A/N: Hello my lovelies! As the college semester winds down, I haven't really been able to work on my stories. Yet, here I am updating right now and I have produced something with the support of one of my great friends. (You know who you are my dear, Watson!) I cannot guarantee that as the school semester ends that I will be able to update more because that would be a false promise. I can only update when I find the time, so be patient. And YES! I LOVE you all for supporting this story for so long! You are so lovely!
Now, here is my day-before Thanksgiving present to you all! Enjoy…and perhaps feel a little sad?
OOOOOOOOO
Faith rolled her eyes when her friends pulled her into their hotel room for what had to be the hundredth time since they had arrived at Santa Carla. She noticed that for once, Nyx wasn't in the grabbing hands position, but was sitting on a bed with a bucket held against her chest. The Goth looked a little green and a little paler than normal. Faith couldn't reflect on that for long though because her cousin and Gis were pulling her in and hounding her with questions. The redhead jerked herself free of her cousin's hands and put some space between them.
"Can't you guys let me breathe before attacking me?" she asked, prying off the jacket that she'd borrowed from Nyx. "Here you go, Preggers…thanks for letting me borrow it."
Nyx didn't grab the jacket. She held her head over the bucket and vomited again. Shrugging, Faith set the jacket on a chair and then turned to face the remaining healthy girls.
"Okay. Now you can ask whatever your little life-beaters desire to know…"
"Where have you been?" Gis asked, bouncing on her toes. "And is that – is that one of David's shirts?"
Faith smiled cattily. "Well, it is a boy's shirt."
Gis squealed with excitement. "Oh my God! She's wearing clothes that belong to boys – no! Men!" The blonde bounced over and touched the shirt with the tips of her fingers. "It's David's! Oh my God, Faith! You're wearing David's shirt!"
"Obviously…Why would I be wearing one of the other Boys' shirts?" The redhead tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Though, I think one of Paul's shirts would have fit me perfectly."
Prudence looked at her with her strange scrutiny. "Did you finally find the joys of sex? With an actual, non-dreamed up, living man?"
The corner of Faith's lips twitched. "Oh, he's real and living…and not dreamed up. At least, not anymore…and you've won cuz. This girl isn't a virgin anymore."
The purple haired girl smiled slightly. "You and David, I suppose?"
"Who else is there?"
"I don't know, maybe Terri?"
Giselle coughed. "Um…how could she have slept with him last night if Terri was…um…busy?"
Both cousins turned to look at the blonde. Giselle's face turned a bright pink and she sat on the bed, hugging herself as if bracing to avoid harm. Faith cocked an eyebrow.
"You and Terri are an item, huh?" she asked, staring at her bubbly friend. "Well, I can't say that I blame you, Gis. He is a good looking Surf Nazi and I haven't been around much…" She folded her arms over her chest. "What are you going to do when it's time for us to head back to the Big Apple?"
Gis shrugged, chewing on her nails. "He's…he's thinking about moving away from here…There's too much violence and he's tired of people not caring about each other."
"Then he definitely shouldn't go to New York," Nyx commented, her voice slightly amplified by the puke bucket in her arms. "Some hooker will cut him up…or some dude will-" The girl shut up again as another wave of nausea hit her.
"I don't know where he's planning on moving to," Gis said quietly. "He just said that by the end of the tourist season, he's gonna be gone from this Murder Capital. If he goes to the Big Apple, maybe he can find a decent place in our neighborhood, right Pru?"
The oldest girl shrugged. "Your dad might accept him as a pool boy or something," she conceded. "I doubt that he'd be too happy having a Surf Nazi as his daughter's live-in boyfriend."
"He doesn't complain about Ronni's boyfriends," Gis pointed out. The blonde peeked sheepishly up at Faith. "You're not mad at me are you, Faith?"
The redhead shook her head and smiled slightly. "I'm not mad, Gis. This was bound to happen since I haven't really spent time with anyone but the Boys…Hell; Terri was never my boyfriend to begin with. You want him; you can have him without worrying about upsetting me."
She saw the relief spread through Giselle's body and turned to gather some clothes for the night, thinking that the question-answer session was over.
"How many times?" Prudence asked, blocking the redhead's path.
"Times?" Faith asked, caught off guard by the question. "Oh…just once."
Nyx muttered something into the bucket that sounded like "pathetic". Faith shrugged off the jab and looked at Pru. The older girl shook her head with a frown.
"And you decided to come back here without having more quality bedroom time with David?" Pru asked with a heavy sigh. "Really Faith, you could have stayed with him for a while longer. No one was going to rush you to get back to this dump."
"I don't want to smell like the Boys and I don't want to neglect you guys," Faith explained, gesturing around her. "My vacation here was paid for by you guys and I should spend more time with you to make up for it."
Pru and Giselle shook their heads. "Hon, we wanted you to spend more time with your Summer Love than us, once you found the guy. Spend time with him – David – and forget about us until we come to the end of the season. That is how you can repay us for the trip."
The redhead shook her head. "I need some girl time and a break from the Boys – do you know how many times they've bugged me about David and my relationship with him? Dwayne isn't too bad about it, but the others…" She raked her hand through her long red tresses. "David and I need at least a night away from each other, to cool down…" And make us want to see each other more, she thought idly. "Tomorrow night is the girl time and then after that, I'll go back to him and we'll see what happens."
"Sex…" Gis said with a small smile. "Lots and lots of sex with Mr. Biker Sex God…"
One can only hope…
Faith slipped past her cousin and started digging through her suitcase for some clothes to put on for the night. Pru's smile could be heard in her voice as she spoke up.
"At least someone didn't try him out before you could," Prudence commented loudly. "Friends don't sleep with men that are sexually attracted to another friend, Nyx." Gis made a small nervous sound. "Terri doesn't count, Gis, you're safe. But Nyx, if you even try to flirt with David again – knowing that he is the one that gets Faith's blood pumping – then I will make your life a living nightmare before your baby comes into the world."
The Goth lifted her head from the top of the bucket and gave Pru a dirty look that was a pale shadow of her usual one. "I am not pregnant!" she hissed. "I just have a stomach bug. Food poisoning or whatever. Not pregnant."
"Uh-huh," Pru purred, with a dangerous smile on her face. "Well, whoever this stomach bug guy is, he should know that he's going to have some offspring."
"Prudence, I swear to God that I will kill you if you don't shut up and get me some pickles!" Nyx growled, sliding off her own bed and heading for the bathroom. "And ice cream…"
The three friends remaining in the room looked at each other with large grins. Nyx was definitely pregnant, no matter what she said. The Goth hated pickles, but also hated getting her parents hounding on her for her promiscuity. Now that she had to deal with both of these hated aspects, one thing remained: who was the father and how was she going to explain away this little bump in the road?
Better her than me, Faith thought, stripping out of her day clothes.
OOOOOOOOO
David tossed the carcass of his latest victim aside, licking his lips to remove the trace of blood. His human guise slipped back onto his face without much thought and he breathed in the salty air with a smirk. Around him, the other Boys were busy finishing up their own meals. Laddie sat off to one side, playing his handheld video game without paying attention to the massacre that had occurred behind him. David wondered how hard the boy's heart had become after facing all of this violence and death, but when he thought about it, he realized that it was better this way. One day, Laddie would be made into a full vampire and he couldn't spare a thought about not hurting or killing his meal. The secret of the vampires must be kept and vampires needed to kill to feed and to survive.
A chill settled over David's shoulders and the Boys grew quiet. "What do you want Max?" the elder Boy asked. "Because if you're looking for a meal, this batch is all out of the red nectar."
"You know why I'm here," Max said from behind the Lost Boy. "Adalyn knows what I am – what you all are."
"It ain't just Adalyn," Paul commented, staring at his main sire.
"Faith knows about you too and she ain't gonna tell anyone," Marko added with a frown.
Max's beady eyes stared at his sons from behind thick glasses. "You don't know that she won't. Teenage girls these days do not know how to keep secrets. Everything they are told and everything they see will end up being spilled out to their friends and that will cause a number of problems for the vampire community."
David sneered at his sire. "No…You aren't worried about the vampire community, Maxie. You're worried that she will reveal what you are and deny you her companionship like Adalyn did once upon a time." The eldest Lost Boy moved closer, challengingly. "You know what, Maxie? She isn't going to be yours. Vampire rules say that a woman becomes the possession of a vampire when he marks and mates with her."
Max was unfazed, staring down his nose at David. "You've only slept with her, David. Deflowering a teenage girl without marking her is not a claim to her. She can still be plucked from your garden and placed into mine. And let's face it, David. I have more to offer her."
The two blonde Boys laughed, smacking their hands against their legs and hugging their sides as the hyena laughter poured from their lips. Max turned his gaze towards them.
"What is so funny?" he demanded.
"Oh nothing," Marko laughed, smiling that Cheshire grin of his.
"Just the idea of you having something to offer a woman," Paul added, wiping away an imaginary tear.
"With that itty bitty issue of yours…"
"Can't satisfy a girl like that Maxie. That's where the lie of eight inches came from."
Marko looked at Paul. "What lie?"
"The lie in Maxie's pants!"
The two brothers roared with laughter, looking amused. A nerve throbbed visibly in Max's temple as he glared at the blondes. Dwayne smiled the ghost of a smile, standing guard over Laddie as if Max would try to hurt him. David's lips twitched at the corner at the jab at his sire's lack of masculinity's prowess.
"Not all of us are blessed by the gods," David commented offhandedly.
Max's eyes blazed with the feral demon that they all possessed and then became calm. "Adalyn's friends will have to be killed before -"
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Marko said, his laughter dying quickly. "This has escalated far too damn fast!"
"Yeah," Paul agreed. "Why should we have to kill the hot friends of Faith? Yeah, her name is Faith, Maxie."
"They don't need to be killed," David said with a sense of finality in his voice. "The girls will leave town with the rest of the tourists and then they'll never think about this place again."
"And Adalyn?" Max asked, waving a dismissive hand. "Faith – whatever her name is – what will become of her?"
"We'll party like it's 1969," Paul suggested, watching his sire.
"And dance until the world ends," Marko added.
David saw the gleam in his sire's eyes and felt his heart clench. "You want to kill her," he realized.
"If I am to spare the other girls, then Faith must be killed," Max stated like it was the most obvious, correct decision. "And no, it cannot be after the tourists leave. Her friends must go and Faith must be killed." A bushy eyebrow rose in question. "Perhaps, you could turn her into one of us through my blood? She may become one of us willingly."
"At the risk of killing her friends," Dwayne commented quietly.
A sudden wave of understanding swept over the Boys' shoulders. Paul and Marko fell silent, their usually happy thoughts falling dead. Dwayne folded his arms over his chest and turned his gaze away from his sire's.
"You want her to kill her friends," David said from between clenched teeth. "The first victims to her bloodlust if she decides to become a murderer." His eyes narrowed. "Just like what happened when you chose me – all of us – to become a vampire. No one we loved could survive because you wanted us to accept you as family, so you changed us and we killed everyone we ever cared about."
Max's lips curled up in a half-mocking smirk. "It is not going to be my fault if Adalyn accepts the immortality vampires have to offer and kills those around her. Be they her friends or innocent bystanders, it doesn't make a difference to me. Someone will die and so will Adalyn."
David launched himself forward, but Max was already gone. His eyes blazed with the feral, blood-thirsty demon who would have loved to rip the vampire into shreds. The taste of blood filled his mouth as his fangs pierced his tongue.
"That bastard…" he growled, clenching and unclenching his fists, unable to string a further sentence together.
"We aren't – we aren't gonna let him do that, are we?" Marko asked, glancing around at his brothers and biting his thumbnail. "Kill the girls – Faith's girls – right?"
"Nah!" Paul said, glancing around. "We ain't that kind of monster…We're – we're –"
"We're what?" David snapped, glaring at his younger brother. "Knights in shining armor? We're fucking vampires, Paul! The monsters that mothers assure their children aren't waiting to feed on them in the darkness." He gestured around them at the carcasses cooling on the ground around them. "Do heroes do this? Kill people without losing sleep over it? Do they tear apart young girls and deluded young mothers? Hell no! We are the monsters in the night and we kill. We kill everyone without caring about their futures, their pasts, or who they might mean something to."
"That doesn't mean we will kill Faith and her friends," Dwayne pointed out, watching David carefully. "We have to send them away – before the tourist season is over."
"I'm not losing Faith," David growled coldly. "Not again…"
Dwayne's dark eyes held David's ice blue ones in an unwavering gaze. "Would you rather have her alive and safe far away from Max or keep her and risk her dying at Max's hand?"
David's eyes narrowed. "Fuck it!"
Without looking back, David tore off into the night in the direction of his motorcycle. He knew he was running away from his problems, but with the approaching dawn, he also knew they'd catch up with him in the cave-hotel. He couldn't escape the pain of knowing that Faith would die because if she didn't come into the fold of vampires and lose her humanity in the death before vampirism, she would have to be killed. Again.
Casting his gaze up to the heavens, David growled softly. You must think you're so funny, God of the bastards! You give me a second chance with the woman I love and now you're taking her away from me. What have I done to deserve this? What has she done to deserve death once more? At my hands? You're a lucky bastard because if a vampire could end up in the clouds, I'd be the first to beat the holiness out of You!
There wasn't a sign from the cosmos that indicated that his message had gotten through to anyone. Sneering once more up at the sky and flipping the sky the bird, David climbed onto his motorcycle and sped off.
OOOOOOOOO
A/N: Ah…I love belittling Max. Had to do it after a conversation I had with one of my siblings. That joke had to go in there…I'm not sorry for it at all. Anyway, things are going to be wrapping up soon because I'm running out of ideas for chapters and events in these chapters that don't repeat over and over again. Something bad is going to happen in the next chapter, but no real spoilers will be given. (Sudden knowledge…) Please read and review to show your support for this story, even if it some hard critique or flame. It's winter here, so we could use all the flames necessary to keep warm! Thanks my lovelies and have a wonderful week! -Scarlet