'Ahhh… are you running from the cops?' The man asked her looking in his rear view mirror and seeing Marko and a cop hoofing it after the car. She didn't answer him and just looked out of the window her heart pounding in her chest. 'Hello?' He looked over at her. 'Who was chasing you? I'm not going to be an accomplice to anything major.' He shook his head at her.

'No, I'm not running from the cops.' She lied, refusing to look at him. She had no idea where to go or even what she was doing, she just had to get out of there. The pressure of getting married, and all that entailed, along with the strength of the E had outweighed any kind of logical or sane thought pattern she could even attempt to have had and she had freaked. The car was quiet and it was giving her a chance to just stop.

'Are you OK?' He asked trying to calm her down.

'I will be. I think.' She said entwining her shaking hands together. He drove off the main drag and pulled over and looked at her. 'What are you doing? I've got to go.' She said, the panic rising in her again.

'Where are you going?' He looked at her. 'Your eyes are like full moons and I am not leaving you anywhere unless it's a hospital nor am I driving around aimlessly for the rest of the night. And I have a vague idea that if that cop has my plate number, they'll be looking for my car.' He said, making more sense than anyone else seemed to have made all night. 'So, where are you going?'

'I… um… I don't know' Tears began to well in her eyes as she looked at the man. 'I just…' She trailed off unable to finish.

'Look, how about you come back to my place and calm down, and come down, and then you may be able to think a bit straighter and work out what you want to do.' She looked at him, searching his face to see if she could recognise any malice or dodgy intentions and she saw none. He was being genuine.

'OK,' a tear slid down her cheek. 'Thank you.' He pulled back out onto the road and headed north-west towards the suburbs. The rest of the car ride was silent and she concentrated on her breathing so she couldn't hear the blood rushing through his veins. For some reason it was so loud, like as loud as the cops was when she knelt above him on Santa Monica beach. She was hungry, for both food and the other but she tried so had to repress both and focus on her breathing. They pulled up outside a small brick apartment building and he led her up to the second floor and into a dark living room with thin carpet and a large squashy couch.

'Sit down, I'm going to make you a hot drink.' He said flicking on a lamp and leaving her to go and put the jug on. She sank into the couch and tried to relax and soon she was beginning to come to grips with the gravity of what she had done. Oh God, David was going to be livid. Why had she done that? She remembered his words and suddenly dreaded the consequences of what she had chosen to do, especially when Marko told him she had gotten into a car with a man, which he was bound to do. But she didn't exactly choose to do this, it was a gut reaction to what was happening around her and she couldn't help herself. Could she? Did she choose this? Not consciously, but maybe sub consciously? She was thinking of trying to duck out of the club without them seeing so she did want to go. Did she just see her chance and gap it? She didn't know, she was so high. She was still so high and she placed her head in her hands and unsuccessfully tried to clear her thinking.

'So, you got a name?' He asked as he came back in the room toting two cups of tea and a joint in his mouth. He placed the tea on the coffee table and handed her the joint. 'This should help you settle. I figured if you'll take whatever has you soaring so high, a little weed wouldn't offend you.' She smiled and took it as he brought a lighter out of his pocket and lit it for her. She inhaled and felt her head instantly go numb. Was this super E?

'So, name?' He repeated, plopping down next to her.

'Star. My name is Star.' She said blowing smoke into the room. 'Thank you.'

'You're welcome Star.' He said taking the joint from between her fingers and inhaling a large toke himself and blowing it out. 'Is your name really Star?' He asked handing it back.

'Yes,' she chuckled slightly. 'My name is really Star.' She said taking the joint back and having another puff. She watched her smoke swirl around the room and curl in psychedelic spirals with his when she exhaled and she didn't know if this smoke was a good idea or not, she almost felt more out of it. Like it was unleashing a second wind within the E only this one had her body stoned and stuck on the couch. She cursed Paul.

'What's your name?' She asked him as she struggled to pull herself out of the couch and take a sip of her tea.

'Mike.' He replied and she just about spat her tea all over the table. She stopped and looked at him fully in the light of the lamp for the first time and she was a bit stunned, he had dark hair and blue eyes like her Michael but a different jawline and body structure and she visibly relaxed.

'Sorry, is Mike not OK?' He asked taking a drink.

'Yes, of course. I… You just look like a Michael I used to know.' She said.

'Oh, sorry to disappoint. And it's Mike, not Michael.' He corrected her.

'Don't be sorry, my Michael is dead now. Nice to meet you Mike.' She smiled and took another toke on the thick joint. He reached over and put on some soft jazzy tunes before taking the joint back off her.

'So Star, are you going to tell me what happened tonight?' Her smile dropped away and her head went down. What was she going to tell him? That she was running away from her vampire husband and his vampire friends and had nowhere to go because she was a half vampire herself and either needed to kill herself, her husband or someone else to be OK? Fucking Hell, he would think she was a fucking nut bag and call the cops.

'Something happened in the club that we were at and a fight started and I was too high and got scared.' She tried to sugar coat the story and eliminate any further questions.

'Who were you with? Why didn't you stay with them? Won't they be worried?' He asked.

'Um… No, they were too busy getting involved in the fight and I had to get out of there.' She dismissed his question and prayed there would be no more. The couch was enveloping her and she was having that velvet feeling again. When was this going to end?

'Have you got your phone? You should at least text them and let them know you are OK.' She looked at him through her hazy eyes. He was so nice, so caring and considerate. Why couldn't she be with someone like him? Why couldn't she have found a hot man like this to spend her life with? To have kids and make a home with? Couldn't she just pretend this was her life? 'Haha, you're smashed.' He laughed at her when she didn't answer him.

'I am.' She agreed and smiled a little too big. He was staring into her large brown eyes.

'Are you feeling better?' He asked and she just lay on the back of the couch and looked at him, not saying anything. He reached over and gently stroked her face sending tingles through her and she reached up and held his hand there, lightly parting her lips and continuing to watch him. He leaned forward and kissed her, pulling back to gage her reaction and sensing no resistance or objection he went in for a second kiss and she responded instantly and passionately. She had no conscious thought about whether what she was doing was right or wrong, she had no thoughts at all really, she just did it. She was behaving just as anyone would who was smashed on pot and off their face on E. She needed to be accepted and welcomed right now, by someone who wasn't a monster. Someone who was normal and kind and someone who didn't want her to kill someone to make them happy. She was desperate to be with someone who was the complete opposite of David so she pushed David out of her head and went through with what she had started and found her enjoyment of the act was so immense and pleasurable that she lost herself in it. She wanted more and more, she wanted to do it again and again, over and over. On the couch, on the bench, on his bed, in the shower, she had fucked her way around his whole house and was quivering beneath him on the floor pushing him inside her deeper and deeper. She became an insatiable animal and this poor boy was loving every minute of it, not knowing the true extent of what he was dealing with. The more she orgasmed all over him, the more she needed him to make her do it again.

'You're insane!' Mike said breathless, lying back on the floor after hours of fucking. 'I need a minute.' He looked at her and thought he saw her eyes changing colour from brown to a golden red and he jumped a bit. The sun was beginning to rise and she looked towards the stream of light coming through the window and he got confirmation of her flickering eye colour and his brow furrowed and his heart stopped. Was she wearing contacts? Star got up like she was in a trance and, without saying anything, she walked to his room, shut his curtains and hid under his blankets and was out within seconds.

'Star?' He followed her. 'Oh, you want to go again in my bed?' He jumped in beside her and she said nothing, she didn't even move. 'Star?' She flicked her eyes open and her stare penetrated him through, her abnormal irises and dead facial expression sent a cold feeling flooding over him and he backed off. She slid her lids closed again and he waited a minute before he looked at her again but it was like she'd taken a sleeping tablet and was gone. She was comatose, he wasn't surprised after what they'd just done but he was slightly unnerved by her sudden change and he lay down next to her and tentatively placed his arm around her and fell asleep.