"The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be."

Chapter Nine

Sharing a bed with another person, male or female regardless, it wasn't something that Missy had done since she was small, and the bed had always been her parents'. A king sized monster with four posters and deep, dark green sheets. Star's bed was smaller, and lumpier, but the bedclothes were soft and very comfortable. Star was an easy bedfellow, she didn't roll around or kick as she slept, she didn't talk or snore; heck, she barely breathed at all that Missy could see. Still, Missy didn't sleep. The sandman didn't come, and she lied awake, staring up at the stone ceiling and trying not to think about how much lying next to Star's barely breathing body made her think of lying next to a dead one. Most of the time, it is during our sleep, our dreams, where our subconscious reigns, that great personal truths are made clear to us. Things that otherwise, our rational, waking minds cannot or are not equipped to deal with.

Sometimes, all it takes is lying on a bed in the dark.

So Missy was still and hushed, and tried to let her mind quiet, listening to the other sounds that rushed in to fill the void left by her thoughts. Star's nearly nonexistent breathing, the wind whistling over old stone, and somewhere distant, water dripping. She listened to it all and was briefly astonished and disappointed that of everything she could hear, the ocean wasn't part of it. She laughed then, sharply, and she whipped her head to the side to see if she had woken Star.

The girl didn't even sigh.

Satisfied that Star wasn't going to be waking any time soon, Missy slipped her hand out from under the blanket and pushed her sleeve up her arm. She couldn't see the face of her watch no matter how hard she looked or how close she held her arm to her eyes, though she figured the sun had to be up by now, if she had been lying awake as long as she thought she had. She never had trouble sleeping before, and maybe it was just the fact that she was in a cave in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of people she'd just met, but she didn't honestly care. She felt like she should be sleeping, and instead her mind was racing a mile a minute and her whole body felt like it was quivering. Why was she so wired?

She didn't have a clue, but she knew that she wasn't going to lie around and wait for her mind to settle down. She, well, she wanted to explore. She was smack-dab in a piece of history, a cave sure, but it was more than that. She lifted the cover a foot and wiggled to the edge of the bed. She got up, careful not to let the bed dip too much, and gently set the cover back down over Star. She left her sneakers by the bed where she'd left them when she laid down, and tiptoed out into the lobby in her socks. She knew that they would be filthy from the cave floor, but that was what the laundromat was for.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reasoning to the boys décor, and she wasn't sure she minded. It was haphazard, but it was perfect; she could tell just by looking that a bunch of boys lived there. Laddie's bed was on the other side of the lobby, and she made sure to steer clear of him just in case. He was a little boy, he needed his sleep.

There was an old couch, the fountain, a stereo. A couple stacks of comics and some leftover cartons of Chinese food. In one corner, tucked away from the rest of the jumble, there was a small bookshelf, absolutely overflowing with texts. All three shelves were full, and some were stacked on the top, and on the floor in front of it. "Wow." She whispered. Someone was an avid reader. She ran her fingertips over the spines, reading the titles out loud, one after another, until one caught her eye. She squealed quietly, ripping the old copy of Wilde's Dorian Gray from the shelf, delighting over the fact that it was as, if not more worn than her own copy. She held it against her breast as she walked, picking her way through the items littering the cave floor and trying not to fall. She flopped backward on the couch, raising the book above her face and cracking it open. She was at once bombarded by the cold, musty smell of a good, old book, and sighing, she began to read. "The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amid the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn."

She read until her eyes started to hurt, then more, until she couldn't keep them open anymore.

The first thing she was aware of after opening her eyes was that someone had covered her with a blanket, and the copy of Gray she had been reading when she fell asleep was still clutched tight against her chest. The second was that David and Star were awake on the other side of Star's bed curtain, talking in quiet voices, she heard her name, and sat up to listen.

"Why is she here, David?" The curtain was sheer enough that Missy could see them standing by the bed; Star's face was angry, but David's was calm.

"She needed a place to stay." It was hard for her to hear what he was saying from so far away, his voice was like a whisper, but he sounded like he was teasing Star.

"You know that's not what I mean." Star said, and Missy wondered what she did mean, but David looked in her direction in that moment, and their eyes locked. A slow, easy smile slid onto his lips, and Missy looked away, her heart pounding against her ribcage like it was trying to escape. How had he known she was listening? That was what she got for eavesdropping, she guessed.

She didn't look up at him when David past her, and when Star came out into the lobby, Missy avoided her eyes, embarrassed that she had been caught listening in on her and David. The couch sank on the opposite end and she looked over her shoulder at Star. She looked tired, like she hadn't slept for days, which made zero sense to Missy, because she hadn't woken up that long ago. It must have been emotional weariness, she figured. Her mother used to tell her that sometimes it was your heart that needed to rest just as much as your body. "Are you okay?" She asked, knowing that it was the one question you never really needed an answer to, because if you had to ask, you already knew the answer.

Star looked up at her, and she smiled, somehow managing to look sad while she did it. "How did you sleep?" Missy smiled, and even though she wanted to ask her why she had been talking to David about her, she didn't.

"Okay, I guess, I had some trouble falling asleep, and the cave makes a lot of weird noises."

Star laughed, and it was breathy and lovely in its authenticity. "It was hard for me at first too, I barely slept at all."

"It's weird, though, I couldn't hear the ocean at all." Missy frowned, biting her lower lip. "It was sort of disappointing, since we're so close to the water and all."

"Really?" Star asked, sounding surprised. "I can always hear the ocean at night."

"Your ears must be better than mine." Missy said, and Star's eyes got sad again. "Star? Can I ask you something?"

"Okay." Star said, and she pulled her legs up on the couch, folding them under her body.

"Did I do something?" She asked, and Star tilted her head to look at her quizzically.

"What do you mean?" She asked, and Missy made a motion over her shoulder at the curtained off sleeping area.

"You were talking to David about me." Star was quiet for a minute, and then she reached out and laid her hand on Missy's knee.

"There's something that you need to know about David and the boys, something that I can't tell you."

"That's…helpful." Missy said, and her brow furrowed. "Can you give me a hint, at least?"

"You seem nice, and that's why I'm saying these things to you, and why I haven't been very friendly towards you. I'm trying to help you." Star was saying, and Missy sort of nodded at her. "The boys aren't what they seem, but by the time you find that out for yourself, it'll be too late. Just, please, take my word for it, and stay as far from them as you can."

Missy thought about what she said, and she didn't think that Star sounded like a jealous girlfriend, if she had been, she would have just told her to stay away from David. No, she was telling her to stay away from all of them, and the little red flag that had appeared the first time she met the boys reared its head again. "Star…are they…dangerous?"

Star nodded at once, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Yes."

Missy's heart skipped a beat, and her thoughts whirled. The boys couldn't be dangerous, if they were, wouldn't they have done something to her before now? She didn't think Star was lying. The look in her eyes said that Star knew something more that she wasn't sharing, but then, hadn't the girl told her that herself?

"There's something that you need to know about David and the boys, something that I can't tell you."

Star lifted her head abruptly and stared at something over her head, so suddenly that Missy turned around to see what. "Hey." Dwayne was standing beside the couch, and his eyes looked past Missy at Star, communicating something that Missy couldn't hear. "We're going."

"Just a minute." Star said, and Dwayne nodded and left. Once he was gone, Star slipped off the couch and stood beside it, watching Missy with a forlorn look in her eyes. "I know how it sounds, but please, think about what I've said. Don't end up like me."

"What do you mean?" Missy asked, and Star's smile was very sad.

"For your sake, I hope you don't ever find out." She left after that, and Missy stared after her, feeling more confused than she felt she ever had in her life. So the boys were dangerous, but did she want to believe it? They had seemed a little rowdy before, but not bad, and they looked after Laddie, for Pete's sake, how could they be dangerous?

"Ugh!" She kicked the blanket off and pushed away from the couch. She walked over to the bookshelf she had found the night before, holding the other books aside and slipping The Picture of Dorian Gray back into its place.

"You like Wilde?" Her heart leapt right up into her throat, but instead of crying out, she whipped around to glare at the person who had snuck up on her.

"Don't any of you people make noise when you walk?" Marko smiled that smile of his, covering his mouth with his fist and sort of shrugging.

"Sometimes." He said, and then he stared at her like he was waiting for something.

Missy sighed. "Yes, I like Wilde." She said, picking the book off the shelf again. "But this is a first edition, wherever did you get it?"

"It's Dwayne's." Marko told her, plucking the book out of her hands and flipping through the first couple of pages very fast.

"Have you read it before?" Missy asked, and he nodded.

"Once."

Missy tilted her head, half smiling as she watched him frown at the book. "But you didn't like it."

He glanced up at her then, and his face was alit by a smile again. "Not really."

"It's such a sad story, isn't it?"

"Sad?" Marko asked, and she smiled softly at him.

"Well yes, what happened to Dorian was just tragic." She said, and Marko just shrugged.

"He killed his friend, didn't he? So he got what was coming to him, right?"

"I never thought that." Missy said, sounding sad. "He was just an innocent, and the world took him and made him a monster."

"He sold his soul."

"Yes." Missy laughed. "For eternal youth. How absurd."

Marko gave her a curious little smile. "You think wanting to live forever is absurd?"

"Wanting to do something and doing it are two entirely different things." Missy said. "I would think living forever would get old after a while. I get restless after a couple of hours, I can't imagine what eternity would do to me."

Marko just shook his head, giving her that secret smile again. "You'd be surprised."

Missy didn't have time to ponder over what he had said, because something small and fast slammed into her legs from behind, and she stumbled forward into Marko's chest. "Hey Missy!" The small and fast something said, sounding remarkably like Laddie.

"Hey Laddie." Missy said, sounding breathless as Marko gripped her shoulders, grinning like the devil himself. She pulled herself out of his hands, righting herself and smiling down at the grubby little boy who was tracing the lines in her palm with his nail. He glanced up at her with a shy smile, and wrapped his hand around hers.

"We're gonna go to the boardwalk." He said, and a sudden thought struck her.

"Wait, what time is it?" Missy asked.

"Sun's down." Laddie replied, and Missy made a shocked sound.

"I slept all day?" She cried, all at once aware that she hadn't showered, brushed her teeth, or changed her clothes in a day. "Oh god, I have to get home." She said, whipping around to look at Marko. "Oh god, my roommates are going to kill me." Laddie looked disappointed, and she tried to smile at him. "I have to go home eventually, you know."

"You could stay here." Laddie whispered, and Missy reached out and ruffled his hair.

"Let me go home for just a little bit." She told him. "Just long enough to get a shower and change my clothes, and maybe talk my roommates out of calling the national guard, and I'll be yours again, okay?"

Laddie looked up again and his smile was radiant. "Okay!" He dashed off then, and Marko shook his head.

"Sucker." Missy glared playfully at him and brushed past him.

So maybe she was making promises she shouldn't be planning on keeping, and ignoring a warning given to her by someone who had no reason to lie, but, well, she guessed, that's how hard it is to say no to a cute kid.

It was Paul who drove her home, and his driving was, among other things, more exhilarating than Marko's had been. She found herself screaming the whole time, not out of fear, but more out of elation. The kind of good, happy screaming that, when you're through, you feel better for it; and she did. The bike stopped suddenly, before she had time to brace herself, and she slammed into Paul's back, eliciting a loud laugh from him. "We're here."

"I noticed." Missy grumbled, sliding off the bike and rubbing her nose where it had banged against Paul's back. She glanced through the open doors of the comic store, and saw Edgar and Alan looking back at her.

They were furious.

"You're gonna let a couple of kids tell you off for staying out all night, aren't you?" Paul asked, and Missy could tell by looking at him that he didn't understand why she would do something like that.

"They care about me, at least I think they do." She said, and she realized that she wasn't sure that the Frog brothers cared about her at all.

"Yeah, well, if they don't lock you up in the tower, you'll find us later right?" Paul was grinning, and Missy smiled softly.

"Maybe." She said, and Paul revved his bike's engine, giving her a roguish smile.

"Catch you later."She watched him drive off, and then she sighed, looking back over her shoulder at Edgar and Alan inside the store. She was going to have to face the music sooner or later, she just wished it didn't have to be sooner.

"Where were you?" Edgar shouted at her the moment she was through the door, and she raised her eyes slowly to look at him. He had come around from the counter faster than she had expected him to, and angrier than he had any right to be. "You didn't come home!" The customers that were browsing looked in their direction, dropped the comics they were holding, and slid past her to the door before they got swept up in Edgar's tirade.

"I did." Missy said. "The door was locked."

"We told you to be in by one!" Edgar was pointing the finger of blame at her, and although it was true that she had been the one to stay out past the curfew they had set, it had been an innocent slip. She had lost track of time because she was having fun, and Edgar was acting like she was a delinquent. "We can't be up all night waiting for you!" He said, though from the looks of the matching baggage he and Alan were sporting, it was obvious that they had been. "We have school! Which, because you decided not to come home and make us look for your sorry ass, we had to miss today!"

"We looked for you all day." Alan broke in, and Missy glared at Edgar to avoid looking at him. She knew that if she did, the look on his face would make her feel guilty, and she would give in.

"I appreciate that you were concerned about me, really, but you don't have the right to shout at me." She began. "I was with friends, we lost track of time and when I got home, I tried to get you to open the door, but you didn't answer."

"Friends?" Edgar scoffed. "You've been here, what, three days?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Missy asked. Did he think she wasn't capable of making friends? She had gone a long time in her life with no one to talk to, partly because of her self-imposed isolation from people her own age. Her father had told her called her his "little mother", and she supposed she acted like one sometimes. She had been forced to grow up a lot faster than she would have liked. She had lost both of her parents, but she couldn't cry forever over it. She couldn't expect the rest of the world to stop for her because she'd lost hers. No. So she grew up, dried her face, and went to school. It didn't mean she had to like it, it didn't even mean she had to make friends with her schoolmates. Somehow, not having to listen to the other girls her age talk about boys and who wasn't thin enough or who was too thin, well, it made sitting in school all day just a little bit more bearable.

"Nothing, nothing." Edgar said. "Just wondering what sort of people stay out all night with someone they've just met and then let her sleep over. All day."

"If you even think the word vampire, I swear I'll hit you." Missy declared, and Edgar frowned all the harder. "Besides, you let me stay here, and you only knew me for a couple of minutes!"

"Yeah." Edgar snapped. "Beginning to rethink that decision."

Missy recoiled like she'd been struck, and Alan glared at his brother. "What the hell, Edgar?"

"We don't need this sort of trouble." Edgar said. "She could have gotten herself killed out there, or worse." Somehow the way he said it, Missy wanted to hit him again. Did everything with him have to be about vampires? Did all roads lead to Transylvania?

"So you're going to throw her out?" Alan was asking. "Where's she gonna go?"

"She could stay with her friends, you know, the ones who stay out all night and sleep all day."

"Just stop it!" Missy hadn't realized that the volume of her voice had been on a steady incline since she'd walked through the door, but now, she noticed, she was screaming. Edgar and Alan turned to look at her, and Edgar looked twice as surprised as his brother. "If you were worried about me, say so! Don't try and make me feel guilty because I won't! I'm not going to let you make me feel guilty for something that wasn't my fault! I lost track of time, I didn't kill anyone! I'm seventeen years old! I'm tired of being treated like I can't do anything! You're sitting here talking about vampires and all you have to do is say 'Missy, Alan and I were worried about you because you didn't come home this morning, please don't do it again.'"

"You said you were nineteen." Edgar interjected, his voice quiet and his face calm.

"I lied." Missy hissed, and then she turned, storming up the stairs and down the hall, slamming her bedroom door behind her so hard that she felt it run through the floor.

Anger, and also fear, she was told, gave you the strength to do things you didn't couldn't under normal circumstances.

Like move an armoire in front of a doorway in record timing. She sat on the floor when she was through, with her back against the armoire, feeling like she wanted to throwing something or cry, or both. She didn't think she would end up doing either, but she wanted to be sitting when or if the latter happened.

"Missy?" She should have expected that she wouldn't be left alone, but she was still annoyed.

"What do you want?"

It was a couple of seconds before Alan answered her, and in that time she heard him sit down on the other side of the door. "We really were worried about you."

Missy sighed. "I know that."

"I won't let him throw you out, you know." Alan said through the doorway, and Missy laughed.

"Thanks." She said, and then her voice got serious. "I'm sorry I made you worry."

"Edgar worried too." Alan told her, and she snorted. "No, really. He's not mad."

"Sounded like he was." Missy grumbled, and Alan was quiet for a while again.

"So…that guy with the bike. Is he the one you stayed with last night?" Missy rolled her eyes. Men.

"Him and some of his friends." She said, and she almost heard Alan scowl. "We had an orgy and then they offered to make me an immortal, blood drinking, creature of the night."

"Missy!"

"Don't worry," Missy was fighting back a smile. "I turned them down. You guys were mad enough about me staying out all night, like I needed to give Edgar an excuse to murder me."

She thought she heard Alan laughing, but the sound was cut short by the sudden, quick sound of someone else's footsteps. "Hey."

"What?" Alan asked, and Missy was flattered that he sounded so annoyed on her behalf.

"She in there?" She heard Edgar ask.

"She can hear you, you know." Missy called out, and Edgar grunted. "What do you want Edgar?"

Edgar didn't say anything, and for a long time, none of them did. After a couple of minutes of enduring painful silence, Missy sighed. "It's okay, Edgar." Sometimes it was a lot easier to say 'you're forgiven' than it was to say 'I'm sorry'. Missy understood that.

"Okay." Edgar replied, and Missy heard his footsteps fade down the hall, and pick up in the room next to hers.

"He's probably going to be in there for a while." Alan told her, and she pushed herself up off the floor, standing.

"That's okay." Missy said. "He can sulk if he wants."

"Missy?" Alan said, very softly.

"Yep?" Missy called back, planting her shoulder against her armoire and slowly, and not without effort, began to put it back in its place. She really needed to get something easier to move to barricade her door with.

"Glad you're okay."

Missy glanced back at her door, and thought about the conversation she had had with Star. "Yeah." She said. "Me too."

Thank you for reading.