front of him was fit with strong arms and shoulders, lean thighs with little shorts sticking to them from the sweat running down them and a nice tight ass. Gone were the dark curls, replaced by long straight dark blonde locks tied back in a tight ponytail, which would swing and pat her back with every stride she took. He had to admit, she looked hot. Like really hot, hot enough to have him questioning his motives now he'd seen her again. If that was even her. The way he was feeling though he was waiting for this one at the end of her workout regardless of who she was.
Funny, he thought, to find himself staring at a familiar face after so long. It was obvious Paul and Dwayne were dead as one became a skeleton and the other blew up and Marko was staked with wood. But David was pierced with antlers, keratin which was not fatal, painful and uncomfortable but not fatal. Michael and his family believed he had just been buried in the aftermath of Max's demise but once he had recovered and gained perspective on the events of that Summer, he had decided to track down Michael and Star. Expecting to find all three together, David had been surprised to find Michael in bed with another girl, whom he had to kill just cause she was there, and he felt a sense of satisfaction to find Michael without Star. It meant their 'love' had never been strong enough. But it also made him wildly angry to think his boys had been sacrificed for nothing. He was resolved in his desire for revenge from her and had then tracked her for the next two years, initially fuelled with the same hatred, rage and fantasies of revenge but by the time he finally found her again in Santa Monica he was more interested in a reason why. Then he'd focus on revenge and rage. He was still a vampire after all.
Dragging in more smoke, he was beginning to disbelieve that this creature on the machine was the weak willed, submissive girl he had known so well. The girl he had owned. The girl he had dared to love and dared to share what he was, his truth. Dared to dream of a life with her forever and wanted her to be like him. Until he came... Even though Michael was gone, his legacy still lingered. And he was gone as in dead, David couldn't just kill Star like that but Michael? As soon as Star had drifted on, David had extracted a prolonged torturous death for the man who had taken his love, his boys and his life.
He looked away, sucking in more smoke, and he felt the fury blaze within him once again. Aside from the three year hiatus, he hadn't killed her out right because he didn't want just her blood on his hands, or in his mouth, that wasn't enough for him. He watched her and all the fantasies of what he wished to do to her flooded his brain and he smiled. He was here to collect and she was going to pay for her betrayal. She had destroyed his family via her infidelity and had somehow managed to penetrate his titanium heart in the process and now, she was going to pay. However, this girl in front of him looked determined and focused. Ready for anything. She would never be anyone's bait again. Anyone's toy. Anyone's property. Sweat glistened as it dripped down between her breasts. He was yet to get a glance of her face as she had had her eyes down to the floor since he had found what he thought might be her. She still had low self-esteem though, he smiled to himself. But why the change? To hide from him? No, she wouldn't know he was still alive, well... walking.
It was then she looked up and out the window, almost directly at him, and he froze. It was her. He looked into her eyes and it was her. The feeling he felt was foreign to him. Not what he was expecting and it threw him slightly. It was a mixture of exhilaration and accomplishment in finding her along with definite anger yet an underlying sadness at her for what she has done. What she is forcing him to do. She adjusted her necklace and it was then he noticed it. The broken yellow gold heart with white gold filigree detailing he had given her, what seemed like a million years ago. She was still wearing it and he watched her gently finger the pendant and melt away into her own thoughts. His eyes caressed her altered frame following it out of the room and into another and he found himself contemplating other ways of fulfilling his needs from her. He briefly wondered if she was thinking of him and he felt a stir deep within, one that he had not felt in a long, long time, but then he reminded himself he didn't care. He was here for a reason.
He flicked his butt in the garden and walked around near the front of the building. It was 3.00am and it was obvious she still kept to the nocturnal hours he'd grown her accustomed to. This was it. The night he'd been waiting for, planning for and thinking about for years. She came out with her jacket over her arm and her drink bottle in her hand and she glanced up at the moon, and stood mesmerised for a second, then quickly walked down the path to the dimly lit carpark. He silently made his way towards her, smelling the sweet sweat on her body as she bounced down the path. He got a flash of the same feeling, the deep stirring and again tried to push it away as it was a feeling creating a dynamic he wasn't prepared for. He wasn't expecting to feel anything other than revoltion towards her and yet he was feeling an old yearning for her. She got closer to the carpark and abruptly stopped and turned her head and he again froze. Had she heard him? Impossible, he wasn't that careless. She flicked her head back around and quickly headed towards her car and he was two steps behind her only instead of wanting to rip her head off, he found himself wanting to touch her. To possess her control her again... He stopped. What was he doing? He'd thought about this moment over and over again, every night thinking about the different things he would do to her. How it would feel and how she would look, but instead of finding a weak Star, clinging to Michael, he had found a fit Star who looked more like a challenge than a victim and he found himself wanting her. He could feel his primal vampire instincts kicking in and he could sense the ultimate hunt developing and he began to smile. He wanted to learn as much information as he could glean about this new Star before she knew he was back. Knowledge has always been power and David was going to regain more power than he'd ever had before over Star. As defiant and strong as she looked like she had become, and he suspected she would probably put up a bit of a fight, but he was confident that once he was physically in front of her, she would fold.
He stepped back into the shadows and watched as she got into her car, switched the lights on and drove away. He'd give himself a week of surveillance to find out her routine, to discover her friends and her loves. To learn her new life. He again felt the familiar pang of jealousy course through his veins and he wanted to kill. Not her... well, at least not yet. He could fully see himself finding her fucking some loser and killing him and her in a bit of a frenzy but he didn't want to measure out a quick revenge on her. No, hers was not going to be a quick death, she deserved so much more. Her whole life deserved to be destroyed just as his was. One thing was playing on him though, as he stood in the aftermath of seeing her. Why was he finding he wanted her? Why was he feeling a need for her to belong to him again? He then realised he wanted both. To destroy her and to reclaim her again. He would make her love him again.