The mass of dark trees obscured the clearing behind it though a few lights were visible in the misty light that's available just before dawn breaks. A pair of black sneakers crushed dead autumn leaves into the dirt which covered the wood's floor, their bright colours hidden by the gloom. Shadows moved and became distorted as they danced in and out of focus at the edge of the boy's vision. His line of sight was directed at the flickering glow of a gas lamp almost invisible through the swaying branches which bent in the cold breeze. It had not rained for several weeks now and the earth was dry and thirsty. Twigs snapped and shrivelled leaves curled as they were trodden on underfoot. The boy paused, kicking aside a dead magpie as he detected movement a little way ahead. A door slammed in the near distance and voices approached.

"Well you shouldn't have bothered," snapped Darren, closing his door carefully behind his so as to not wake a sleeping Evra. The girl looked at him disdainfully and snorted.

"You are such an idiot sometimes Darren – no, wait, make that all the time!" She skipped the last few steps and landed with a dull thump in the dry earth. Darren followed her, shortening the distance between them until it was only a few inches. He bent his head close to hers as he spoke.

"Rose, I appreciate you're her friend but- "

"So are you!"

"But, you can't understand this. I've no idea how to be a Vampire – be myself – right now. How am I supposed to be a boyfriend too? I think I just need to take on one thing at a time, what with all this Vampaneze war stuff as well."

"What? You don't think I understand? Man! Darren, you are an idiot! We're in the exact same situation except while one of us has a nice home and friends, the other one is out in the middle of nowhere trying to survive with no shelter and little food!" She looked at Darren incredulously and raised her hands in exasperation. Darren shuffled his feet a little, looking awkward.

"Um, I thought Mr Tall offered you a place here?" he mused but Rose just smiled bitterly.

"Yeah, well, that was before I drained one of his acts of blood wasn't it," she turned away from Darren so he couldn't see her face and noticed a flicker of movement amongst the trees.

"It wasn't your fault," he mumbled, distracting her.

"We've covered that," Rose snapped, glossing over it. She didn't want to talk about it, "what are you going to do about Rebecca?"

The boy sank back behind a tree, unsure if the girl had spotted him. He had been eager to hear what they were talking about and had moved too close. It had been foolish of him. Steve knew he had to bide his time and wait until Rose was alone before talking o her but the sight of Darren distracted him. He still felt angry about the other night when the boy had refused his friendship in favour of the freaks. If Rose would only walk away, he could kill him now with no one watching and fulfil part of the prophecy tonight!

"What about her? I thought I'd made it clear -"

"You can't just leave it! Darren, you do that too much. Rebecca needs closure. If you leave things hanging like this, well... they'll never heal."

"Like my dad right?" said Darren testily. He fought the urge to roll his eyes as Rose gathered herself again.

"Yes, like your dad," she hissed, "I don't see why -"

"Because I'm dead!"

"But even a letter... we could hide it - your room! They'd discover it one day and... Why not?" Her sentence was fragmented as ideas rushed from her mind to her mouth, eager to express themselves. Darren's look of scepticism acted as a stopper and she finished with a suppressed shout of anger. Darren shushed her before continuing, fearful she'd wake someone up.

"It wouldn't help them Rose. A letter won't bring me back and that's what they want, isn't it? To have their boy back? Just let them forget about me."

"You have no idea. You can't just forget about someone! You need closure and then you can move on. If you would just..." Rose turned away and hid her face in her hands.

"It wouldn't help," said Darren simply. Rose threw her head back and wailed.

"Don't you care that your dad will probably sit in that disgusting pub every night for the rest of his life!" She turned to face Darren again, her eyes were glowing crimson and dark purple patches were starting to appear under her eyes.

"Of course I do," said Darren angrily. He vividly remembered the description of his father, a broken man, sitting alone nursing a stale beer in a damp pub away from his wife and young daughter. Rose had been very clear.

"Then do something. Stop ignoring things." Rose looked up at the Vampire through her heavy fringe and sighed. Darren sniffed and shoved his hands in his pockets, refusing to answer.

She'd shouted at him. What had she said? Something about Darren's father? Darren looked sulky in the half light however as Rose had her back to the forest, Steve couldn't make out her expression. The few times she'd turned towards him, she had been upset. Anger swelled in Steve as he thought of Darren upsetting her.

"Well?" asked Rose quietly, tired of the silence. Darren raked his fingers through his floppy hair and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was looking over her shoulder.

"I'm tired Rose. I think I'll go to bed," he turned on his heel and approached the tent.

"No!" Cried Rose in frustration. Exhausted, disappointed and annoyed, she let her emotions take over. Launching herself into a leap from a standing start, she lunged at Darren's back and wrestled him onto the floor. Writhing and thrashing in both fear and anger, the boy glanced up through half-closed lids into her wild eyes.

"Stop it! Stop running away!" She clamped his arms to the floor, gripping his wrists and peered into his face.

"Get off!" growled Darren but the girl refused to budge. He thrust his leg out in an attempt to shake her off but Rose held on tighter.

"No, no, no," she snarled, "you can't keep running away from everything!" Darren ceased wriggling and looked into her eyes.

"Isn't that what you did?" Rose stiffened and relaxed her grip slightly. Darren used the opportunity to slip out from her grasp.

"Didn't you run away Rose? I mean, how did you get here? What's your story, hmm? You never told us, did you?"

"No," said Rose quietly. Her heart, if it had been beating at all, would have stopped.

"No. No, you never did. I wonder why?" Darren's words stung but Rose couldn't block them out. Her mind had gone blank.

"So what was it? What was it you ran away from, I mean?" He crouched low again, his gaze not leaving Rose's cold one. She knelt in the dirt and stared back, feeling vulnerable and empty. All the anger she had experience only a moment ago seemed to have drained out of her and sunk into the earth.

"Well?" prompted Darren, his face level with hers. Suddenly, Rose's blank exterior broke and she felt her emotions bubble to the surface. Her eyes retreated back to a pale pink colour and her lips parted in a small gasp as tears swelled in her eyes.

"Darren... don't... please..."

"You can't ignore these things," mocked Darren. The girl pushed his hand away and stood up. She walked a little way away from him and began to sob against the side of a nearby caravan. Now a little uncomfortable and thoroughly confused, Darren kept his distance as he called out to her.

"Why are you... what's wrong?" he asked but he was met by a wall of silence filled with only the sound of quiet sobbing. Darren moved closer and rested a hesitant hand on Rose's shaking shoulder.

"Rose?"

"Got a habit of making girls cry, haven't you," Rose sniffed. Darren ventured a smile.

"Recently, yeah," he agreed. Rose turned to face him properly.

"I think my reason for running away is better than yours," she half smiled through a few more tears. "No family, no friends, turned into this," she indicated her slender physique with a swish of her hand, "by someone I loved because I was afraid I'd lose him. Then I lost him anyway," she laughed bitterly, "So now I'm stuck, aren't I." Darren said nothing, he only frowned.

"I ran away because they were disgusting – the Vampaneze I mean – horrible and ghastly and he was the worst of them all!"

"He?"

"Ste- the one who changed me," replied Rose. She didn't feel comfortable revealing her creators name with Darren just yet.

"And you lost him?" continued Darren who was eager to make sense of her story.

"To them, yes. He changed, he wasn't the boy I knew. He turned into a – a monster," Rose sniffed and wiped her eyes, "We had a huge argument and... and it was so awful!" Darren lent towards the girl and placed another hand on her shoulder in comfort.

"I was scared so I ran away, okay?"

"Okay, okay" said Darren soothingly. He opened his arms and Rose fell into them gratefully. She was exhausted. It had been a long day of travelling and she hadn't rested or fed for over 24 hours. Darren's warm chest rose and fell in time with his breathing and his arms wrapped over her shoulders in the protective manner that Steve's used to. Rose felt herself begin to cry again at the thought of Steve.

Steve watched Darren and Rose embrace each other in the faint glow of the rising sun and growled. He clenched his fists as he saw the boy envelop the girl with his arms and rock her softly as she hid her face in his chest. The sight was too much and Steve could feel the anger and hatred bubble in the pit of his stomach and rise to the surface. The thick tree branch he had been steadying himself on snapped clean in half as he tightened his fists. The two a little way in front of his looked up, searching for the source of the noise like two startled deer.

"What was that?" gasped Rose, pulling herself away from the hug and gazing into the forest's dark depths. Darren released her and took several steps forward.

"I'm not sure, wait here," he began to lurch confidently toward the gloomy woodland. Rose frantically called him back, certain something was amiss.

"Darren, don't. Please come back!" The boy ignored her calls and so Rose jogged after him. The edge of the forest seemed to be the border between the new morning which was sifting through the clouds and the darkness of the night before. The foliage appeared to retain the night in its dead leaves and broken twigs. Darren's figure almost disappeared into it but Rose kept pace and drew up alongside him. His face was pale from the little light that reached it.

"What's in there that could possibly hurt us?" he said confidently, flexing his fingers. His nails began to grow in anticipation. The duo paused, their ears straining for any sounds. Rose half expected a figure to step out of the woods with the reply 'Me.' Fortunately, after what seemed like an eternity of silence, no such figure emerged. Rose turned her face upward to grin at Darren.

"Me," came a silken reply from somewhere to her right. Rose's grin faded immediately as she recognised the voice's owner. Oh no, she thought.