Disclaimer: I don't own The Lost Boys or anything recognizable associated with it. I only own my characters and the plot of this story.

3. Wendy, darling

It was another Thursday night at Paula's.

Pallets of supplies were usually delivered to the back of the restaurant every Thursday night after the dinner rush. Mike was typically on call for those because he was the strongest, only on the clock to sign for them and unpack and rearrange them in the back room which only took about an hour or two. Since Thursdays weren't very busy especially after ten o'clock that's when Mike liked to organize the loads because the kitchen was less chaotic. There was a single chef manning the kitchen, one waitress out front, and Wendy who was refilling the salt and pepper shakers at the front counter.

Wendy wasn't a fan of the night shift but she enjoyed moments like these where only one or two customers were present. Between ten and twelve there was a lull of silence, like the calm before the storm. More often than not teenagers filtered in around one in the morning, either to fall asleep at the tables or order every item on the menu because they had the munchies. Every now and then a homeless person would slip inside and, depending on who was waiting tables, were either asked to leave or were given a free cup of warm coffee.

Every time a customer left, which was every forty minutes or so, Wendy would grab her tray and collect the dirty dishware. Since the crowds were gone until morning she generally had the time to take the dishes back, wash and dry them, and then restack for the following day. Some complained that the night shifts were too boring and slow but that's what Wendy loved about them. She wasn't good under pressure which was one of the reasons she didn't apply at Paula's as a waitress. Constantly having to run from table to table memorizing everyone's orders, balancing heavy trays of food, and dealing with angry customers all while maintaining a perfect smile? Wendy would lose her mind.

Placing the bag of salt on the counter next to her, Wendy closed the four salt shakers before gathering them in her hands and taking them to their respective tables next to the pepper shakers she filled a few minutes prior. There was a man sitting in one of the corner booths reading an old newspaper and Wendy stopped by to take his plate.

"Are you done with this?" she asked. The man nodded without looking up and she grabbed the plate, carrying it back to the kitchen.

'Are you done with this?' She could handle that. It was easy interaction. There were only two ways they could answer, yes or no. There was virtually no way of turning it around and making her the bad guy.

Well, there was one person who felt the need to get snobby once and spit back, "Do I look like I'm done?" to which Wendy bit the inside of her cheek and fled the scene before it could escalate further. According to the waitress on shift that night he was testy with everyone so she shouldn't have taken it personally. But what the woman didn't realize was Wendy was excellent at taking things personally. Hence the reason she wasn't a waitress.

Wendy cleaned the plate and stacked it with the rest before retrieving the bag of salt and storing it under the counter. She only had about an hour and a half left of her shift and she was counting down the minutes. All she could think about was her bed and how satisfying it was going to be to collapse onto it.

There was a bit of commotion in the back that Wendy didn't pay much attention to until Mike peeked his head around the corner.

"Hey, can you finish unloading the pallet? I gotta help Pete fix the stove."

Clearly it was a rhetorical question because he left before Wendy had the chance to reply.

Wendy sighed before making her way down the narrow hallway outside the kitchen. She pushed open the back door, feeling a rush of warm air hit her and she was met with two large pallets, one of which had been unloaded and the other still stacked high with boxes.

Wendy wrinkled her nose. She hated coming to the back of the restaurant. Rotting food permeated the air from the dumpster and that mixed with the harsh scent of stale cigarette smoke made her insides churn.

Sniffing and rubbing her nose, she walked over to the stacked pallet. The ties had already been clipped which meant the top of the stack was leaning precariously to the left. She wasn't tall enough to reach the boxes up there without being squished so she grabbed a plastic step stool and climbed up until she was level with them. Lucky for her the boxes up there weren't very heavy so she grabbed each one individually, cradling it to her chest as she stepped down the stool to place it on the ground before climbing back up. It was a tedious process but it wasn't difficult.

Eventually she was able to kick the step stool away and just pull from the top on her tip-toes. The boxes were starting to get bigger the further down the stack she got and she huffed when a particularly hefty one fell into her arms after she pulled it down. There was a loud smack as she gracefully dropped it on the ground next to the other boxes.

She was getting into a decent rhythm with the unloading, humming various tunes under her breath as she aimed for a tall box only about an inch or so above her head. It didn't seem very heavy at first but misjudging its weight turned out to be her first mistake. Thanks to gravity the box's top-heavy side flipped over the wrong edge and Wendy wasn't prepared at all to catch it.

"No, no, no!" she cried.

The heavy and undoubtedly expensive items cluttered and clanged inside the box and she grunted as she tried grabbing it while stumbling to the side. She waited for the impact, a wince already tugging at the corners of her mouth as she pictured Mike's disapproving glare, but a quick hand reached out and grabbed the other side of the box before it could hit the ground.

At first she thought Mike had come to her rescue but as she looked up her eyes were met with a pair of tight white pants that definitely weren't the middle-aged man's style.

She followed the pants up to a black mesh shirt, a dark coat with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and a head of wild blonde hair. A pair of white teeth flashed at her under the glow of the nearby streetlamp and she carefully returned the smile, unable to miss the way the hairs along her arms stood up like the air around her had become electrified. She hated that she immediately recognized who he was.

"Thanks," she told him quietly. He had one hand splayed out under the box, appearing content with its weight with a lit cigarette in the other.

"Yeah," he said laughingly, seemingly amused with her lack of strength and coordination. "Where to?"

"I got it, thanks," she dismissed quickly, winding her arm under the box.

The blonde looked doubtful but he eased up and the second he loosed his hold the box tilted forward and she almost fell over trying to grab it. Her cheeks tinted pink at his sniggering as he held the box back up.

"I ask again," he smirked, "where to?"

"Um, just over here," she muttered, nodding towards the other boxes. He followed her over to them and they sat the box down together. She wiped her palms on her jeans, feeling that familiar twinge of embarrassment in her gut. "Thanks."

"Why do that out here?" he asked. When Wendy frowned over at him he gestured to the pallet. "Why not just do it inside? You'll have to take all those boxes in there anyway."

"Because the pallet's too heavy," she stated obviously, walking back over to the boxes. He leaned against the brick wall a few feet away where Wendy assumed he'd been before. How had she not noticed him? "Plus the delivery guy has to pick up the empty pallets in the morning so they can be used again."

"You couldn't just push it inside?" he pressed. Wendy gave him a perplexed look, unsure of why the subject mattered.

"How do you expect us to get that through that?" she pointed from the wide pallet to the singular back door. The blonde shrugged.

"I don't know. Circumference of the pallet divided by the width of the door…" he wrinkled his nose, waving the cigarette next to his face as if the action would generate an epiphany. Wendy had a hard time following his thought process, wondering what kind of bizarre formula he was trying to come up with. Then his face relaxed and he lifted a shoulder with an easy grin. "I don't know, I never was good at math."

Despite her wariness Wendy huffed a quick laugh. "Yeah, me neither."

There was a brief moment of silence. She could feel his eyes on her as he took a long drag from his cigarette, his gaze tickling the side of her face and making her skin feel itchy. She started pulling the next box down from the pile when he opened his mouth.

"So, perv…"

He let the comment hang, a teasing chime to his voice, and the box smacked back down on the stack when she lost her grip and her face turned red. It was like he'd been waiting for the opportune moment to bring it up and her stomach flipped.

"I wasn't watching you," she insisted in a hiss, turning back to face him with a glare in preparation to defend herself. He didn't appear taken aback by her heated response, simply grinning around his cigarette as he inclined an eyebrow. "It sounded like you'd been—"

"Eating her, right," he nodded as if he'd forgotten, eyes shimmering like he found the idea entertaining. Wendy licked her lips.

"Not eating her," she denied but she didn't elaborate further, figuring the silence spoke for itself. He decided to fill it anyway.

"Killing her, then."

"It was natural for me to think that considering the circumstances," she told him steadily, finding it strange that she was discussing the concept of murder to a stranger. "What did you expect?"

He hummed, still grinning. "We'll be quieter next time."

Wendy bristled at the thought, her heart doing strange things in remembrance of how flushed the girl had been with his mouth on her neck and the curly-haired boy's hand buried in her hair. She reached for the box again, feeling agitated.

"Need help?" he asked just to irritate her further.

"No," she snipped. "These are store property."

As if the fact justified his lack of authority in handling them. He lifted his palms in surrender, cigarette hanging limply out of the corner of his mouth. Wendy watched the orange glow as he hollowed his cheeks, taking a hit and tasting it in the back of his throat before blowing the smoke up into the air.

"You shouldn't be doing that out here you know," she informed him as she finally pulled the box down and carried it over to the others. The blonde lifted his brows and gazed pointedly down at the other cigarette butts scattered along the pavement in a deliberate pile. Wendy wanted to roll her eyes at the laziness of people. "Doesn't mean you should too."

"I'm done anyway."

He took one last drag before dropping the cigarette and crushing it under the toe of his boot. Wendy had to bite back a retort. There was a dumpster directly across from them. How hard was it to walk thirty feet?

"My brothers are inside," he informed her, pushing away from the wall with a lighthearted skip in his step. "What's good at this place? We're starving."

"Well," Wendy said, bending down to grab the last few boxes. "We're known for our burgers."

"They real juicy?"

Wendy gave him an odd look but considered the question. It's not like it was against the law to have a preference. "I guess so. People like them."

The corner of his lips curved up. Wendy had a hard time meeting his eyes. He had a very angular face but it wasn't necessarily unappealing to look at. It was youthful, his skin rich yet slightly pale with no blemishes or marks.

"See you 'round."

He gave her a two-finger salute before ambling across the building and turning the corner. She didn't miss the smirk he flashed in her direction before disappearing and she pursed her lips in response, the hairs along her arms finally settling.

"Weird," she muttered.

She quickly finished up the pallet and when it was empty she stacked it (with much more sweating and straining than she cared to admit) on top of the other for the delivery man to pick up at dawn. Wiping her forehead she pulled the back door open and went in search of Mike to see if he wanted her to bring the boxes in or leave them outside for him to take care of. He had his own special way of organizing them and this wouldn't be the first time someone invoked his wrath for stashing the supplies in the incorrect order. Whatever that order was. Seriously, they tried everything – alphabetical, categorical, sell by date, color, size… nothing added up.

"Damn it," someone hissed and Wendy poked her head into the kitchen to see Mike nursing his finger with a disgruntled look as Pete, the evening chef, smiled in dazed triumph.

Wendy didn't like making assumptions about people for obvious reasons but she was fairly certain Pete Cardiff smoked weed. As in, on the job. He always had this glazed look in his eye that he once vehemently argued as pink eye. If that were the case, Pete has had pink eye for the last four months and it probably wasn't in the best interest of anyone that he be cooking food to be consumed by the general public. At least when he brought up the pink eye that one time he was sent home, proving that Paula's had some sort of health code.

"Well, the blasted thing works," Mike stated with a scowl.

"Hey," Wendy said to get his attention. He looked over at her as Pete began to heat up the stove. Well, more than it already was. "Do you want me to bring the boxes in or…?"

"No, I got it," Mike gave Pete a sideways glare before lumbering out of the kitchen.

Pete grinned at Wendy for whatever reason and she returned it awkwardly, leaving a second later before he had the chance to make conversation. She had nothing against Pete, honest. He was a genuinely nice guy in his late twenties who had a white cat named Princess. And he made a mean stir-fry that unfortunately wasn't on the restaurant's menu. But she was almost positive he was stoned like ninety-six percent of the time. Maybe that was what made him so pleasant.

Wendy made to walk across the hall where the sink was but she realized there was nothing left for her to clean. As she scoured her brain for her mental checklist she was reminded of the blonde from outside. He said his brothers were there and try as she might she couldn't ignore the burning curiosity. She wondered what his brothers looked like and if they were as strange as he was. Figuring she could reorganize some of the table menus while she was at it, she made her way up front with plans to sneak a peek at them.

What she didn't expect to see were three other strikingly familiar boys.

The wild-haired blonde was facing her at one of the middle tables playing with a blue crayon, the brunette on one side and the curly-haired boy on the other. The other blonde, which Wendy had so aptly named 'the leader', had his trenchcoat-covered back to her.

Those were his brothers?

For the life of her Wendy couldn't come up with any logical evidence that pointed to them being siblings. From what she could tell they looked nothing alike. Maybe they were all adopted?

Well, those menus were never getting organized now. She moved behind the bar and leaned on her elbows out of sight until only the top of her head could be seen over the high-rise counter. After a brief pause she lifted her head a tiny bit until her eyes peered over the counter, subtly-not-so-subtly studying them from afar. The blonde she'd talked to outside was scribbling something on one of the coloring pages – where in the world had he gotten that? – while the curly-haired boy watched on with all the gleeful amusement of a five-year-old. The leader was slouched in his seat with nothing in front of him, staring off into space. The brunette was the only one with a menu in his hands.

"Total hotties, huh?" a feminine voice whispered conspiratorially in her ear. Wendy jumped badly and gazed up at Jennifer, the waitress, who had her glittering hazel eyes trained in their direction like a cat ready to pounce.

"Yeah," Wendy offhandedly replied. She turned back to look at them. The blonde lifted the coloring page, displaying some indecipherable chicken scratch drawing that had the curly-haired boy giggling into his fist. She frowned. "Where'd he get the crayons?"

"I gave them to him," Jennifer answered simply. Wendy shot her a baffled look. She shrugged. "What, he asked."

Wendy shook her head. She tried to look down at the seating chart in front of her but her eyes kept drifting back up to the boys at the table.

"That one with the dark hair is stunningly pretty," Jennifer assessed. Wendy almost smiled.

"I think he has a girlfriend."

Jennifer was put off by this. "How do you know?"

"I always see him with a girl. Short black hair, wears ripped tights."

Jennifer tilted her head in consideration. "The blonde one then."

Wendy side-eyed her. "Which one?"

"The one facing away from us. He's very mysterious and melancholy in a devil-may-care sort of way. He's got that broody lead singer vibe which is pretty hot. But," she added thoughtfully, "the one with the curly hair is all smiley like he's innocent even though you can totally tell he isn't. I bet he'd be a lot of fun, if you follow me. The other blonde is taller though and I like them tall."

"Why don't you just go for all of them?" Wendy drawled, smiling a little to herself.

Jennifer was a bit ditzy, never really settling down with anyone but always eager to socialize and stay out until the odd hours. Wendy guessed she was probably in her mid-twenties, only going back to school once to get her GED and content on being a sofa-surfer, but she had a big heart and was one of the favorites at Paula's for her outgoing personality. She was a people-pleaser even though she'd never admit it to anyone.

"Tempting," Jennifer replied and she made it sound like it was. The hungry gleam in her eyes was a little worrisome but Wendy was pretty sure she could handle herself. It was the boys she wasn't sure she could handle. Jennifer muttered a 'wish me luck' out of the corner of her mouth before prancing around the counter and skipping up to their table with her notepad out and sultry smile on display.

Wendy forced her eyes away after a few seconds and doodled on the seating chart with a pen until Jennifer returned. She gave Pete their orders before leaning against the counter next to Wendy with a sigh.

"Did you win them over?" Wendy asked without looking up.

"Not yet, I'm just warming up," Jennifer said with a devious smile. "I'm pretty sure two of them checked me out though."

"Mazel tov."

Jennifer grinned like she was on cloud nine. "I think I need a smoke. Be back in a jiff."

Wendy followed her out with her eyes, not missing the way she tossed a smile over her shoulder at the table before pushing open the doors. The blondes (excluding the leader) seemed most pleased with this. Wendy tried to ignore the uneasiness in her stomach.

She passed the time by playing tic-tac-toe with herself on the back of the seating chart. She was just finishing up her fifth round when the clanging of plates rattled behind her.

"Order up!" Pete called in his unnecessarily dramatic tenor.

Wendy glanced back at the steaming plates – the blonde must've taken her advice because they were all burgers – before her eyes flickered to the front door anxiously. She couldn't see Jennifer anywhere outside, knowing she wasn't one of the unsanitary people that smoked by the building. Wendy bit her lip and carefully straightened her spine until she was standing up. Clearly all the boys heard Pete's announcement because the music playing over the speakers wasn't loud and there was literally no one else in the lobby aside from them. When she caught the wild-haired blonde's eye he grinned wolfishly at her and she looked away.

Wendy leaned through the window to Pete. "Hey, is Mike around?"

"Think he's in storage," was Pete's reply.

Wendy gave the table one last cursory glance before jogging down the hallway. Mike was emptying one of the boxes and he looked up when she appeared.

"Um, Jennifer's on her break and we have customers whose food is ready…" she left the open-ended comment hanging in the air and Mike gave her a bemused look.

"So?"

Wendy licked her lips nervously. "So should I bring them their food or go find Jennifer? I don't have a food-handlers card so I know I'm not supposed to deal with people's orders…"

Mike rolled his eyes. "I don't think the Department of Public Health is going to care about you carrying a tray of food twenty feet."

"But I'm not certified," she said meekly.

"Do you have good balance?"

Wendy was momentarily thrown by the question. "What?"

"Do you have good balance? Are you prone to having two left feet?"

"Um," Wendy squinted. "No? I mean, yes to the first, no to the second."

"And can you lift at least ten pounds?"

"Yes…" though the evidence earlier pointed to the contrary.

"Congratulations, you're now certified," Mike smiled brazenly. "Temporarily."

He returned to his organizing, wordlessly ending the discussion before Wendy could argue.

Her lips formed a thin line as she headed back out into the main room. Why couldn't they have two waitresses on call? It was poor staffing. She collected the tray from the window, a bit surprised by the weight of it only for a moment before stiffly carrying it to their table. The tall blonde was watching her with too much entertainment, tightening the ball of dread in the pit of her stomach. When she reached them she stood between the chairs of the 'leader' and the curly-haired boy, who was also giving her a sly look as his pointer finger tapped his bottom lip.

"Um," she croaked for the umpteenth time, clearing her throat immediately after. "I have your food?"

"Need a hand with that?" the tall blonde asked pleasantly. Wendy ignored him.

"I, uh, don't know whose is whose so if you could just—"

"They're all the same," the man in the long coat informed her, his voice monotonous but oddly hypnotizing. Wendy stared at him for a good five seconds before blinking and shaking her head.

"Right."

She steadily sat all of their plates in front of them, blushing a little when she had to lean in front of the curly-haired boy to reach the tall blonde. He followed her with his eyes as she stood back up, avoiding his gaze despite how his colorful jacket made him hard to ignore. Clearing her throat again she rested the empty tray against her stomach before giving them a tight smile. Being so close to all of them at once was a bit overwhelming in the sense that the air in her throat felt caught, her stomach tugging and twisting unpleasantly every time she made accidental eye contact with one of them.

"Is there anything else I can get you?"

"How about your name," the tall blonde suggested. He ignored the disapproving look the 'leader' sent him, giving Wendy a slow smile.

"I'm sorry?" her brows knitted.

"You never told me outside," he said as if it were reason enough. "C'mon, we had a nice conversation. I can't be the only one who appreciated it. I'm Paul, if it helps. That's Dwayne," he nodded to the brunette, "David," he pointed to the man directly across from him and then lastly motioned to the curly-haired boy, "and that's Marko."

Marko. That had been his name. Her gaze lingered on him a second longer than the rest and he dropped his hand from his mouth, drumming his fingers on the table next to his plate instead. He somehow managed to give her an open-mouthed smile while at the same time biting the inside of his lip, brightening his already angelic-looking face. She quickly averted her gaze.

"Wendy," she finally said, her head buzzing. "My name is Wendy."

"Like the food joint," Paul exclaimed. Like she'd never heard that one before.

"Yeah," she replied lamely, subtly taking a step back. Marko's blue eyes were still glued to her face.

"Where's your red hair?" he asked. His voice only managed to make her head feel worse. She eyed him out of her peripherals, noticing the way his cheeks were tinted pink despite his light complexion. It took a second for his question to register and another second for her to figure out he was making another Wendy's reference.

"I don't have red hair."

"That's alright," Paul grinned sharply. "He prefers brunettes."

Marko chuckled but didn't disagree. Wendy felt hot and she took another step back.

"Okay just let me know if you need anything but Jennifer should be back soon so you probably won't have to since she's the one who's supposed to be waiting on you so you can just ask her when she gets back which should be in a few minutes," she rambled, tumbling over her words in one monstrous run-on sentence as she continued backing away. By the time she was finished everyone, including David, was giving her an amused look and she quickly spun on her heels as she heard Paul shout,

"Thanks, Wendy darling! Oh shit, Wendy Darling," there was a slap. "Get it?" Then laughter.

Wendy was rubbing her temples with her fingers as she disappeared into the kitchen, ignoring Pete who was humming to himself.

"Unbelievable," she muttered. She couldn't have felt more mortified. Clearly they were all having a go at her and she fell right into their trap. It's like they could sense she had no social skills, especially towards attractive young men who made as little sense to her as her statistics class. Not to mention… "Brothers," she exclaimed quietly.

She still couldn't see it, even if they all had the same quirky sense of humor. Well, possibly excluding David. He didn't seem very amused with her but she could've just caught him on a bad night. Or maybe that was just his personality. If that was the case, Jennifer was frighteningly spot-on with her theoretic description of him.

She tried shaking off her jitters and hid in the kitchen until she heard the chime of the front door. She whipped her head out and spotted Jennifer gliding back into the building, smiling over at the boys before heading across the hall to wash her hands. Wendy cleverly chose not to share her painfully awkward encounter with Jennifer, instead smiling at the girl once she saw her. She watched as Jennifer headed out to check on the boys and breathed a sigh of relief. She only had half an hour to go. She couldn't wait to get home where she could just sleep the night off and pretend it never happened.

Another twenty minutes passed before Jennifer came dancing into the kitchen where she found Pete still humming and Wendy doing a crossword puzzle in the corner of the room with a pencil that had been snapped in half.

"They told me to keep the change," Jennifer announced, biting her bottom lip as she grinned so wide she almost split her face in half. "No digits, though."

"That's too bad," Wendy mused, not feeling sorry at all.

"I'll get one of them next time," Jennifer sounded sure of it. She stuffed her hands inside her apron pockets. "Since Mike's not around you could probably head home now if you wanted. It's dead out there."

Wendy finally looked up.

"What about their plates?"

Jennifer waved a hand. "I can get them. It's not like I've got anything else better to do. Jeffrey doesn't come in until 12:30."

As if on cue Wendy yawned. "Well if you don't mind."

Jennifer ushered her out and after saying goodbye to Pete, Wendy collected her things from her locker, stamped her timesheet and headed out.

Her bed was beginning to sound more and more like a dream. She hated that she didn't have her own car, knowing that even if she wanted to she couldn't have asked Quincy for a ride because he was probably still working. She considered the possibility that she may have to start saving up for one, especially if she was going to be pulling more night shifts. Mike didn't let her start working nights until recently because of her age. She knew one thing was for sure: if the list of missing persons continued to go up, she'd have to find some sort of way to get home at night that didn't involve walking alone. She practically had a flashing neon sign dangling from above her head that said "KIDNAP ME".

Blinking the sleep out of her eyes she quickened her pace. She was too deliriously tired to realize that the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up throughout her entire journey home.

I feel like I'm getting these chapters out a lot faster than usual. So I changed the summary because I didn't feel the first one really drew you in as a reader. I'm not sure if this one is any better. Summaries are the bane of my existence so don't be surprised if it changes two or three more times before this story is over. As always, thanks for reading! Until next time xoxo