Chapter Twenty-Four

Two weeks later...

Flick stared at the latest additions to the poster-board beside the arcades, her brows furrowed at the four familiar faces staring back at her, snorting a laugh when Paul fished a marker out of his jacket pocket, using it to draw a moustache and furry eyebrows on Michael's picture before moving on to draw horns and a goatee on Stars picture beside it. "Did David ever tell you what he did to Edgar and Alan's bodies?" she asked, tearing down the missing posters for the two frog brothers.

"Nah-" Paul shrugged, scribbling out the word 'missing' before scrawling 'dead' across the top of Michael and Star's posters, "-he's been kinda quiet. It's weird but I miss him barking orders and making snarky comments. I guess shits just gonna be different now," he frowned, a flicker of sorrow registering in his eyes.

Flick looked up at him with a sad smile. "He just needs time boo... we all process shit differently."

"Hmmm..." he sighed, defacing a few more posters before slipping the marker back in his jacket pocket.

Flick's attention drifted to the video store, her supernatural hearing picking up the intermittent buzz of the neon lights lighting up the store front in obnoxiously loud colours. She scowled when she caught sight of her mother, a fake smile plastered on her face as she leant over the counter, handing out lollipops to two sticky-faced children as their parents looked on with proud grins and affection in their eyes.

She couldn't remember the last time either her mom or dad had looked at her like that, all she'd seen over the recent years had been disappointment, disapproval and a growing glimmer of disdain.

"She shouldn't still be here-" Flick folded her arms over her chest, "-she should be back in Phoenix with Sam. Sam needs his mom, he's not street smart or tough. He's sensitive and gets scared easily – he's just a big kid..."

"Babe I'm not trying to offend you or anything but your mom's a stone-cold bitch and your dad's a total jackass," Paul declared, wrapping his arms around her middle as he rested his chin on her shoulder.

"That doesn't offend me – I wouldn't have been so nice," she shrugged.

"You know if you really wanna get rid of your mom, we're gonna have to drive her outta town," Paul stated.

"How would we do that?" she arched her brow, intrigued.

"Terrorize her-" Paul smirked, "-there's no time like the present – c'mon, I have an idea," he added, his smirk turning into a wicked grin as he snatched Michael's poster from the board and headed towards the exit.

"How do you even come up with this shit?" Flick gawped as she looked over the sinister scene Paul had created in the lounge.

"I'm natural born artist-" he punctuated with a flounce as he dragged his bloody hands down the length of the wall, "-so what'dya think?"

Flick's eyes drifted around the lounge, the corner of her lips curving into a satisfied smirk. She and Paul had dug out all her grandpa's old taxidermy 'art', placing them on every available surface, their lifeless beady eyes following every move. In her grandpa's old work room, they'd set Michael's missing poster in the centre of a make-shift candle pentagram on the work bench, complete with the carcass of a dead raven they'd stumbled on by chance by the side of the garage. Paul had decided that gutting the poor dead bird and splaying it's intestines across the bench would make it more threatening but the only thing Flick felt from the sight of bird guts was queasy.

Ironic...

Once they'd set up on the work room, they'd turned their attention back to the lounge where the taxidermy animals sat stiff and silent. Paul suggested that they write a message and after a few minutes of back and forth, Paul ended up scrawling 'you're next' on the back wall in his own blood, putting the finishing touches with blood splatters and smeared, bloody handprints. "Real blood is totally more effective than the pigs blood and corn syrup shit they use in movies," Paul stated, stepping back to admire his work.

"Yeah but not everyone's willing to slash open their wrists with a switch-blade when the creative mood strikes-" Flick laughed, "-are you sure the blood is a good idea?"

"Too late now babe-" Paul shrugged, pointing at the wall, "-plus they'll never be able to trace it back because as far as any database is concerned – I don't exist."

"Oh – I never even thought about that," she mused.

"You know technically you don't exist now either," Paul murmured, catching her hands, his grey eyes searching her face as if he was afraid of her reaction.

"I don't?" she frowned.

"No-" he shook his head, stroking the palm of her hand with his thumb, "-when you drank my blood, the venom overrides your DNA, it completely alters it."

"Oh..." she frowned, flummoxed.

"I know it's a freaky thought huh? Going from someone with an identity and a genetic profile to someone who just exists... fucked me up for a while too at first, I had one of those-" Paul paused, his brows furrowing as he struggled to find the right word, "-ah shit... what do you call it?"

"An existential crisis?" she guessed and Paul nodded.

"Yeah, one of those," he sighed, his eyes absentmindedly scanning the room. "Hey, do you think if we drive your mom outta town that we could keep this place?" he asked, quirking his brow.

"You wanna live here?" she frowned.

"Don't you think it would be kinda cool? We could play house," he teased with a roguish grin.

Flick snorted a laugh. "You telling me you wanna do the whole white picket fence and kids?"

Paul's face screwed up in distaste. "God no, kids are total cock-blocks. I just think it would be kinda cool to have a proper home, you know? The cave ain't the same any more, too many memories..."

Flick's stomach sank. So she wasn't the only one that felt it... "But what about David?"

"He can live with us, he can stop us from turning it into a frat house," he laughed, drawing her into an embrace as he rocked his body side-to-side.

"I guess it would be nice to keep this place – I've got good memories here from when I was a kid, sneaking a handful of grandpa's double-stuffed Oreo's outta the fridge in the middle of the night and blaming it on Sam in the morning when shit hit the fan."

"So let's do it, let's make this place ours," Paul grinned.

"A new beginning..." she smiled.

"A new eternity..." he whispered, softly nudging her lips.

David sat perched on a cluster of rocks, his head hanging wearily in his hands. He exhaled a heavy sigh, bringing the cigarette he held loosely between his fingers to his lips, raising his head to stare out at the beach as he tried to push back the painful memories of his lost brothers. For the past two weeks he'd been walking around with a gaping hole in his chest, his mind a constant hurricane of rage, blame and sorrow. In an attempt to distract himself from further mental torment, he turned his attention to the group of teenagers sat huddled around a small campfire, it's yellow and orange flames licking lazily at the starry-night sky and tuned into their conversation, the inane subject a welcome distraction from torturous silence.

"If you could have one night of hot sex with someone famous, who would you choose?" one of the group chirped.

"I'd love a bang session with Samantha Fox, she's got an amazing rack man."

"You've both got the same fucking hair..." someone snickered.

"I'd totally do Slash-" a female voice chimed, "-have you seen the way he can shred a guitar? Just imagine how good he could shred me..."

"Preach girl – he can pluck my strings any day."

David rolled his eyes. It was like listening to a conversation between Paul, Marko and Dwayne. Yet as much as he'd find himself often bored and irritated by their asinine conversations in the past, now that they were no longer around, he found he missed it...

He flicked the butt of his cigarette over his shoulder, his attention once again drawn to the group of friends and their conversation.

"Guys, say you're in Walmart, right? What three things would you buy to make the cashier as uncomfortable as possible? Mine would be cucumber, lube and a box of Trojans."

"And just where the fuck is that cucumber going?"

"That's the whole point – keep em' guessing..."

"I'd go with a pregnancy test, a shotgun and two wedding rings."

"Bleach, trash bags and some rubber gloves."

"Lesbian porn, a pack of batteries and a birthday cake."

"Sounds like a party I want an invite to."

The group erupted in a chorus of laughter and David's chest tightened as a fleeting sense of guilt washed over him. He wished he'd have spent more time laughing with the boys rather than rolling his eyes and going off to play the lone wolf because now that he sat alone, listening to the sound of others laughing and joking, he realised that he'd no longer be a part of something so care-free and immature...

Another heavy sigh made his shoulders sag as his head once again retreated into the palms of his hands. "David?" a familiar voice broke through the buzzing drone of melancholy whirring in his mind and his head snapped up to meet a pair of unforgettable beautiful hazel eyes.

"Sophia?-" he frowned, slowly rising to his feet, completely thrown off-kilter, "-what are you doing here? I thought you'd gone home..."

Sophia wrung nervously wrung her hands, her full bottom lip retreating between her teeth in the way that drove him crazy as she fixed him with a shy smile. "I did but..." she exhaled a shaky breath, "...I couldn't stop thinking about you."

David's core painfully throbbed, the connection he'd felt with her once again sparking to life. Could she be the one?

"I know I hurt you when you asked me to stay and I told you I couldn't but there's something you should know about me if you didn't already guess it-" she swallowed, her eyes lowering to the sand, "-David I'm not someone who takes risks or lives spontaneously. I'm cautious, I'm constantly anxious and I always doubt myself. When you asked me, all I could think about is how I couldn't just up and leave my family, that I didn't have a job out here, that I didn't have anywhere to live and living in a hotel isn't practical and then I thought what if you got bored of me and I'd have walked away from everything for nothing..."

"You thought about all that in the few seconds it took you to reject me?" David laughed incredulously. She reminded him so much of himself, constantly doubting himself and scared to take a leap of faith.

"Yeah-" she smiled bashfully, "-there was probably more but I was so nervous about seeing you and speaking to you that I've forgotten everything that I wanted to say..."

"You're adorable, do you know that?" David chuckled, closing the space between them. He could hear her heart hammering wildly in her chest, the sweet scent of her flooding his senses providing him with an instant feeling of calm.

A warm smile lit up Sophia's face as a rosy blush crept onto up from her neck to her cheeks. "I have a motel room if you wanted to talk..." she murmured, chewing her lip.

"Talking isn't exactly what I had in mind..." he drawled, stroking his thumb over the soft flesh of her hip.

"Me neither..." she whispered, leaning into his touch.

Sophia's body writhed before her back arched, her fingers twisting in the sheets while her heels dug into the mattress as David tongued her warm, wet slit, his tongue drawing invisible patterns on her swollen clit. "Oh... don't stop..." she moaned and David's fingers dug into her hips, humming against her with a throaty groan. Her hips bucked to meet his mouth and he reached to fondle her breasts, teasing her stiff nipples between his fingers.

"Christ you taste so fucking good..." David hummed, groaning between her thighs. His tongue teased and circled her sensitive bud, relentlessly sucking and tonguing her swollen slit until she couldn't see straight. Her thighs began to quiver and tense as her climax built and David slid two fingers inside her. Sophia moaned as he sent her over the edge, her thighs squeezing the sides of his head while her body trembled through her release. David sat back on his knees, looking back at her with hooded eyes.

"I can't move..." Sophia panted, her arms flopping down by her side.

"Hmm... I guess I'll be getting myself off then, yes?" he smirked and Sophia sat up, her eyes hooded with desire.

"No – I want you inside me."

David shuddered, crawling over her sweat glistened body and drew her into a slow, tender kiss as he pushed her down onto her back.

Sophia exhaled a satisfied sigh as David drew the duvet over their naked bodies, the slight odour of must following the movement as he kissed her bare shoulder before she felt him rest his head against the pillows, the tips of his fingers tickling her arm. "You say you're a person who likes to play by the rules, that you're always anxious... what is it you fear Sophia?" David spoke, coaxing her from the blissful haze she'd succumbed to.

She frowned, her fingers toying with the edge of the pillow. "Aside from the usual serial killers, unplanned pregnancy and failure?-" she laughed light-heartedly, "-probably rejection... what about you, what does a tough guy like you fear?" she asked, curiously.

"Much like you, my greatest fear is rejection..." he murmured with an air of vulnerability she didn't think was possible from someone so intimidating as he brushed her bangs from her eyes. She couldn't imagine anyone rejecting someone like David, there was just something so hypnotic about him. She could tell that she'd hurt him the night he'd asked her to stay and she'd refused but she'd pinned that on wounded pride rather than something more deep-rooted.

"When you were a child, did you ever wish you could live forever? Did you ever wish you were invincible?"

Sophia peered up at him, observing his crystal blue eyes flicker with secret knowledge she'd never understand. "No, I think my biggest wish when I was a kid was for my mom and dad to buy me Barbie's dream house for my birthday," she confessed and David huffed a laugh.

"And what about now? Do you wish you could keep your youth forever? Do you wish you could free yourself of the constant anxiety and enjoy life without ever having to answer to authority or be burdened by responsibility?" he continued cryptically.

"As tempting as that sounds, unfortunately we all have to grow up some day, it's just a fact of life, right?" she frowned, tracing the outline of his clavicle with the tip of her finger, relishing in the way he shuddered form her touch.

"What if I told you that it doesn't have to be that way?" he stated as his hand slid between her thighs and his mouth found the underside of her jaw.

"What do you mean?" she replied, a little breathless from the way his fingers teased her entrance.

"I can offer you immortality Sophia, all I ask in return is that I can keep you – that you love me," he whispered against her neck, making her breath catch in her throat when he nipped her skin with teeth that suddenly felt unnaturally sharp.

"Immortality?" she swallowed, feeling her heart thunder against her ribs when two deft fingers slid inside her, stroking her walls in a way that made her knees weak.

"You can live forever Sophia. I can give that to you-" David drawled, "-I want you. I want all of you – your heart, your body, your soul... always..." he whispered, his tongue running the length of her neck eliciting a shiver of pleasure.

"What do you say baby? Will you join me? After all, it's only forever, it's not long at all..." he drawled, calling to something deep within her soul that made her core quiver.

Sophia whimpered when David's thumb grazed her sensitive bundle of nerves at the same time his mouth found her breast, finding herself being skilfully rolled onto her back. All she could think about in that moment was the flair of liquid fire burning through her veins, of the way her core ached with longing and the way David seemed to call to her soul, an invisible magnetic force-field drawing her to him in ways she couldn't fathom or explain.

David's stiff cock brushed against her thigh while his fingers drove deeper and she found the words tumbling from her lips in a rush of air. "Yes..." she panted, her ankles digging against the mattress when his fingertips teased her g-spot.

"Close your eyes..." David murmured against her ear and her eyes automatically fluttered closed as the fire inside her grew hotter, fiercer. She felt David's warm lips ghost her neck before a flair of white-hot pain hit her with such force that it knocked the air from her lungs and a strangled scream caught in her throat.

David growled and his mouth clamped on her neck as she felt something sharp piercing her flesh as fire swam in her veins and not in the pleasurable way she'd previously experienced. Her heart pounded as a thin sheen of sweat coated her naked skin. All of a sudden the flair of pain was replaced by a dizzying sense of euphoria and she felt David detach himself from her neck before drawing her into a passionate kiss. His tongue slipped between her swollen lips and the taste of copper flooded her mouth, making her stomach churn yet whenever her brain tried to comprehend what was happening, her mind would cloud with the most intense feeling of euphoria and she'd lose all brain-function in an instant.

"You belong to me Sophia," David breathed in her ear, the pad of his thumb tracing the line of her jaw.

She was his...

Irrevocably...