These line thingies irk me so I've started using oOo to signify breaks within the chapter. So much easier than fighting with these things. Anyway, this one's a little bit of a filler and used as a means to get into the next couple of chapters when things really start getting interesting in vampire land. Thank you all for reading and enjoy!

Fingers groped for the collar of Detta's nonexistent shirt and finally settled for her shoulders, grasping tightly, frantically forcing her back against the cold stone of the cave entrance. The breathing was rapid, shallow. Detta could smell fear and panic.

"What the hell is happening to me?" Star's voice erupted in a hoarse whisper from her throat. She shook Detta, her fingers leaving indents on her skin. "What is this?"

Any mortal would see nothing but blackness but Detta saw everything. Star's eyes were wild and searching. Something had just happened to her, something that screamed that it wasn't right. She merely rolled her eyes, knowing that Star could see it, and tried to act as nonchalantly as possible. "What are you talking about?"

There were tears in her eyes now. "I saw that, god damn it, Detta, I saw that look. It's pitch black! How could I see that?"

Detta shrugged under the weight of Star's hands, a strength she probably didn't even know she had. If she had been holding a human like this, he would have been on his knees by now. "Your eyes adjusted?"

Star wasn't accepting that. "Don't give me that bullshit!" She released Detta from her grip and walked towards the opening to the lobby. Detta followed slowly, keeping her distance. "When I went to sit up when I woke up this evening, this evening, I couldn't. You know why?" Detta had dropped down to the lobby floor after Star: her face remained stoic, her arms crossed over her chest, giving Star no answer in the dim light of the candles now around them. "Because I was up against the ceiling that's what, ten feet up from my bed? I didn't always have the ability to levitate, Detta. What the hell is this?"

"Where's David?"

"What?" Star's face scrunched up, confused at the question.

"Where's David? He should be the one to answer these questions for you."

Star let out a short laugh. "Do all of you share just one mouth? One brain? What the hell is wrong with you people? Do you exist just to serve him?" Detta still did not answer. "Well?"

"You need to ask David these questions, not me. I can't help you."

She began to walk away but Star caught her arm and swung her around to face her. She was stronger than what Detta gave her credit for. "I'm sick of this." Star's tone was eerily sedate considering the situation. "None of you give a shit about me. I'm nothing more than a fuck to David, if that. I deserve some answers here! I'm not asking to be your friend. I know you'd rather impale yourself than do that," Detta rolled her eyes at the contempt in Star's voice and shifted her weight, "but I want some answers now or I'm gone."

Detta smirked before uncrossing her arms. "I told you, ask David. And you're not going anywhere. You're stuck with us."

Detta started to walk away towards her tunnel when she heard Star's footsteps behind her. "He won't…he won't tell me anything." Detta stopped, keeping her back to Star. "I've tried. He says it's in my head." She was losing steam. "I know it's not. You guys are different and I'm becoming like you, aren't I?" Detta turned around to face her. "It has to do with the wine, doesn't it? Everything was different after I drank it." Detta just stared at her. Defeat littered Star's eyes and the sense of hopelessness was starting to creep in. "How do I fix this?" Her voice was barely over a whisper.

"I don't know." Detta could honestly say that, and Star felt it. She hadn't gone through that sense of not knowing, of unwillingness, fear. She couldn't sympathize with Star because this was what Detta wanted, and what Marko had wanted. She wasn't a pawn whereas Star, to David, was just as disposable as a tissue. She felt sorry for her but not because of what she was experiencing in her half-turn.

"I didn't ask for this."

"I know and I would tell you to leave but it would be futile."

"Why? I could run—"

"No, you couldn't. If you value your life, even at what it's become, you will stay and grudgingly take what's coming."

"What am I waiting for?"

"I don't know."

"Was this your initiation into their group too?"

Detta shook her head. "No. Not even close."

"I should be afraid, shouldn't I?"

"Yes, but there's nothing you can do about it now."

"And you can't help me?"

"I don't know how."

"Would you if you did?"

It was a question Detta wasn't expecting and she knew Star wouldn't wait long enough for her to think on it. "I don't know. I would be risking my life, and Marko's, if I did and who knows what else. I may have been around longer than you but I still don't know all of their…tricks."

"I am not a tool for someone to use."

"I know."

"I don't want to be here anymore."

"I don't think you have that option now. That door's closed."

"All doors are open. All doors are always open." Both girls quickly turned their heads towards the cave entrance to see the boys entering, David in the lead. "Our possibilities are endless, Detta. You should know that by now," he smirked at her as they came closer.

"That's what my life has become, one endless possibility," said Detta, the sardonic tone evident.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you to be grateful for gifts given to you?" he retorted.

"Looks like your mother skipped out on a few life lessons, didn't she?"

If his eyes were knives, she would have been run through a dozen times over. She was going to pay for her comment and she knew it, but not in front of Star, not now. Marko walked over to her and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her out of earshot of the crowd.

"Would you watch your mouth?" he snarled through gritted teeth.

"He's not my mother, Marko, and neither are you. I can speak to him anyway I like."

He dug his nails into her arm and she winced. He was angrier than she had ever seen him. "I am your maker and you will listen when I tell you something. Don't you dare walk around here thinking you know everything when you rightly know nothing. The more you shoot your mouth off like that, the more you defy, the shorter your life becomes and, in turn, the shorter mine gets. I'd like to spend more time with you on this earth than in the afterlife so get your shit together, get your arrogant head out of your own ass and listen to me when I tell you something. Think of someone other than yourself for once."

The last remark went too far and Marko knew it. Detta's jaw visibly tensed, her eyes boring into Marko with rage and fury unlike she had ever felt. To think her completely selfish when she had bitten her tongue so many times was out of hand. At this comment, she hated him. She hated him for treating her like a child, for making her conform to the man that had tried to kill her on multiple occasions, hired by her own boss. She had had enough. She brought her face close to his, staring straight into his eyes. In a hoarse whisper she said, "Fuck you too."

She wrenched her arm from his grip, his nails dragging gashes along her skin, blood dripping down her arm. Without looking back, she stormed out of the cave and took off at the entrance, flying wherever the wind decided to take her, as long as it was as far away from there as she could get.

oOo

"He's right, you know."

The soft, throaty voice carried over on the wind, whispering into her ear. The waves crashed below her as she sat on a jutting rock harpooned into a cliff somewhere north of San Francisco. Her frazzled mind and inability to concentrate didn't allow her to go any further. She had started to waver and nearly fell from the sky before spotting her perch.

Detta ignored the comment and posed her own question. "How did you find me?"

"We're connected, remember?" Dwayne said as he sat down next to her, his legs dangling over the edge and his back resting against the stone cliff. "You're not strong enough to close us out yet. You're lucky it's me and not David here."

"David's preoccupied."

"He is and that's why you're lucky."

"He was my assassin, Dwayne. There's no way to cut it any differently."

"He is your brother now. To be cliché, let bygones be bygones."

"Bygones?" Detta arched her eyebrow and turned her head to face Dwayne. "You're telling me I should just forget what he did to me?"

"Yes," Dwayne said flatly. He rolled his eyes when he saw her look. "What are you going to do? Cling to that resentment for eternity? Neither David nor Max likes strife and you won't live long enough to drag it out."

Detta turned to look back out towards the ocean. "Easier said than done."

"Then make it easier done. Do it for Marko, at least. He's at risk too by your adamance to hold a grudge."

"I don't want to hurt him."

"Then leave the past in the past, especially your mortal past. That's not you anymore and David can't kill you, not without permission."

"And what if he has it?"

Dwayne sighed. "He doesn't. You haven't done anything serious enough to render it."

"But…"

"But don't think you can evade punishment."

"What kind of punishment?"

Dwayne shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I've never had to endure it."

"Well aren't you perfect."

"Don't you dare start snapping at me. You're not fully accepted yet, Detta. The last thing you need is everyone turning against you."

"So what am I? A vampire teenager?"

"More like a kid in her terrible twos. Just take Marko's advice. I like you, Detta, and I don't want to see you go but Marko has been my brother much longer than you've been in the picture and if I had to choose—"

"I know. I don't need to hear it."

"We need to go back. We all need to be there for Star's next step."

"You think she'll actually take it?"

Dwayne shook his head. "No. She doesn't have it in her."

Detta made to stand up. "I know."

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