"This is our home," David had said, gesturing towards the dark cavern ahead of her. Turning her face away from him, Taylor began to walk carefully, one step at a time, anxious of what awaited ahead of her.

She'd seen enough monster movies to know that, when a predator takes you to his den, he typically doesn't intend for you to make it back out alive. David was either opening a part of himself up to her, or he was going to kill her. Maybe an even worse fate awaited her, and Taylor shuddered as the thought of David turning her into one of them crossed her mind.

Adrenaline pumping, Taylor turned back to him.

"I can't do it," She sighed. "I'm afraid of being underground. It makes me claustrophobic."

She was lying, and David knew it. It made him angry, at first, that she trusted him so little, but then he felt hope at her instincts kicking in, the ones meant to keep her alive. Taylor was a smart woman, he knew; so different from the girls they typically brought down here. And no smart woman would go into a dark cave alone with a monster.

He couldn't be mad at her. He'd just reminded her of what he was, in an attempt to scare her, and it was working. It wasn't smart to do that, he guessed, right before taking her into the cave, but he couldn't change things now.

"It's okay, Taylor." His voice sounded as soothing as possible, given the circumstances, and what he was. Despite his efforts, even David himself could recognize a hint of familiar bite in it. "I'm not taking you down here to hurt you. I promise."

Taylor's bluff had been called. With a breathless huff, she turned and continued down the rocky path.

"Is it like this the whole way?"

"No, it opens up down here." David gestured to a light not far from them, maybe thirty feet away. Distracted by it, Taylor lost her footing, tripping over one of the loose stones beneath her feet. Before she could fall forward, and likely be rewarded with a broken nose or cracked skull, David reached up and grabbed her arm tightly, steadying her. "Careful."

"Thanks," Taylor huffed, noticing that he had yet to let go of her arm. She glanced at it pointedly, until David released her. She looked at him coldly. "I guess we're even then, from this morning."

David cursed as she spun away from him, continuing towards the light, albeit with more careful steps this time. Still, whenever he tried to be nice to her - to show her something, to be kind, to help her - she rejected him. It made his blood boil with anger, and frustration. He wasn't usually this nice - didn't she see that? Did she understand what it meant, for them?

Obviously not, because, unlike the rest of her family, Taylor was lacking the sixth sense that allowed linked vampires to feel each other's strongest emotions. When she turned fully, then she would be granted that power. If, David reminded himself, she did turn fully. She still had options, for now.

Taylor had entered the main cavern first, and David watched as her eyes lit up. The room was so familiar to him that he was always surprised when people were taken back by it.

"What is this place?" She asked breathlessly, her eyes traversing around the room, caressing each object and leaving nothing out.

"It used to be a hotel, right here on the beach. But an earthquake took it out a couple decades ago, and it sunk underground." David smiled at her, but not in the menacing way he had earlier. There was kindness in this smile, and openness that hadn't been there before. He wanted to tell her more, to keep talking to her. "I found it a long time ago, right after Max turned me. He wanted to keep me, like a son, but I was too old for that, and I'd been on my own for too long. I wanted my own home, so I went looking for one instead."

"It's beautiful," She ran her hand along one of the jagged stone edges of the cave. Just above it was one of the old light fixtures from the sunken hotel, the bulbs long-since burnt out. "The way it blends together, the hotel and the earth - I've never seen anything like it. How many caverns are there?"

"Five or six," David shrugged. "Most of them are empty. There used to be more, but, over the years stuff has caved in."

"Can I see them?" Taylor smiled, then turned to him and laughed. "I never thought I'd be asking you for a house tour."

"Well, I never thought I'd be giving you one." David smiled back at her, and she saw a lingering trace of humanity where there was none. If she had blinked, she would've missed it - but she didn't.

David moved toward her hesitantly, half wondering if she would move away from him, as she had on the beach only minutes ago. He looked for a second as if he would reach out and touch her, take her by the hand, but he didn't.

"Come on," He nodded towards a smaller passage. "Laddie's bedroom's up ahead."

()()()

The tour was short, because, as David had said, most of the rooms were empty. Apart from the main room, with the couches and Paul's boom box, there was Laddie's room, with the thin mattress he used to share with Star. There was a second room, a little farther off that chamber, that David sheepishly said they used when they "brought girls back" from the boardwalk. He looked towards Taylor as he said this, as she took in the cheap bed frame and the ratty velvet blanket covering the mattress. But she did not cower, not like he thought she would, and she didn't react to his comment - only motioned for them to move on to the next room. Like David told her, most of them were empty, but what he didn't mention was that these rooms where where the boys slept, upside down and hanging from the ceiling like bats. The way Taylor would likely sleep, when the time came. If, the time came.

"That's it," David shrugged. "Like I said, it used to be bigger, but…"

"The earth shifts." Taylor shrugged. That was something deeply unnatural to her - that even as the ground around them changed, the Lost Boys stayed the same. They had for years, maybe for decades, even. But she rid that thought of her head, and reached for David's hand.

He seemed taken back, at first, but was trying to hide it. His eyes, Taylor was noticing, were always the first thing to give him away, to betray him.

If David hadn't been so shocked, he would've seen anger and determination in Taylor's eyes. She hadn't shown it, but the thought of David in that second room, the one with the velvet blanket, with other girls, twisted her stomach up in knots. She felt jealousy in ways she hadn't before - it was more intense, deeper. She wanted to cry and scream and fuck at the same time, and so she chose the last option.

They moved quickly, anxiously, as if everything from the past three days had been leading up to this. Maybe it was. Instead of thinking about the consequences that would come with sleeping with a vampire, Taylor pushed David backwards onto the bed. She tore at his clothes as he pulled at hers, causing a total entanglement of limbs and fabric and, at last, tongues. He tasted like iron, and Taylor knew why, but it didn't disgust her like she'd assumed it would. It felt right, his mouth on hers, his hand on her back, pulling her naked chest closer against him.

It was hard to pull away, but they couldn't move forward without one of them doing it, and Taylor was already on top. She rose up from his lap, onto her knees, and pulled her panties down. David looked at her, a hunger in his eyes that she hadn't seen before.

"You're so fucking hot," He muttered breathlessly, and Taylor laughed.

"That's the closest to a compliment I'm getting, huh?" Taylor grinned at him, letting him know she was only teasing, as she yanked his boxers part of the way down his pale legs, and lowered herself onto him.

Fucking her felt like leaving his body. All the sensations were there, but they were heightened, and he felt both weightless and trapped at the same time. But trapped, that was an interesting word, because he also never wanted to leave from underneath of her - unless, of course, it was to get on top of her.

They laid there, afterwards, but did not touch each other. David wasn't one to cuddle, and Taylor was satisfied enough with just sex. But the space between them crackled with electricity, and with a desire that wasn't yet satiated.

"I need to go back, David." She sighed, and David noted that she had called it home. "The Fairlane's at the boardwalk."

"The others will be back soon." David said, his eyes wandering to the opening of the cavern. What would Michael think, he wondered, if he walked in and saw his sister like this? Would he even care?

"I should go before then," It was partially a question, but Taylor hadn't asked it like one. The others would know, David knew, that something had happened between them, but it was likely they wouldn't be able to put their finger on what exactly.

"Yeah, you should go." David agreed, watching as Taylor quickly dressed and moved towards the cave's entrance.

David did not offer to walk her home, and she didn't expect him to. The moon was low in the sky now, and Taylor left the cave on her own.