"I have survived, but I have not been spared."

Chapter 25

The wood under her cheek was cold and slimy, and the soft brown algae rubbed off on her cheek and stuck to her baby hairs when she moved her head. There were fish scales stuck in the rotting wood like a vein of fool's gold, big round belly scales from the fish her grandfather cleaned on the dock. One stuck to her cheek as she sat up and she picked it off with her fingernail. Her jeans were wet, and her bare feet slipped on the slimy algae as she pulled her legs in with both hands on the backs of her knees, sitting Indian style. She wiped the algae off the bottoms of her feet absently, hanging her arms off the side of the dock to wash her hands. A great blue heron stood in the shallow water like a statue, the lake seiches lapping at his thin ankles weakly, watching her. The late spring breeze blew her hair back, bringing with it the stagnant smell of still water and the distant start of summer campfires. The dock creaked behind her, and she asked quietly, "is this Heaven?"

Her mother laughed with her mouth closed and sat down next to her, dangling her legs in the water. "I don't think Heaven smells like fish." The water bwooped quietly, splashing gently as her mother kicked her feet absently.

Missy turned to look at her, her chin digging into the soft leather on her shoulder. "I am dead though, right?" She mumbled, pressing her face against her own shoulder. At least she hoped she was, because the alternative was a worse fate than death.

Marie leaned back on her hands with a prolonged sigh. "What do you think?"

Missy furrowed her eyebrows, staring down at the puckered, faded Seahawks decal on the front of her sweatshirt. "I don't think I survived that."

Marie shrugged gently and tilted her head back, letting the last light of the day warm her face, but Missy felt cold sitting right next to her.

"Are you real?" Missy asked her, and Marie pursed her lips, raising her eyebrows thoughtfully.

"That depends on what you mean by real." She leaned sideways on her arm to look at her daughter. "If you mean 'am I all in your head', then yes."

Missy stretched her legs out in front of her, making fists on her thighs. "Do I have to wake up?"

Marie laughed gently. She put her hand on the back of Missy's head and bent it down, kissing the top of her head. She petted the back of Missy's head. "You don't have to do anything."

Missy huffed sadly, her expression crumpling even though her mother couldn't see it. "Liar." She sniffled, even though she wasn't crying. "I don't want to wake up."

Marie tucked her hair behind her ears with both hands and rubbed Missy's cheeks with her thumbs. "We can't always get what we want, sweetheart."

"I don't want everything I want," Missy said. "I just want this." Marie smiled gently, holding her face with both hands. Tears ran over her fingers and down Missy's neck, dripping on the front of her sweatshirt. "I want to stay here with you."

Marie squeezed her face with both hands. "That's what happens when we're busy making other plans. It's called life, and you have a long, long one ahead of you, baby."

Missy's face folded like a child's. "As a vampire, though?"

Marie laughed with her mouth closed again. "God's got a sense of humor that way."

The cool, late afternoon air hit her face violently, and she shivered. Marie reached over automatically and pulled her jacket closed, zipping it up with one hand. "You're gonna get sick."

"I'm never going to get sick again." Missy said bitterly.

"It's not about having good cards, Missy." Her mother said quietly. "Your dad and I never had good cards," she said wryly. "Bad luck and bad dreams are the only thing we left you." Missy didn't argue, she thought if she didn't say anything the conversation could never end, and she wouldn't have to say goodbye again. "Just play a bad hand well, Missy. That's all you can do. You'll be okay."

"I don't want to be a monster." Missy shut her eyes, catching her tears in her eyelashes.

"That's up to you." Marie said. "No matter what you do, you're going to mess up eventually. But I know you," she lifted her daughter's chin. "and if I couldn't kill you," it was surreal hearing her mother joke about that. "being a vampire's not going to either. You'll always be Missy." She said softly. "That's only going to change if you let it."

Missy wasn't so sure. She didn't know how to be a vampire and Missy. "I wish he'd just killed me." That she was sure of. No one would ever convince her willingly that just living was its own reward. She hoped she sounded ungrateful, because she was.

"That's up to you too." Marie said. "But trust me when I say it's more hassle than it's worth. If I knew then, what I know now, I never would have kicked that chair out from under myself."

Missy tilted her head back, trying to keep the tears in her eyes. "I miss you." She said quietly.

"I miss you." Marie said. "And I miss your dad. But he did so good with you, you're so much like him, Missy. If he could survive what I did, you can do this too."

"But I don't want to."

Marie smiled. "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride."

Missy sighed tremulously. "If turnips were swords," she said quietly. "I'd have one by my side."

"If 'ifs' and 'ands' were pots and pans," Marie put her hands on the sides of Missy's face and kissed her forehead. "there would be no need for tinker's hands."

Missy opened her eyes slowly. Marie looked exactly the way she remembered. If she was imagining this, her memory of her mother was better than Patrick said. She put her hands over her mother's and held on tightly. "Am I ever going to see you again?"

Marie smiled sadly, but she didn't hesitate at all when she said, "I really hope not."

The first thing she was aware of was the bed, mainly because she seemed to have her face smashed into it. The second thing was that one side of her body was warmer than the other. The third thing was that people were talking, quietly like they were afraid to wake her up.

"She's not waking up." Paul. "Maybe it didn't work." He put something in the middle of her back that felt like the size and shape of a pack of cigarettes. She heard his lighter repeatedly.

"It worked." Marko said. The gummy fishing lures on his left shoulder tickled her face as he leaned over her, pulling the blanket up over her bare legs.

"Are you sure?" Paul exhaled anxiously. "She should be awake though, right?" He mumbled around his cigarette. "It doesn't usually take this long, right? Did it take this long with me?"

"You weren't half dead." Marko said mildly.

She was at least ¾ dead, she thought charitably.

"She's still breathing. I think." Paul said.

"She's fine. I can hear her heart beating." Marko tucked her hair behind her ear carefully.

"Give her time." Dwayne.

"How long is she going to look like that?" Like what, Missy wanted to ask, but she wasn't sure she really wanted to know. That Marko would even ask was evidence enough that she looked horrible.

"You mean like rodeo asshole?"

She was right, she didn't want to know.

Okay, that was enough pretending to be asleep, but if Paul's description of how bad she looked could be believed, she was afraid to see for herself. She wasn't in any pain anymore, which would have alarmed her if she couldn't still taste Dwayne's blood in her teeth when she poked her molars with her tongue, but her skin felt tight and hypersensitive, like a freshly peeled sunburn. The skin on her back felt especially taught like it might rip if she put her arms above her head.

The vampires must have heard the change in her heartbeat, because they stopped talking. "Missy?" She pushed herself up with her arms slowly. It was easily the hardest push up she'd ever done in her life, and she'd had to do the Presidential Fitness Test in front of her entire class. Paul grabbed her upper arm, presumably to help, but she shoved him with her other arm, missing the first time but nailing him on the shoulder the second time. He gave her a hurt look, which she ignored. Someone had dressed her in a dark gray tee shirt that was so threadbare in some places she could see her skin. Her legs were bare and covered in slowly healing, shiny pink burns. She put her hands on the backs of her knees and just held them, staring at her burned legs. She was just in her underwear. "We didn't have any pants that fit you." Marko said.

"I didn't ask." She said tiredly. Her knee didn't hurt anymore, nothing hurt anymore, but the left side of her face felt tight and itchy, and everything was a little fuzzy on that side. She didn't touch her face, if it looked half as bad as her legs, "rodeo asshole" was probably a pretty accurate description. "Who undressed me?" She hoped they didn't let Paul undress her just because she was half dead.

The little smile in the corner of Paul's mouth grew. "I asked but they wouldn't let me. Star did it." That surprised her a little, she thought she'd be persona non grata with Star now that she was a half-vampire.

"How do you feel?" Marko asked. She looked at him over her shoulder, her hair hanging in front of her face.

The truth and sarcasm were sitting on the tip of her tongue, but the sarcasm was closer. "Like a million bucks, thrown in the washing machine, set on spin." Paul didn't even laugh. The three of them looked like they were at a funeral. Missy smiled bitterly. "I'd ask who died but I already know."

"Do you feel okay?" Marko asked, and Missy huffed. She pulled her hair back from her face like she was going to put it in a ponytail but just held it there with both hands, the heels of her hands pressed against the back of her head.

"How am I supposed to feel?" She asked sincerely.

"I mean physically." Marko said.

Missy pulled her knees up to her chest with both hands. Her chin dug into her kneecap as she spoke. "I know what you meant."

"Well?" Marko asked.

"Well what?" Missy hugged her knees and glared. "Well 'how do I feel'? Well 'does anything hurt'? Well 'how am I coping with the fact that Dwayne turned me into a vampire—"

"Half-vampire."

"Excuse me." Missy raised her voice to a high-pitched squeak that hurt her own ears. "'Dwayne turned me into a half-vampire despite the fact that he knew that was the only thing I didn't want'?" Paul and Marko looked guilty, but strangely enough Dwayne didn't. Maybe he didn't feel bad. "Or 'how do I feel about the fact that you knew this whole time that Patrick was after me and you didn't do anything'? Eden's dead, I'm a half-vampire. That private investigator is dead because of me, Eden killed him. I was tortured." She wiped her face carefully. "I was set on fire. David STAKED me." Paul and Marko flinched. "And you want to know how I feel?"

"Miss."

"Save it, Paul." Her face hurt, her heart hurt, and not just because David tried to stick a stake in it.

"Missy," the mattress shifted under Marko's weight.

"Just," Missy took a shuddering breath. "just leave me alone. Please."

"Miss," Paul tried to get her to look at him. Her face might have been her dead mother's, it was so still.

"Come on, Paul." Marko grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket and pulled him off the bed.

"But,"

"Come on." If Marko's feelings were hurt, he didn't say anything, contrary to popular belief, he didn't have to. Maybe he was just spending too much time with Paul, because his face was an open book to her. But if Marko's face was an open book, Paul's was an open library. He looked like he was the one David staked instead of her. "Come on, Paul."

Marko dragged him through the curtain without holding it open for him, and Missy was surprised that she could still hear them arguing quietly with each other. She didn't know why, she was a half-vampire now, her hearing ought to be better than it used to be, right?

"You should be nicer to them." Missy looked over at Dwayne. "They've been sitting here with you since they woke up," Missy clenched her teeth together. "and yesterday, until the sun came up."

Missy was breathing a little too fast. She couldn't believe Dwayne was actually standing there trying to make her feel bad when he was the one who ignored her feelings and turned her into a monster anyway. "I don't care."

"You should." Dwayne said. "They're the only reason you're still here."

Missy laughed incredulously, her breath hitching. "I didn't ask for this," she panted, shaking her head slightly. "and they didn't do this to me, Dwayne," she looked at him, eyebrows furrowed sadly. "you did."

"But I didn't do it for you." Dwayne pushed away from the wall and approached the bed. Missy resisted the knee jerk reaction to pull the blankets up over her bare legs. Her chest heaved angrily just from his proximity. She didn't realize how angry she was with Dwayne for saving her life (which sounded more ungrateful when she put it like that) until he was within punching distance. She shoved her hands under her butt and sat on them. Dwayne stood over her like a grim cemetery statue. "They didn't want to let you go," Missy couldn't stand it anymore and looked away. She felt like she was sitting in the principal's office with Renee again even though she knew she hadn't done anything wrong. "but they couldn't do it themselves. You'd hate them forever. Even if you said you didn't," Missy's breath hitched again, and she stared down at the backs of her burned hands. "a part of you would resent them forever. Just like Star and David."

Missy didn't know the full story between David and Star besides that, she assumed at one point, they must have been together, but she did know that you couldn't hate somebody as much as Star hated David if you didn't love them at some point. If Missy believed for one second that David actually had a heart, she might think his problem was that Star broke it.

She didn't hate Paul or Marko. Maybe that was Dwayne's point, she couldn't say that she'd feel the same way if Paul had been the one to hold her nose while Marko shoved his blood down her throat, but what happened to her wasn't their fault, it wasn't even Dwayne's fault really, if she was being more honest than she really wanted to. If it was anyone's fault it was Patrick's, but he was dead, and she couldn't be angry at him anymore. Dwayne she wanted to hit in the face with a chair. Funny how David was the only one who respected her wishes. Dwayne's justification for why he did it didn't matter to her. He seemed determined to tell her anyway.

"I know Marko, he could handle it." Missy knew that was probably true, just like she knew what Dwayne said next was also probably true. "But Paul, he's not like Marko." She watched Dwayne's silhouette out of the corner of her eye grow larger and larger like a child's monster out of the shadow of a coat rack until she was forced to look at him again. "You can hate me all you want, but it's done." Dwayne said.

He wasn't wrong.

"Why couldn't you have just let me go?" She asked, even though he just told her why. "They would have gotten over it. Paul and Marko get to be happy but I have to be miserable? It's not fair."

"Life's not fair." Dwayne said mildly. "You get happy, alive or human, but not all three at once."

She never even got two of those at once, she wanted to say, but didn't. "I was ready to die." She added petulantly, "I'd rather be dead."

"That's up to you." If Dwayne knew how much he sounded like her mother. He turned to go, and Missy pulled the blankets up over her legs and rolled over away from him. Her tears ran down the side of her head and wet the pillow. "You'll never know how lucky you are that they cared enough about what you wanted to sit there and watch you die." Missy turned over to look incredulously at him, but his back was turned. "Fortunately I don't, and I didn't. You're welcome."

Missy had no comprehension of how much time passed. No one bothered her. Sometimes she slept, but most of the time she lay awake, listening to Paul's boombox (it was so loud it sounded like it was in the bed with her, even though she knew it wasn't) or David and Dwayne talking. Watching the shiny pink burns on her legs heal was like watching a time lapse video tape of a flower blooming in reverse. Her stomach hurt almost constantly. She felt like she might be sick if she had any food in her stomach at all. It was like cramps, but worse, because she couldn't get comfortable no matter what position she was in. No one had to tell her what it was, it was hunger pangs, and no one had to tell her what she was hungry for.

How long could a vampire go without eating? Could vampires die of starvation? She had a million questions, but answers to any of them would mean talking to Dwayne (who she assumed was her vampire Obi Wan now), and she'd rather choke on her own tongue than ask him anything right now.

She wanted to hold onto hating Dwayne for as long as she could, because as long as she was angry she didn't have to think about the future. Forgiving Dwayne (just thinking about it made her see red) would mean accepting what he did to her, or at the very least, accepting that being angry with him wouldn't change anything. She didn't have to accept it, but reality was what it was. She wasn't ready to do either, but forever was a long time to stay mad.

She was a pragmatic person, she knew there was nothing she could do about it, Dwayne was right, she could hate him all she wanted but it was done. You can't unmilk a cow, and she was a half-vampire now, whether she liked it or not, and sooner or later she'd have to get out of this bed and figure out what she was going to do about it.

If she talked to Dwayne, maybe there was a way she could be a vampire and not have to hurt anyone. Maybe they could rob a blood bank, or maybe she could eat cats. Maybe there was a way she could do this without hurting people.

And if you can't? The little voice in the back of her head asked. If killing people really was the only option, what then?

She could cut her own arm off if it was stuck under a rock if she had to, she thought, or hurt herself to get up and light a crazy vampire on fire so he wouldn't hurt her or anyone else anymore. But that was easy to say when it was just herself she was hurting, but killing someone else, if it wasn't in self-defense, or to protect someone she cared about, she didn't know if she still could.

She was a rip the Band-Aid off kind of girl, part of her wanted to just get it over with, but it wouldn't be over with, ever. It wouldn't be one time, it would be forever. One person a night, every two or three nights if she was lucky, for an unforeseeable amount of nights. All those people deserved to live just as much as she did, didn't they? Wanted to live as much as she did, surely. It was easy to say she'd rather be dead than be a vampire when that was still an option. She didn't know if she had the stomach to do it herself.

"That's up to you too." Marie said. "But trust me when I say it's more hassle than it's worth. If I knew then, what I know now, I never would have kicked that chair out from under myself."

It was easy to say that she didn't want to live like this, but hard to do anything about it. But everything was, wasn't it? That's life. "What happens when you're busy making other plans?"

"Is that a riddle?"

Missy exhaled quietly. "No. It's a song."

Paul sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned back against her. "So what's the answer?" He asked around an unlit cigarette. Missy was surprised she knew right away that it wasn't lit, but she couldn't smell it, maybe that was why.

"I told you," Missy pulled the blankets up under her chin and held them there. "it's not a riddle, it's a song."

Missy couldn't carry a tune in a bucket with a lid on it, so she didn't even try. "Before you cross the street, take my hand. Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans." Paul leaned back against her. "Before you go to sleep, say a little prayer. Every day in every way, it's getting better and better." Missy didn't believe the second part. She thought her life couldn't get worse before. Technically it hadn't, all she'd really done was trade one bad situation for a different one, nothing had changed, but at least before she wasn't a vampire.

"Half-vampire." Paul interjected helpfully, laying on her playfully.

"Don't be pedantic, Paul." She snapped.

"I can't," Paul reached under the blanket and pinched her toe. She jerked away reflexively. "because I don't know what that means."

"It means," she huffed. "'leave me alone, Paul'." She mumbled, shoving her burned face into the mattress.

Paul retaliated by laying half on top of her and rocking like a seesaw. "No, tried that."

"I'm serious." Missy said.

"Nice to meet you, Serious, I'm Paul."

Missy sat up, forcing him to sit up too, and shoved him off the bed as hard as she could. He rolled off the bed and hit the floor hard, but one leg stayed hooked on the bed. He looked up at her as she knelt in the middle of the bed. "What part of 'leave me alone' don't you understand?"

"I'm just trying to cheer you up."

"Well, maybe I don't want to be cheered up. I know you're not that smart so I need you to really pay attention." Paul at least looked like he was really trying to listen. "I don't want to talk to you, or Marko, or Dwayne, or Laddie or Star or David or anybody! I just want to be alone. Just leave. Me. Alone."

"But,"

"God, you're still not listening to me! You didn't listen to me in the first place, that's why I'm like this now, if you'd just —if any of you had just listened to me. If you cared what I wanted you would have just let it be. Why is David the only one who listened to what I wanted? David hates me and he cares more about my autonomy than you do."

"Missy,"

"Shut up, Paul. Do you have any idea what this feels like? Did you ever feel like this at all? How long has it been since you were even human? You wanted to be a vampire, Paul. I don't. I—" She started to cry again. "I don't. I don't." She couldn't catch her breath.

Paul got up off the floor and hugged her. She didn't hug him back, but she didn't push him away this time. "Speaking from personal experience," his chin hit the top of her head when he spoke. "it gets easier."

"When?" She sobbed. "How am I supposed to get through forever? I can't even get through right now."

Paul laughed.

"Don't laugh at me."

"You're funny."

"I'm not funny." Missy wiped her nose spitefully on Paul's jacket.

Paul dug his chin into the top of her head. "You just gotta give it a second, sister."

Missy frowned against his shoulder. "I don't have a second, Paul."

Paul huffed against her hair. "David's not gonna make you do it," Paul didn't have to say what he meant by 'it', Missy understood. "He's not a bad guy," debatable. "I mean look at Star and Laddie."

Okay. That made her feel somewhat better. Not much, but some. "You mean he's not going to pinch my nose and pour blood down my throat?" She deadpanned.

"You were gonna die." Paul defended mildly. "Not like we had time to ask."

"You didn't have to ask." Missy pulled away from him. "All you had to do was listen, I said no."

Paul didn't say anything. He pressed his chin into the top of her head and squeezed his arms around her.

"You're not even sorry, are you?" Missy asked.

"Nah." Paul said quietly. "I don't care if you're mad at me. Marko does. He's sensitive."

Funny, she thought, Dwayne said the exact opposite about him and Marko.

"Hey," Paul said weakly in his own defense.

Missy laughed.

"I'm not sensitive."

"I believe you."

"I'm not." Paul insisted. "I just know shit works out. I mean David couldn't kill you and he staked you."

"Yeah, I almost forgot about that." Missy deadpanned.

Maybe Paul wasn't as dumb as he looked.

"Hey again."

Paul flopped down on the bed beside her on his back while she stayed sitting, neither one of them speaking and only one of them breathing. "Paul?" Missy said after a while. He looked at her but didn't sit up.

"Hmm?"

"Can I ask you a question?" Admittedly, the one she had in mind she wasn't sure she even wanted to know the answer to, but she needed to know.

"Yeah."

Missy inhaled loudly. "What did you guys do with Eden's body?"

Paul made a face like she stabbed him with a pin. "You mean before or after we all took turns pissing on it?"

Missy shoved him away from her, but he was laying down, so he only rolled a little away from her and then back into her. "That's not funny."

"Come on, Miss." Paul said.

"No."

"She was the bad guy!" Missy faced away from him and Paul sat up. "She was working for the bad guy. She's that guy who eats bugs in Dracula."

"Renfield." Missy said automatically.

"Yeah."

Missy's eyebrows rose a fraction. "You read Dracula?" If she was any more incredulous she'd die of shock.

"I saw the movie."

Missy licked her lips. "1931 or 1979?" She asked carefully.

Paul just winked at her.

Paul's point wasn't far off though, Dracula killed Renfield too (at least in the 1979 version Missy had seen) when he turned against him, just like Patrick killed Eden for switching sides. Missy would never know now where Eden's loyalty had lain before then, but she died trying to make it right, and that had to count for something.

But if the look on Paul's face was anything to go by, he didn't think so.

She didn't know what he was so sore about, it's not like Patrick tortured him.

Paul's jaw clenched visibly. "We should've ripped his head off."

"Hindsight is 20/20 like that." Missy said mildly. She patted his knee halfheartedly. "At least you showed up."

"Yeah, well," Paul lit another cigarette or tried to, he was trying to light the middle of the cigarette instead of the tip. "when we all realized that we lost track of you we figured this was probably where he was."

Good call. "How did you know him?"

"I didn't." Paul said. "Before my time. Before Dwayne's time."

"Wow."

Paul nodded absently. "David gave us the short version when he got back into town. Knew he was a wack job."

That was the understatement of the freaking century.

"Can I have the short short version?"

Paul blew smoke in her face. "He was a wack job, he's dead, end of story."

"Why did he hate David so much?"

Paul shrugged, licking his lips. "Middle child syndrome?"

Missy furrowed her eyebrows. "Are you saying David and Patrick had the same father?" Paul flinched. "The same vampire father?"

Paul exhaled violently. "It doesn't matter. He's dead. Leave it alone."

That was rich coming from him.

"You guys knew what he was doing to me the whole time, didn't you?"

Paul sighed forcefully. "Yeah."

"But you didn't say anything because David told you not to?"

"Yeah," Paul said again carefully.

"Why was that so important to David? I get that there are rules or whatever so you couldn't just kill him, but you could have just let him kill me, or killed me yourselves." Missy furrowed her eyebrows again. "Why go through all this trouble? Why play Patrick's game at all when David could just kill me and have done with it?"

"Wasting time is kinda a non-issue for us." Paul said. He had a point, time really must not matter to vampires in the grand scheme of things. "Nope." Paul popped the 'p' cheerfully.

"That still doesn't explain why David didn't just kill me."

"Maybe he just likes you." Paul said playfully.

"Perish the thought." She'd hate to see what David did to the people he didn't like. He staked her.

"You already know what David does to the people he doesn't like, Miss."

Touche.

She laid down, rolling over onto her side. Paul laid down beside her but on top of the covers, pulling them tight over her. She shoved him so he'd move, but he didn't budge. They fell into a silence that was not quite uncomfortable, punctuated by Paul exhaling every so often, and the smell or lack thereof of cigarette smoke let her know before he lit another one. "How long are you going to sit here?" Missy mumbled.

Paul didn't answer right away. Maybe he was thinking, maybe he was just pretending to because he knew that was what normal people did. "I don't know," he said finally, his voice partially obscured by his own hand and the fact that he was biting his nails. "how long are you gonna sit here?"

Missy sighed heavily. "I don't know, Paul, how long before I die of starvation?"

"I don't know I'll ask Dwayne."

"I can save you the trouble." She sighed through her nose. "I'm not going to let myself die of starvation, Paul, even I'm not that petty." But the alternative didn't look any better from where she was sitting either. Still, Dwayne was right, "—he usually is. Don't tell him I said that." she didn't want to die. It was easy to think of dying as the lesser of two evils when she was bleeding out on the ground, dying would have been easy. But it would be selfish to give up now after everything she'd been through just because it was hard. Losing her mom and dad had been hard. Living with Renee had been hard. Why should her life suddenly decide to get easy now?

"Amen."

Missy rolled over, which was difficult with Paul sitting on the blankets. "Paul?"

He was looking at a hole he'd burned in his jacket. "Yeah?"

"How come I can't hear your thoughts?"

Paul shrugged, wriggling his pinky through the hole in his jacket. "Maybe I'm not thinking anything."

"Everyone's always thinking something, that's why it's called subconscious."

"I don't know, Missy. It takes practice." Paul put his arms behind his head and laid back on them. "Since when do you care? Thought you were still moping."

"Don't say 'moping'" she made air quotes. "as if I'm not entirely justified." Paul rolled his eyes. "And don't roll your eyes at me."

"Look," Paul sat up, propping his elbows up on his knees and looking at her. "I'm just trying to cheer you up."

"I know." Missy mumbled viciously. She sat up too, putting her head on her knees. "I know." But it didn't matter. Paul's good intentions didn't matter. It wasn't the road to Heaven that was paved with good intentions. Objectively, she knew there was no point at all in trying to make Paul or Marko feel bad, namely because it wasn't their fault what happened to her, but mostly because what was done was done. Ugh, this circular logic was making her want to puke. She supposed it boiled down to just because she knew it wasn't their fault and she couldn't do anything about it didn't mean she felt better. It was precisely her helplessness that was making her feel like crap.

Paul put his arm around her and pulled her into his side. "You're not helpless."

"Maybe not." Missy said. "But I don't really like any of my options here, Paul."

Paul huffed. "Sounds like a you problem, girl."

"Wow." Missy said mildly. "I feel deeply cheered."

Paul kissed her on the back of her head and shoved her head down playfully as he stood up. "That's my job."

Missy swatted him with the back of her hand.

Paul took out another cigarette and lit it after a few tries. "You gonna join the rest of the family or what?" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

Missy glanced sidelong through the curtain. "I don't think I'm quite there yet. Also I have no pants."

"Who's complaining?" Paul grinned, and she smacked him again. Paul pulled the curtain back and held it open with his shoulders. "You need anything?"

"You guys going out?" Missy asked. "What time is it?"

"Two something." Paul wasn't wearing a watch but he looked at his wrist anyway. "Sun won't be up for a while, don't worry."

"I'm not worried." Missy tucked her hair behind her ears with both hands.

"You want anything?"

"I'm not hungry." Missy said instantly.

Paul rolled his eyes. "Chill out. They don't sell B positive at the 7-11. I was talking about food. You want a bag of chips or something? Snacking helps with the cramps."

"Really?"

"Nah, but it'll make you feel better. Give you something to do."

"Okay." If nothing else, maybe having something on her stomach would make her feel better.

"That's the spirit." Paul snapped his fingers and pointed at her. "I'll get you a Slurpee." He stuck his head back through the curtain. "You want me to go grab your pants?"

Missy almost vomited when she thought about the Frog brothers. "And tell them what?" She asked brokenly. Oh god, what was she going to say to Edgar and Alan? They had to be out of their minds worried about her. David would never let her see them, let alone stay with them, it would put his —their now, she reminded herself, secret in danger. More importantly, it would put Edgar and Alan in danger.

Paul was talking but all she could hear was her own heartbeat. God, had it always been this loud?

She fell asleep again despite the cramps and the headache from crying so hard. Her eyes still felt puffy and sore when she woke up, so she couldn't have been asleep that long. She was pretty sure it had been at least an hour, though, because the Slurpee sitting on the ground beside the bed was sitting in a puddle of condensation.

"Paul left that there for you." Missy sat up and looked at Star. She had her back turned. "It's blue. I don't know what flavor it is, but he said you wouldn't think red was very funny because it looked too much like blood."

Maybe Paul was smarter than anyone gave him credit for.

Missy didn't say anything, so Star was forced to turn around and look at her. "Missy, I'm so sorry."

Missy smiled sadly. "I know."

"I tried to warn you. I couldn't tell you."

"It wouldn't have mattered and I wouldn't have believed you. Not without seeing for myself." She should've left then but she didn't. This was on her.

"He would have followed you if you left. Dwayne told me."

"Did you know? About Patrick, I mean."

"No." Star said instantly. "I swear I didn't know."

Missy believed her, despite the fact that she knew Star wouldn't have told her even if she had known. David wouldn't have allowed it.

"I asked him about it while you were still unconscious. He said it was his business."

That sounded like David.

"Missy," Star said delicately, the bracelets on her wrist jingling as she shifted awkwardly like a child who had to go to the bathroom but didn't want to interrupt the grownups to tell them. There was a long pause before she said anything else. "what are you going to do?"

Firstly, Missy didn't think that was any of Star's business, and secondly, she didn't know why she cared. If she was looking for an ally in her one-sided conflict with David (Missy considered it one-sided because she doubted David cared at this point what Star did as long as it didn't endanger any of them) then she was barking up the wrong half-vampire.

"Star, whatever your issues are with David," besides the obvious. "they're yours. I have enough of my own problems right now."

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about." Star took a step forward, but didn't come any closer than that. If Missy didn't know any better she might think Star was afraid of her. "It's not too late for us." Star said quietly as if literally everyone in the cave right now couldn't read minds. "You're not a full vampire until you've made your first kill."

"I know that Star." Missy said tartly.

Star's dark eyes widened imperceptibly if only to Missy's half-vampire eyes. "We can help each other." She said plainly.

"Help each other do what?" Missy stood up abruptly, and Star backed up. Maybe she was afraid of her. "You want me to be your sober companion? Help you resist temptation? Or do you want me to hold David down so you can put a stake through his heart?"

Star flinched.

"You're not like them, Missy." She said quietly. "You're like Laddie and me."

"I'm not like you either." Missy said, and Star's mouth tightened. "Laddie loves Dwayne, and Paul and Marko, he's like their little brother. They would never hurt him, or you for that matter."

"David already hurt us." Star said passionately. "We didn't know what he gave us."

"I'm sorry you're unhappy, Star, I really am, and I may not agree with what David did to you any more than I agree with what Dwayne did to me, but it's done, it can't be undone, and killing David won't change that. Furthermore, I think the fact that you can sit behind David on his bike and think about putting a stake in his back is a lot worse than what David did to you. David may be a monster, but at least he's an honest one."

"You haven't seen what they really are, you've only seen the version of them they wanted you to see."

There were some ripping sounds, and then the sound of something very wet and heavy hitting the cave floor. Blood splashed onto her bare legs from Paul's direction, and Missy barely repressed the urge to be sick as she became aware that he was holding a leg, the rest of his date in a pile on the floor. Missy slipped in the gore as she tried to run away, breaking into sobs, trying not to acknowledge how warm the red was on her arms as she got back up.

Missy swallowed thickly. "And you're only looking for the version of them you want to see." Which was the version of them that made David out to be the dragon that kidnapped the princess rather than the knight who saved her. She wasn't saying they were good, they were vampires, but Missy had seen glimpses of what David really was in the way he looked at Star, not the monster who killed those girls or bit her, but the boy who was bitter because he still thought he was the knight instead of the dragon.

Missy didn't know why she was defending David, maybe because he was the only one who listened to her, though his doing nothing while she was dying wasn't necessarily an indication that he cared whether she lived or died, but he still saved her from Patrick, albeit indirectly.

"Get up, Missy." David said. Missy tried. Her knee was on fire, and she could barely hold onto the fountain.

Maybe everything he did was selfish, fighting Patrick, staking him, but he still saved her. She didn't know why David didn't kill her, or why he cared if Patrick did.

David's face was distorted like a mirage when she looked through the torch. He was bleeding from a deep scratch under his left eye. He met her eyes.

She stopped him from killing Patrick. She didn't know what the consequences would have been if David killed Patrick first. "Vampire bullshit", as Paul put it, didn't tell her much, but,

He picked up a dusty, antique chair off of a pile of junk and snapped one of the legs off with his bare hand. He dropped the chair and met Missy's eyes again.

If David wanted her dead she'd be dead, and for the first time she really believed that. Just because Dwayne force fed her his blood didn't mean David couldn't still have snapped her neck while she was unconscious.

Star furrowed her eyebrows sadly. "It's only been a day. It gets so much worse. Believe me, you'll wish he had."

"Missy." A balled up, off-white skirt hit her in the face, waking her up. She sat up slowly and looked at Star, who had thrown it. "David wants you." Star turned around so fast her multicolored skirt twirled, and left before Missy could ask why David wanted her. Missy guessed she must still be mad at her.

She could only try to imagine what David wanted to talk to her about, but it wasn't like there were that many options. The elephant in the room remained what Dwayne did, and while she had been unconscious, the fallout still happened. While almost dying and being force fed vampire blood still felt raw and personal to her, objectively she knew that Dwayne's actions affected all of them, but most of all David, who was de facto responsible especially now that she was a half-vampire, because Dwayne "sired" her and David, she assumed, sired Dwayne. So what did that make David? Her vampire grandfather?

She sat on the edge of the bed with the skirt bunched up in her hands like pantyhose. She stuck her feet through the waistband, holding it open with her hands. She pulled the skirt up carefully, the skin on her legs was still pink and sensitive, sitting up a little to get the waistband under her butt. Star was a lot shorter than her, so the soft, gauzy material hit her at her shins instead of her ankles when she stood up, but it was better than talking to David in her underwear.

She wished she had an elastic so she could get her hair out of her face, she felt like it was touching her face and neck too much, and the left side of her face still felt tight and itchy like sunburn. She bent over and picked up the blue Slurpee Paul left for her. It was completely melted at this point, but if nothing else, it would give her mouth something to do other than dig her own grave when she talked to David, and if things went really south, she could always throw it in David's face.

"Missy." David was sitting sideways in a wheelchair with one of his legs propped up on the armrest. "Nice to see you up and about finally."

"Is it?" Missy asked before she could stop herself.

David laughed, showing his top row of teeth only. "No hard feelings, huh?"

Missy caught herself squeezing the cup in her hands before she even realized she was doing it. "Oh, you mean about you staking me, or about you letting a psychotic vampire stalk me?"

David smiled like a wolf. "Bygones, Missy."

That was easy for him to say when she was the only one who suffered. She wanted to go on record as saying that she never wanted to be a vampire in the first place, she didn't ask any of them to save her like that, in fact, she may have been ¾ dead at the time but she remembered pretty vocally saying the exact opposite actually, so if David was going to tear anyone a new one over what happened after they killed Patrick, it had better be Dwayne and not her. She didn't say any of that, of course. She didn't think David killing her would be a good way to start off her immortality, and for whatever reason, David was being almost civil.

She reminded herself as she put the straw from her cup in her mouth and took an obnoxiously loud sip of what was basically blue corn syrup water at this point, that David had had so many opportunities to kill her by this point that she'd lost track of how many it was now, the most recent of which was when Dwayne took it upon himself to make her into a half-vampire without either her or David's permission, the latter of which she was sure was more important to David. It occurred to her that David could have stopped Dwayne if he really wanted to. He was just as strong, if not stronger, and just as fast. He could have killed her even after Dwayne did it, but again for whatever reason, he didn't.

David's eyes roved over the shiny pink burns on her legs and the backs of her arms, but he must have found her face the most interesting because he stared at it for so long. "I think it's time we had the talk, don't you?" He said after a while.

Missy held the straw with her teeth, mumbling, "are you going to give me the vampire birds and the bees now, David?"

David laughed through his nose gently. "Something like that."

Missy squeezed her cup so hard the lid popped off and room temperature blue liquid sloshed over the side and ran down her hand. She put the cup down on the edge of the fountain and licked the corn syrup off her hand. David watched her intensely.

Missy's eyebrows raised in warning. "If you ask me how I feel I swear I'm going to start swinging."

David smiled. "You know what we are. You know what you are."

Missy clenched her jaw. "What Dwayne made me, you mean."

David took a cigarette out from behind his ear and lit it, exhaling calmly as he spoke. "Normally I don't put a time limit on these things,"

"But?" Missy asked.

David inhaled and sighed quickly through his nose. "But Dwayne's sentimentality has put me in a difficult predicament."

Missy's eyes narrowed skeptically. "What do you mean predicament?"

"Our good friend Patrick." David said mildly.

Missy's heart lost a beat.

"You might have noticed that he wasn't what you might call balanced."

"No kidding." Missy snapped.

"And his death has drawn attention from people who I'd rather not have the attention of."

"Who?" Missy asked.

David smiled, showing only his top row of teeth again. "That's not important. What is," he blew smoke in her direction calmly. "is the way I, we," he added pleasantly. "handled Patrick. Let's just say it wasn't completely aboveboard."

"He tortured me. He tried to kill me."

"Operative word here being tried." David said neutrally.

Missy shook her head, licking her lips. "What do you want from me David?"

David put his cigarette back between his teeth and inhaled slowly. He exhaled through his nose quickly. "A show of good faith. I've already given you one by not snapping your neck while you slept."

Missy chewed on the corner of her mouth. "What kind of show?"

David looked at her carefully. "A deadline."

Missy's heart started to race. "Paul said you wouldn't force me." Her vision was blurry with unshed tears.

"And I won't." David said. "What I'm asking for is a concession from you. For you to meet me halfway."

Missy laughed bitterly. "So this is you being reasonable?"

"Very." David said. "I can't have any more loose ends."

"What about Star and Laddie?" She asked thickly. She didn't care if she sounded whiny. This wasn't fair. Nothing about this was fair.

David sucked his teeth. "They're both of my blood. But due to Dwayne's rashness," Missy flinched so hard she actually moved backward. "you aren't. That could be perceived as weakness on my part in the right company, and I can't have that."

"Of course not." Missy said, rubbing her blurry eye with the back of her hand.

David leaned forward in his chair with his elbow propped up on the armrest. "You'll never grow old, Missy."

"Or up." Missy said petulantly.

"And you'll never die."

"Patrick died." She said. "Eden died."

Patrick clenched his teeth grimly. He smiled suddenly, looking relaxed again. "You first, kiddo. I'm not afraid of dying."

Missy huffed. "Sure you are." She licked her lips. "You're immortal." She said. "Dying's the only thing you are afraid of."

"You'll be a part of something you never thought you'd have again."

"What?" Missy snapped wetly. "A family?" David raised his eyebrows slightly. "Is that what we are now, David? A family? All I have to do is kill someone, right? Drink their blood?"

"Nothing in this world is free, Missy, not even freedom itself."

Missy looked down at her bare feet. She shook her head imperceptibly.

David tilted his head at her. "You already have a date in mind, don't you?"

Missy didn't look up, but she nodded her head as tears dripped off her chin and onto the front of her shirt. "Yes."

David's eyelashes touched his cheeks as he looked at her through them. "Okay."

Missy grabbed the sleeve of her tee shirt and used it to wipe her burned face carefully. "I don't have to kill them, though, right?" She had a bubble in her throat that made her sound so much younger. David looked at her calmly. "You bit me but you didn't kill me." She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "I don't have to kill anyone."

"No," David said gently. "you don't have to. But when it happens," Missy held her breath. "you'll want to."

Missy felt the exact moment that the sun went down. She was awake before it happened, but she knew right when it happened. She wasn't ready, even though her body was. She still hadn't seen herself yet, but she was completely healed, at least on the outside. She didn't know if she'd ever heal the rest of the way, being tortured will do that to a person, and just because she was saved didn't mean all of her survived, she didn't feel like the same person anymore, and not just because she was a creature of the night now.

She thought about the "show of good faith" she'd made David last night, albeit under duress, like everything else in her life lately it seemed. It seemed so far away a few months ago when she was counting every second until her "release date", but now with a literal deadline hanging over her head like an axe, she wished her birthday would never come.

"Nothing in this world is free, Missy, not even freedom itself." Out of the frying pan and into the fire never made more sense to her than it did right now.

"Missy." David's voice carried, and Missy heard him as easily as if he was standing in the same room with her.

"What, David?"

"Let's go." As curious as she was, Missy wasn't that curious. "Don't make me ask twice, Missy." David said carefully.

Missy whipped the curtains opened but missed them when they swung back and hit her in the face lightly. "Don't tell me what to do. Just because I'm a half-vampire now doesn't mean you're my father, David."

Paul cackled from across the room. "No, Dwayne's your daddy!"

Missy surprised herself when she said at the same time as David, "Shut up, Paul."

Paul leaned into Marko's shoulder "It's like they're married already." Marko smacked him on the back of the head.

Missy crossed her arms, sticking her hands up the short sleeves of her tee shirt and holding her upper arms. "Where are we going?"

"To tie up your loose ends." David said plainly.

Missy knew right away what he meant. "I can't." She shook her head repeatedly. "David, I can't."

"You wanna wear Star's hand-me-downs forever?" Paul said, and Missy tugged the skirt down self-consciously, but it still didn't quite reach her ankles.

"That chapter's over, Missy." David held his hand out to her. "Time to finish the book."

Missy didn't let go of David's waist even after they stopped. She could hear her heart beating for the first time, really hear it, and she knew David could too. David put his hands over hers and pried them off his coat. "Don't tell them anything."

"I know that." Missy said panickedly. "What do I tell them?"

"I recommend goodbye." David said playfully, and Missy wanted to burst into tears again, but didn't. "The less, the better." David clarified. "In and out."

"In and out." Missy repeated numbly, staring at the comic book store in the distance.

"I'll be waiting." David said. And listening, was what he didn't, but Missy understood.

David had warned her how hard this would be, not just because she was going to break the Frog brothers' hearts, but because this was the first time since Dwayne held her nose and poured his blood down her throat that she'd been around anyone who wasn't a vampire or like her. He told her not to breathe through her nose if she could help it, to avoid standing in front of anything with a reflective surface, and above all else, don't get upset.

It was the last one that she was having the most trouble with as she walked into the comic book store.

This time it was Edgar who saw her first. He was practically rabid. He threw his arms around her without so much as a hello and hugged her so tight she would have complained if she hadn't been tortured a few days ago. Instead she put her arms around him and hugged him back. She leaned over a lot and pressed her forehead against his shoulder. "I thought you were dead." He said.

Missy sobbed into his tee shirt. She wished she was. "I'm sorry."

"What happened?" Edgar asked her quietly, before Alan almost knocked the two of them over, hugging her through Edgar. "Alan, get off." Edgar grumbled.

"Are you okay?" Alan asked, but his face was pressed against Edgar's back so hard she wouldn't have been able to understand him at all if she wasn't a half-vampire. Her hearing was a lot better than it used to be.

"I'm okay." She lied as gracefully as she could, but neither one of them seemed to believe it.

Edgar shoved his brother off and backed up. "You left out of here like you were going to war. Did you find your friend?"

It felt like a hand reached into her chest and squeezed her heart when Edgar mentioned Eden. "She's gone." She lied again, this one coming more naturally because it wasn't a lie. "She left town."

"Where have you been?"

"That's not important." Missy tucked her hair behind her ears with both hands. She was grateful her face was healed, and she could see out of both eyes again, but when she looked at Edgar and Alan, she almost wished she couldn't again. "I appreciate you both letting me stay here, and I don't know how I can ever repay you, but I can't stay here anymore."

"Why?" Edgar growled at the same time as Alan said "Because of that private eye? He hasn't been back here and if does we won't tell him anything. We'll protect you."

If only they knew why he hadn't been back.

"I'm dealing with some things." Missy said carefully. "Private things that I can't talk about. And I just need some space."

"Bullshit." Edgar said. "You're lying."

"I am not." Missy said.

"Is it because of your stepmom?" Alan asked. "Or," he hesitated, like he was searching for the right way to say it. "those guys you hang out with? Did they do something to you?"

God, again if they only knew how close they were to the truth.

Edgar looked at her suspiciously. "Tell us the truth."

"I can't." Missy said honestly.

Missy, be careful. It was David's voice, and she knew she was treading dangerous waters, but she couldn't stop.

"I love you both." She said wetly, and Alan looked so panicked that if it wasn't already, her heart would have broken.

She didn't see what Edgar was holding until it was too late.

She caught her own reflection out of the corner of her eye for the first time since Dwayne force fed her his blood. She was surprised to see that her face was see-through, like a ghost, but Edgar and Alan weren't surprised.

They were angry.

"Edgar," she said. "let me explain."

Missy. David said again, but again she ignored him.

"We don't want to hear it, nightstalker." Edgar snapped. "You lied to me. I asked you if you were one of them, and you sat there and lied right to my face."

"I wasn't!" Missy sobbed.

Edgar pointed at her. "Don't even move, or I'll stake you without even thinking twice about it." He leaned over and whispered something to Alan without taking his eyes off her, but Missy heard him very, very clearly.

Alan didn't move at first, he just looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. Or she guessed, in this case, the last time. "Move, Alan." Edgar pushed him, and he looked at him, and then back at her.

"Alan, I'm so sorry." She said, but he didn't say anything.

She cried quietly while Edgar watched her carefully. Every time she tried to explain, or apologize, he ignored her, or threatened her. It was like he didn't even see her as the same person anymore. She supposed to him she wasn't anymore. She was just another monster now.

She was unsurprised when Alan came back downstairs and threw her backpack at her feet, but she still flinched when it hit her.

"Get out." Edgar said.

Missy's breath hitched. "Edgar," she said. "Please just let me talk to you."

Edgar clenched his jaw. She could hear his heart beating faster, he was just as upset as she was, but he was doing a really good job of pretending that he wasn't. She knew he didn't want to do this, neither of them did, but as far as they were concerned, she was the enemy now, and nothing she could say would change that now, and if she wanted them to have any chance at all of a longer life than she could give them if she stayed, then she had to let them hate her so David wouldn't kill them.

"This is your only free pass." Edgar said. "Next time we see each other, it's gonna be at opposite ends of a stake."

Missy nodded, licking the tears that wouldn't stop coming off her lips. "I'm sorry." She said.

Edgar nodded too. "I am too."

Missy was sobbing into the crook of her elbow as she walked back to David's bike. She expected him to chastise her right away, but he didn't. She put her hand on his opposite shoulder for balance and climbed onto the bike behind him. "Please don't say anything." She said into his back, putting her arms around his waist.

"If it makes you feel any better, I told them all to let you die."

If she didn't know any better, she might think David sympathized with her.

"Thanks." She said quietly, pulling her backpack up with one hand. She put her arm back around David's waist, interlocking her fingers. "Just," she wiped her cheek on the back of David's coat. "take me back."

"Soon." David said. "One stop to make first."

"What stop?" Missy asked.

David revved the throttle in response.

David pulled up next to Paul and Marko's bikes, but the vampire Abbott and Costello were nowhere to be seen.

"What are we doing?" Missy asked.

"Get off." He didn't say it aggressively, which he had every reason to considering she blew the big secret on her first night out as a half-vampire, to self-proclaimed vampire hunters no less, so she got off the bike without a fight, standing beside it awkwardly.

"Now what?"

David winked at her and backed his bike up, turning around and leaving her standing there in his taillights with her mouth open and a backpack that felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

"Are you kidding me?" The sound she made was beyond a shriek, and it hurt her own ears, but she didn't care. She couldn't believe David would ditch her. Was this some sort of punishment for the Frog brothers? Or some sort of half-vampire test she didn't even know the rules for?

"Hey, Missy!"

She turned around and Paul and Marko were standing in front of her now wearing matching grins like the cat that ate a canary made out of shit. "What?" She said.

"Got you a present." Paul said with a smile like a split pumpkin. She realized he had his hands behind his back.

"I don't want a present, Paul." She wanted a lot of things, none of which Paul could concievably be holding behind his back like that.

"Come on," Paul bounced a little. "just close your eyes."

Missy sighed through her nose, but closed her eyes. "If it's a dead animal I'm going to be very upset."

"Just shut up and hold out your hands." Marko said playfully.

She did.

Paul draped something over her outstretched arms that felt distinctly like denim. "Okay, open."

She opened her eyes. Paul had put an acid wash, cropped denim jacket in her hands, with white leather fringe all the way around the chest and back, and laces on the sleeves and back.

"You like it?" Paul asked, moving around like a puppy that just saw its leash. "I mean your other one was trashed after, you know."

Thank you, Paul, for the reminder.

"I picked it out." Marko smacked him on the shoulder with the back of his hand. "We picked it out."

"We." Paul said dismissively. "But look at the inside, the inside's the best part." Missy unbuttoned the jacket and looked. Even the shoulder pads were multicolored, but the lining was beautiful, a rainbow, but way more colors, like Joseph's coat of many colors.

"I love it." Missy said.

Paul and Marko both smiled.

"You're one of us now, right?" Paul said, putting his arm around her neck. "Gotta look the part. Plus the fringe is gonna look awesome on a bike."

Missy laughed half-heartedly.

"Gotcha something else I did pick out by myself," he said, though it was directed at Marko more than it was at her. Marko ignored him.

"What?" She asked. Paul took the jacket from her and pointed out the pin she hadn't noticed hanging from the left shoulder, near the lapel, but above the fringe. It was a silver skeleton hanging by one arm from a safety pin, all of its other limbs swinging freely.

"You're one of us now right?" Paul asked again, nudging her with his elbow.

"Yeah," she said, smiling weakly.

"Come on," Marko said, walking toward his bike. "Let's get something to eat. Chinese or something," he added at Missy's horrified expression.

Paul held Missy's backpack for her while she put her new jacket on, untucking her hair from her collar. It didn't quite go with the borrowed tee shirt and skirt she was wearing, but Paul must not have thought so, because he smiled so big she thought his head was going to split open and threw his arm around her neck so hard it actually hurt. "Come on, sister."

She didn't know why she was still thinking about him. Patrick was dead and she wasn't, that was all that mattered, but she couldn't seem to shake him regardless. She couldn't stop thinking about what he said to her while he was torturing her, and something else that Paul said that came back to her as she put her arms around his waist. Something about middle child syndrome.

She could still hear every single word that Patrick said to her so clearly.

"I'll tell you, those boys of Max's have been a real thorn in my side, they never left you alone."

Paul revved his throttle impatiently as Marko pulled out first in front of them. She held on tightly as Paul picked his feet up and followed him. She inhaled sharply, and leaned in to yell over the engine and the wind.

"Who's Max?"

The End.

Thank you for reading, and for those of you who have been with Missy since the beginning, thank you for sticking it out till the end. Look out for the epilogue soon.