Prologue

Sometimes he'd sit out on the roof and just watch the world at night.

It was safe up there. Not to say it was dangerous down there, but something about the relief of others comforted him. Up here he didn't have to worry about the reactions to his lack of inhibitions. It was his turn to judge the rest of the city dwellers and though he seldom did, the option was nice.

But there was always someone else there to interrupt his solace.

He'd never want to hurt her. The pale-faced girl that walked down the street every night had a habit of pulling him from his thoughts. Once her footsteps had come and gone he'd found it nearly impossible to regain comfort again. She crowded his thoughts; filling and spilling over and under them, beseeching him like a vigorous cancer. He'd wondered where she was coming from and where she was going. What kind of person was she, this fragile lamb who so arrogantly dared to stand in the view of wolves?

One night he decided to find out.

"Hey."

"Hi." She stopped and turned, a little off guard, hesitant with her position. It was so casual, not at all what he'd expected from his constant need to escape her, yet consumed with the thought of her. He silently cursed himself for the lack of presentation in his unceremonious greeting.

"Where are you going?" He noticed her stiffen under his intense glare. He hadn't meant to scare her, but something in him was intrigued with the control he had over her demeanor. Somehow, her curiosity was piqued as well. She'd walked by this house almost every night- The Murder House. She'd never once considered the residents that might have inhabited the impending structure. The sudden intrusion of the strange boy hanging off the wrought iron gate was surprisingly welcome.

"Just walking home."

"From where?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I just always see you walking down here. Don't worry. I'm not stalking you or anything. I just always notice. I like to sit out on the roof on nights like this and well…it's kind of like looking at a star, you know? It's like you're so familiar but you're just so far away."

"Well it's not often you get to ask a star where it came from."

"No. But this is L.A. Plenty of stars walking about to ask questions. "

"Not the kind of stars you mean, though."

"No. Not at all." He shook his head. "They're all cheap- the celebrities. I wouldn't want to ask them anything."

She softened, finally relinquishing her resistance long enough to turn fully on her heel, plant her feet rather than have them at the ready. For now they could rest.

"Do you live in here?"

"No. I just like to sit out on some strangers roof." A broad, childish smile grew across his face in the wake of his sarcasm. She rolled her eyes in spite of herself. "Sorry." She shrugged. "It's just kind of hard to believe someone actually lives in the Murder House."

"Why's that?"

"Well I mean…it's the Murder House. Not really a title that inspires the idea of the life inside. Just the death."

"Well every dark has some light." He rolled his head to his shoulder but kept his eyes turned up at her from under thick lashes. She wasn't sure if she liked what he was implying, making her question her own motives for standing here and having such a seemingly intimate conversation with a complete stranger.

"You know, I think I'd better go." She said but he didn't see any movement in her lithe form that indicated she was ready to leave just yet.

"Why?" He asked on impulse, still watching her intently. "Did I scare you?" She said no, but she looked small, vulnerable; withdrawn, still standing there, magnetized by an energy that seemed to be emanating from him. He really didn't want her to go.

"Huh. I normally do."

"Do you normally stop and engage strangers in conversation?"

"I don't really ever stop and engage anyone in conversation."

"Well this is going to sound more cliché than I'd like it to but…why me?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. You seem lonely. Nobody deserves to be lonely."

"That's a pretty presumptuous observation."

"Well am I right?"

It was the first question he'd asked that she wasn't entirely prepared to answer, though neither of them had really answered the other at all. They'd both skillfully avoided having to give up any direct information. She opened her mouth to say something until she realized that her pause to respond had given her away.

"Ah ha." He mused. "Busted." Sardonic smiles had spread across both their faces

"Well so what if I'm lonely?" She laughed wistfully, tucking a mousy brown strand of choppy fringe behind her ear. "I don't think it's such a bad thing to be, do you?"

"Not all the time."

"So you know what it's like then?"

He paused as well, realizing that she'd cornered him. He was surprised to find himself defeated, as it was not an easy feat for someone to sneak around his own walls.

"Busted." She grinned, mimicking his brassy declaration.

"You caught me." He put both of his hands up in surrender and stepped closer, feet rocking on the edge of the curb. She looked down at her feet and back of the length of him, inhaling sharply and releasing slow and shaken. She too, had her toes against the curb, daunted by the sudden exaggeration in their height difference. But she was quickly learning how to counter his dominance. She straightened her posture, drawing her shoulders back and looked up into his green eyes, holding his consuming gaze with her own.

Neither moves. For a moment, it's as if time had frozen them both there for centuries, detached from the tangible realities of a life that once left more to be desired. But here, at the edge of the Murder House in suburban Los Angeles, they'd found something to look forward to; a riddle that for once beckoned a solution.

"Do you wanna come inside?" He asked, looking down the length of her, heat rising off her warm body in the chilled November air. He let his eyes fall lower down her face, stopping for the briefest moment at a pink, puckered mouth and down the neckline, along the gracious curvature that went on to form her shoulder and down all the other curves that made her up. The air was hot between them, both breathing cautiously in the rushes of a dangerous teenage infatuation.

"What are you going to do to me in there?"

"Well what do you think I'm going to do to you in there?" He craned his neck down, his words dancing feverish, warm breath cascading over her ear. "I'm going to murder you."