When Michael pulled up on his bike, Taylor was outside the gas station, sitting on the curb and twirling a red Twizzler around in her mouth. She had a book propped open on her lap, and if it weren't for the familiar copy of Salem's Lot, he never would've recognized her.

They'd both changed in the months apart.

Taylor had grown thinner and firmer at the same time. It was obvious she'd started attending those aerobics classes her friends in Phoenix had raved about, and also that she'd been eating less and less with Lucy not around to cook for her. Her hair was different as well, a side affect of her cosmetology teacher insisting that stylists needed to display the latest trends. It was not the mousy brown mane Michael remembered, the one that matched his - instead, her dark curls were intertwined with honey blonde, and her longer curls only emphasized her doe-like eyes.

He was not like she remembered either, he knew. His five o'clock shadow seemed perpetual and his face was so much more angular now, harsher. Vampirism had made him stoic, hard, but she didn't know that yet. Michael rose from the bike slowly; the sun was going down, yet a sliver of it hung just above the horizon. It wouldn't hurt him, there was too little light for that, but it still kept him tired, weak. He wouldn't normally wake this early, but he'd been tense after his mother got Taylor's message. She'd always been adventurous, wild, and carefree - but hitchhiking across state lines? His sister's possible insanity was beginning to worry him, and Michael began to fear this would be a regular thing.

However, with his family, it wasn't like Taylor had to be too worried about her safety. They were the scariest thing in Santa Carla.

"Mike," Taylor said his name, a huge smile crossing her face, and stuck a finger in her book to mark the page before getting up to hug him. She breathed in his scent as she did, noting that he at least smelled the same as she remembered, like their old family home in Phoenix. "I've really missed you."

"I missed you too, Tay." He smiled at her, grabbing a Twizzler out of her hand and grinning as he took a bite.

"Hey!" She exclaimed, laughing at him. This felt good to her - right, and normal; it reminded her of life before Lucy found out, before she relocated her family in a rapid span of 48 hours.

Michael was smiling, but he didn't seem fully alright to Taylor. He looked just the slightest bit off, his cheeks were flushed and he was sweating. Instead of ushering her back onto the bike immediately, he returned to the curb where she was before, and took a seat.

"You picked a good time to call, we're only twenty minutes or so from the house." He brushed a hand across his forehead. "I think I need to catch you up on some stuff, Taylor, before we get back."

And this is where he would've told his sister that he - and her mother, and her stepfather, and soon-to-be her other brother - were vampires. He would've told her, if it was that easy. But Lucy and Max had forbidden him from sharing the secret with anyone, including, for the time being, his twin, so he focused on the simpler parts instead. Besides, if he had told her flat-out, she probably would've laughed in his face.

Instead, he gave her an overview of it all - their short stay with Grandpa, Lucy and Max's shotgun wedding, the move into the new house, Lucy and her father's new estrangement over the wedding, and, finally, Max's adopted sons - the Lost Boys.

"They're hard to explain," Michael shrugged, beginning to feel better now that the sun had fully disappeared. "You'll understand once you meet them. Sometimes they stay with us at the house, sometimes they don't."

"How many of them are there again?" Taylor's brows furrowed, wondering just how big this new house would be.

"Four guys, my age, and then a little kid, Laddie. There used to be another, a girl...But she's not here anymore. She left. Her name was Star."

Michael trailed off, and Taylor immediately understood what he was getting at. Twin telepathy.

Without pushing it further, Taylor gently guided Michael to his bike.

"Can I drive?" She gushed out, half wanting to try it out and half wanting to change the subject.

"Not a chance."