She pulled up outside Lori's house, a big grey and white panelled structure with intricate porch details, double doors and a few concrete steps up from the road.
She switched the engine off and tried to gather herself. It had been harder than she'd thought it'd be to drive alongside the boardwalk. Visions of them together and happy tugged at her heart, inevitably followed by the crushing pain of the memory of her last day in Santa Carla ad the reason she'd had to leave in the first place. The picture of her dad's mangled body swam in front of her eyes and she gripped the steering wheel tighter.
Breathing in deeply, she shook her head to rid all thoughts of murder and a particular blonde boy from her mind and she stared at herself hard in the rear-view mirror.
"Get it together Beth" she whispered, fixing a slash of cherry pink lipstick across her lips, fluffing her caramel brown hair and taking another deep breath, she slipped out the car, grabbed her suitcase from the trunk and walked the few steps up to the front door.
"Oh my god! Beth"! Lori screamed, flinging the door open before Beth reached the top of the stairs. Lori threw herself at her friend and engulfed her in a hug, Beth had to try not to choke on the smell of hairspray and Cacharel that accompanied her.
"I really can't thank you enough for this Beth, you're really saving our asses" Lori said sincerely, hugging her again at the door "I know coming back is hard..."
"Hey, no, we're not thinking about that or mentioning him at all" Beth said, a forced smile on her lips "I'm here for you and Jamie"
It hadn't been a surprise when Lori had asked her to be a bridesmaid at her wedding. They'd been friends since second grade, but it had been a surprise when she'd asked her to house-sit for an entire month after the wedding so her and Jamie could go on an extended honeymoon adventure.
Of course, she couldn't say no, even though the thought of coming back to Santa Carla made Beth want to run away as fast as she could in the opposite direction.
Lori looked at her friend with a wary, unconvinced look but Beth just rolled her eyes and walked past her into the house.
After much catching up over wedding favour packing, Chinese take-out, many beers and even more laughs shared between Lori, Beth, Jamie and Lori's mom, Lori showed Beth to the guest room.
They climbed out the large bay window and sat on the porch roof, just like they used to when they were teenagers, nostalgic smiles gracing their pretty faces and they clinked the neck of two beer bottles together in cheers as they sat and listened to the sound of the distant Boardwalk, still in full swing, and the faint, hypnotic crash of waves against the beach.
Lori looked over at her friend, her long wavy hair falling in waves down her back, her slight frame curled up on itself as she hugged her knees to her chest, defiantly not looking at the bright lights of the fayre a few miles away and Lori's brow knotted in worry.
"Look, I know we're not going to mention him..." Lori started...
Beth swallowed hard and her stomach swelled with nausea, dreading the time this conversation would come around, wanting to avoid it altogether really but she knew she couldn't avoid it.
"Lori, no, c'mon I don't..." Beth protested, looking back out at the dark ocean horizon but Lori just took Beth's hands in hers and squeezed comfortingly.
"But if we were mentioning him..." Lori paused as Beth again turned away from her but she pulled gently on her hands, trying to get Beth to look back at her. Beth huffed, swallowed hard and gritted her teeth, turning to face her friend who fixed her with a pained, anxious gaze.
"...I'd tell you not to go looking for him..."
...
David wiped at his bloodstained face as he walked into the entrance of the cave, a satisfied smirk on his handsome face. His brothers whooped and hollered behind him, frenzied from the adrenaline of the chase. David's body felt like it was humming with the powerful intoxication that was almost overwhelming him.
It never got old.
Each and every time was just like his first and he couldn't get enough.
True, over the last year he'd honed and perfected his restraint, was no longer the rabid like creature he was in those first few weeks of his turning when Santa Carla had been overrun with violent, gruesome murders. A dark cloud had settled over the coastal town, kids had stricter curfews and were no longer allowed to stay out past sunset, fearing what was lurking in the shadows. The Boardwalk almost became a ghost town, no one daring to venture outside in the dark for fear of never returning home, and if you listened carefully, you could hear the faint echo of horrified screams floating on the midnight breeze carried in off the ocean. David had never felt so powerful as he rained bloody terror down on the town, stalking the Boardwalk every night, completely in control of his surroundings and the people in it, his dangerous blue eyes scanning for prey and every single person in Santa Carla felt the icy shiver lick down their spine as he approached.
Max had been furious, barely able to maintain control over David as he became ever more powerful and it wasn't long before Dwayne and Paul joined their twisted family, and before anyone had time to notice, the boys had taken over the town, claiming the Boardwalk as their territory.
Max hadn't repeated that mistake, never allowing the other three boys to get so out of control as David had, not wanting to call attention to himself, trying desperately to maintain the good standing he had worked so hard to build up when he'd settled in Santa Carla, providing him with the perfect cover and allowing him and his boys free reign over the small town.
He had however insisted they not return to the house again, too much attention was being drawn and the neighbours twitched curiously behind window blinds as they watched the dangerous young men coming and going in the dark, so they'd settled in the forgotten hotel that had sunk into Hudson's Bluff.
David sank into his chair by the fire pit and leaned his head back, closing his eyes and revelling in the euphoric feeling pumping hard through his body.
"So, who's the girl"? Marko asked him quietly, taking a slow drag of a cigarette as Paul proceeded to blast Motley Cru out of the ghetto blaster balanced precariously on the edge of the fountain, whilst Dwayne skulked off deeper into the cave.
David fixed Marko with a warning burning deep in his eyes, his face set hard in a dangerous scowl.
Marko held his hands up in surrender, flopping back into the chair next to David and drew another deep breath from his cigarette.
Though he didn't push David on the point, he hadn't missed the way his older brother had looked down the Boardwalk at the girl in the convertible, and he'd never forget it.
The others hadn't been paying attention but Marko had, Marko always paid attention, and something about that girl had caused a flash of terror to spark in his brother's eyes, to make his muscles tense, instinctually wanting to run away back to the safety of their hotel and although it was gone in the blink of an eye, his usual cool, detached air returning in an instant, David had been scared, and Marko had seen it.
