He should have seen this coming. Leo was dead; Pearl had crossed over and now he was all alone. He should have seen this coming but hadn't and that, now that hurt.

No. It didn't hurt. It just thoroughly pissed him off. It pissed him off so much that he could just-

Kill somebody.

And he had tried, he really had but they wouldn't let him, the ghost and the wolf. Later he would feel wholly embarrassed by the ordeal but at that moment with that feel and the sound of that irritating little man's veins running through his head all he felt was annoyed. The wolf had a stake pressed against his torso and that bloody stupid girl was squawking some nonsense about the man Tom's father wanted him to be, the man Leo wanted Hal to be.

He could have almost laughed. Man? They weren't men. They were monsters and she was a dead girl. What was the point of trying?

Then the boy lowered his stake and for a moment Hal thought about just pulling the trigger but he lowered the gun as well. He was so confused and embarrassed as they made their way back to the poor rundown Honolulu Heights.

Annie made tea. She did that quite often, Hal noticed. The three of them sat down together all so close and yet in his or her own little worlds.

"Kiwi and strawberry, it's been that sort of day," she said.

Hal had no idea what she meant by that and he really didn't care.

Later on after Tom had announced that he was heading to bed and Annie reminded him to wash up before he even thinks about touching those sheets, he asks her about the previous tenants.

"What do you mean?" Annie said staring into the pink liquid in her mug.

"You said that you had lived with others here," he continued, "before Tom and before Eve, before Leo, Pearl and I. Who were they?"

He asked because he could still feel them there. He could still smell them in the walls and carpets, even the warm mug in his hand smelled of another person.

"Their names were George, Nina and Mitchell," she said wistfully and he took a second to glance at her to watch her mask slip just the slightest, "George Sands, Nina Pickering and John Mitchell."

He almost dropped his cup.

"John Mitchell?" he said absolutely flabbergasted, "as in the vampire John Mitchell?"

"Yes," she said looking just as confused but nowhere near as shocked, "did you know him?"

"No, not personally," he replied, "but I had heard of him."

Annie giggled uncertainly.

"All good I hope," she said like she was speaking of her relative or brother.

"No," he said.

"Oh," Annie said her head dropping down to look at the mug again.

"He lived here? With you? and your friends?" Hal asked trying to understand the situation as best as he could.

"Well he was my friend as well and then he was," she paused he thought it was because she felt awkward but when he looked up he noticed that she was just sad very very sad, "then he was more."

More? They were more?

Annie's eyes began to shine but she wiped the tears away before they could fully form saying, "and then he was gone. End of story."

In his haze of disbelief and shock, Hal remembered to be cordial. It was customary in those situations to show sympathy.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he recited.

"Yea thanks," she said and then she got up and left him alone to think on the new information.

John Mitchell? John Mitchell had lived there, with a ghost and werewolves? When he thought of the name John Mitchell all he could bring to mind was Monster, Herrick's boy, killer, murderer, vampire. Not friend, housemate, lover.

What a strange place he had stumbled upon, a strange place indeed.

A/N: revised.