Sorry for the delay in posting this, everyone. I always tend to put off typing stuff up (I write longhand before I put it into the computer). Just so you know, like Hunted when I was posting it, And Then There Were Two is also finished. It's just a matter of me typing it up and loading it here. I have a bunch of stuff going on right now but I will try to not go as long as I did between my last post and this one. Just bear with me and it'll all be put up in time! Thanks for reading!

"Is he always so…elusive?" Star asked as she sat down next to Detta on the couch, situated in the lobby of the cave. Detta said nothing but merely raised an eyebrow at her. "I mean he wants to know about me, and I've talked myself raw but whenever I ask him about himself, the answers, if I even get one, are missing something." Detta shrugged, not really wanting to converse with Star but she hadn't bothered her enough to tell her to shut the fuck up. "You're friends with him, with all of them. What do you think about it?"

Detta heaved a heavy sigh and looked back to Star again, resigning herself to answer her question. "David and I didn't exactly get off on the right foot so I'm probably the last person to ask what I think about him. As for the other boys," she glanced quickly around the room, her eyes jumping from figure to figure, "they're just very protective of themselves. They don't open up very easily, especially to strangers."

"Marko opened up to you."

Detta shook her head. "No, not until…later in the relationship. It took some persuasion and rather…personal events for him to open up to me."

"I've been around a month already and everyone, including you, seems just as cold as when I first came around."

Detta was growing restless with her, angry. "Well, if that's how you feel then why don't you just leave?" Star looked taken aback and Detta cocked her eyebrow to her. "What's keeping you here if you feel so put out?"

She looked defeated, her body developing a rather deflated look as she relaxed, her shoulders hunching. "David, I guess. I had hoped—"

"Hoped what? That you could change him? Make him come around faster?"

Star frowned at her. "No," she said flatly. "He's helped me, put a roof over my head—"

"At great inconvenience to us," Detta mumbled.

Star didn't seem to hear. "I just hoped it wouldn't end, not until I could help myself anyway."

"Help yourself with what?" Detta asked, her voice filled with disdain.

"Get back on my own two feet, I guess. I kind of stuck myself. I got away from a bad situation at home but now I seem to have hit a dead end."

"And what did you think David could do for you?"

Star shrugged. "He already gave me a room; that's more than what anyone else has. I don't know. Maybe he knows someone that could get me a job."

Detta laughed a throaty, sinister laugh. "So you're using him then?"

Star's eyes widened and she looked affronted. "No! I like him, I do—"

"But…" Detta knew this wasn't a girl that could help herself. She needed someone else to help her as well.

"Not buts. He's just been so nice, I don't want it to stop. Nice isn't something I get often."

Detta opened her eyes wide in mock shock, sucked on her teeth and then stood up, looking down at Star. "Well, good luck with that," she said before walking off and out of the cave, into the ocean night.

Moments later she heard the tapping of shoes on stone. Someone was coming out to her. She felt anger. It had to be David. What could he possibly be angry about this time? She continued walking along the wooden bridge until she felt the cool leather material of a gloved hand wrap itself around her arm and tug her back, wrenching her around to face him. His face didn't hold as much anger as she thought but it was still there.

"Could you not patronize her?" David asked through clenched teeth.

Detta raised an eyebrow, a movement David could see clearly in the moonlight. "I was just asking her some questions, trying to get to know her," she said snidely.

"She has to relate to someone, Detta. You're the only girl around here—"

"Oh no. Don't you dare shirk her off on me. She's your responsibility! You keep her around us so often we can't be ourselves! We can't talk openly about anything, we can't feed when we want to, we can't act like ourselves. Damn it, David! Turn her or kill her so we can all move on!"

He only smirked. "You'd hate it if I turned her, wouldn't you?"

"I wouldn't be the only one."

"You're selfish. You like being the only female in the family."

"Oh that's bullshit and you know it. It has nothing to do with jealously. She's just not strong enough. Surely you can feel that to. Christ, David. Stop playing with your potatoes!"

He laughed. "Such witty analogies. But she's not going anywhere."

"Then give her a drink. Ease the stress off the rest of us a bit."

"She can't know about Max."

"I know. He'd kill her if she did." An evil grin spread across Detta's face.

David grabbed hold of her throat. "Don't even try. I accepted you, didn't I?"

Detta sneered. "Reluctantly. But I'm not like her."

"You ever think that's why I like her?"

"Don't kid yourself, David. You don't like her anymore than the rest of us."

"No. It's a different kind of like."

"Yeah. It's a dominance thing, a cat and mouse game. So if I were meek like her it'd be you chasing me instead of Marko?"

"Nah. You're not my type. Take away the history, I probably wouldn't even have wasted a kill on you."

"Lucky me."

He released her throat. "Let me handle this."

"Don't keep anything from us, David. You've already betrayed your brothers once and Max would want to know."

He smirked at her before turning to walk away. "I'll handle it," he said, his back to her.

"I'm sure you will!" she called after him. "You can take chances, David, as long as you're the only one paying for them!"

"What's going on?"

Detta didn't even see Marko come out of the cave entrance, surely walking past David in the process. He leaned up against the railing next to her.

"His brain is ticking again. He's plotting something with Star, I just don't know what."

Marko exhaled through his nose and righted himself, grabbing on to Detta's arm and guiding her up the stairs towards the bikes. "You haven't been around long enough to know David. It's the same thing every time with him, pretty much the same girl. He doesn't want an equal. He wants to dominate. It's wearing Max thin with what he's doing but they always end up dead in the end anyway. Have to. They won't go that last step. A couple had even starved to death. When David drained them, there wasn't enough blood to fill a shot glass."

Detta gave him a disconcerted look as he guided her onto his bike, he leaning up against it, facing her. "There is a lot of risk doing that."

Marko nodded. "There is but David's never failed to remedy the risk."

"Yet. He may not be human but he's certainly not infallible."

Marko smirked, resting a hand on her knee and leaning into her mouth, kissing her lips. Every kiss was like getting shocked, a jolt of electricity flying through their bodies. Their connection was getting stronger. Detta was too young to feel it like he could but Marko; he felt it in the pit of his being. He knew that, somewhere, this wasn't the first life they've shared. She thinks it's just a dream, déjà vu, but with age will bring wisdom and one day she'll feel it like he does but maybe she'll never catch up to him.

"We're going to your house," he said, lifting his head from hers and climbing onto his bike, revving the engine. "At least there our space hasn't been invaded by food that won't shut up."

Detta laughed, the shaking of her lungs vibrating through her ribs and to Marko's back. She felt him breathe in deeply and she moved her arms around his body, her hands resting on his stomach. She rubbed at the skin, loving the feeling that coursed through her body whenever she touched him. She saw pieces of his past when she did this but he never gave her too much. He was patient and so he forced her to be. He rested one of his own hands on top of hers, rubbing the two together, coaxing her arm to wrap around him tighter. She didn't need to. She wouldn't fall off but this was a want. She smiled as she rested her chin against the back of his shoulder, feeling him rev the engine again. She jolted seamlessly with the bike as they rode away from the bluff.

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