A/N: I own nothing to do with The Lost Boys and never will. :( One can only dream.
Thanks so much for your reviews. So sorry it took me so long to update. I'm not too sure about this chapter, I'm sorry if it's horribly written. If so, I will rewrite again. My mind has been so scrambled lately lol, but I really appreciate your reading of my story. So glad you at least seem to like it, so thank you so much. :)
Hope you enjoy this chapter.

Chapter Eight

I was in high-spirits as I arrived back at the cave.

I was ready, prepared for what I would have to be facing in order to keep David away. But what I wasn't prepared for, was another woman – who I could only assume was a human with a beating heart and thumping pulse, just like me – with David in the cave that was becomming my home.

Or a casualty right before my very own eyes more like it...

Someone emits high-pitched giggles, a very feminine, girlish sound, and I knew it wasn't Susie who was making such noises. I rounded around the corner, apprehensively and my heart stops for one single second at the sight. A woman. David was with a red-headed woman, whispering something low and gruff into her ear, something only she could hear, and it was subsequently causing her to act like a clucky adoring woman.

The close intimacy between the pair of them took my breath away. I'd never seen David act so... human before. So gentle. I tried to steady my breathing as he lifted all of her long, dangling hair up into his hands, moving it away, exposing the pale clear flesh on her neck. She emitted another high-pitched giggle as he pressed his mouth just below the area of her earlobe. I felt my cheeks burning as I witnessed the sight, feeling ashamed and automatically fascinated at the very same time.

I couldn't seem to move. I was waiting, motionless, there in the shadows, anticipating what would come next between the pair. I averted my eyes, down at the plastic grocery bag of garlic cloves, and instantly wished I could have disposed of it right now... What was I doing? Was I really trying to do the logical thing here in using garlic to keep David away from Susie and me? My conflicted thoughts were interrupted when I heard something peculiar, a noise that seemed an indication that this intimacy between David and the woman wasn't as gentle and loving as it seemed.

Her giggles of desire and arousal didn't seem to come anymore. Instead there were low squeals, a deep groaning sound of agony from the very back of her throat. A moment later, a blood-curdling growl ripped through David, fear and terror pulsating through my veins at the sound of it. What was going on? What was David doing to her? Was he hurting the poor woman now?

I made the mistake of sneaking a peek and the sight left my stomach reeling in disgust. The exposed flesh on her neck was ripped apart, red and entrails everywhere. She was now lying headfirst on the bed where I so often slept in, her skin abnormally pale. David was... nowhere to be seen. Where was David now?

And the woman... was she... dead?

"So nice of you to join us," someone breathes in my ear and my heart jumped in my throat as I recognized that icy, low voice.

David.

Oh my God.

Sobs were threatening to break through my chest, shaking me. I swallowed hard as I turned on my side and found myself suddenly face to face with David himself. I wanted to move away from him, but found I couldn't. My whole body was numb at the sight of him; there was no more doubting or putting off what David was, that was for certain...

He truly was... a vampire. The woman dead and drained on the bed was a sure-fire sign of that...

A thin stream of blood was dribbling down his chin like a teardrop and he made a loud sniffing noise before sedately raising his arm. He shielded his face for a moment as he wiped the blood and muck off his chin with the sleeve of his black coat, looking more intimidating than ever before.

"W-where's Susie?" I asked, shying away from his dark gaze, my voice small and wobbly.

Suddenly, and without warning, David's hand struck out and I couldn't help but recoil. He pressed his hand lightly against the skin of my neck and throat and I knew he would have felt my pulse thudding madly in fear against his fingertips. "If you wanna know where Susie is, you better come with me now," he only said before letting me go at last.

So here he was, Max, my so-called new father, who I had been quite literally dying to meet...

I looked at this Max man and every image I ever had of him in the past twenty-four hours flew straight out the window.

I thought Max would be as young and brazen as David and the other boys.

He wasn't.

He looked in his early forties or fifties, at the very most.

I thought he'd be more frightening than David.

He wasn't, and it was then that I realized no one could ever possibly be more imposing and cruel as David.

I thought he looked like a weakling, someone frail compared to the boys yet he had a strange sense of strength about him. A kind of tilt to the head when he looked at me. He looked like an intellectual and so sure of himself, with black-rimmed glasses and a warm, inviting smile on his face despite the fact he hadn't met me once before in his entire life. When I met his gaze and looked into his eyes, I couldn't help but search for some kind of resemblance there in them that made him similar to the other boys. A dark, reddish, malevolent glint to them. But there was nothing there.

He clasped his hands together as he regarded me with eagerness. "Now, you must be Ruby?"

He had a deep articulate voice and his head tilted even more and I slowly began to recognize he was enjoying my ongoing sense of discomfort in his presence.

Before I could even muster up the energy to give him a simple nod or "Yes, hello," in response, a loud clutter of noise came from in one of the rooms of his house. He silently ushered me in with a simple whisk of his hand before marching into the largest room, which I could tell was the kitchen, to see what the ruckus was all about.

I followed slowly after him, peeking around the corner in the hallway apprehensively. I was so stunned about the whole affair; I couldn't believe that now I was in the house of the very same man who was apparently to be our new father – or so David assumed. To be in such close quarters with not only David, and Marko, and Paul, and Dwayne – who were or were not vampires, I still wasn't certain – and then standing so close to this man who inevitably changed mine and my little sisters life, it was mind-blowing...

Finding the source of the noise, the man folded his arms across his chest, with a grim expression on his face, looking over at the four boys and Susie, who was so little she barely seemed included in his unspoken reprimand. It was unbelievable; the undeniable power he seemed to hold over the boys. Well, almost all of them. Marko, Dwayne and Paul looked like three lost, frightened, small little boys who were getting grounded by their high-esteemed paternal figure, while David seemed unsurprisingly impassive, cool about the whole thing.

Glasses have all spilled out and shattered on the gray linoleum kitchen floor and the wooden cabinet that I assumed were holding them was turned on its side. It appeared that Marko and Paul were having some kind of boisterous wrestling match by the look of things. "It was Paul-" Marko rumbles nervously at the foreboding expression on his seemingly father-like figures face. Paul looks offended. "Was not," he says quietly.

This Max man ignores them. He crouches down and inspects the bits of crockery before turning to face me. "Take it from a man who's had a lifetime of experience," he tells me very sternly as he began collecting the pieces and shards of crockery with his fingers. "Never invite these wild boys into your home unless you're expecting total and utter chaos." He catches Marko smiling widely behind his back and frowns at him. "Oh, you silly boy," he says very seriously. "What on earth have you broken now?"

Things seemed to quieten down after that. Max ushered the boys sternly into the dining room and I took the moment to grab tight hold of Susie's hand, pulling her next to me. She didn't seem to understand what was going on or showed any indication of fear in front of this Max man, so I tried to calm myself down in turn. Obviously he was a lot more... civilized than the boys – not so 'wild' as he called them.

He seemed wary as he returned back into the kitchen to where Susie and I were standing, and I stared at him uneasily, not quite knowing what to do or what to say. "Why don't you girls go make yourselves comfortable in the dining room with my boys and I'll fetch you all a drink," he said amiably, giving me a quick strained smile, before turning his back on me, preoccupied with something.

I hesitated for a moment, apprehensive, observing the kitchen and the chaos that the boys had created before pulling Susie along with me down the hallway. The first face I met in the dining room wasn't a very friendly one; David.

It was obvious he didn't enjoy the prospect of having me in the same room as him. I gave him a small smile. His slate blue eyes took all of me in, but he didn't return it. It wasn't that I no longer despised him for what he had said about my mother - and the simultaneously haunting awareness that I still wasn't certain if she was alive or not - but it was the fact that I was almost thrilled; thrilled that I seemed to be the only one to get on David's nerves the most. It was as if I relished it now almost...

"Can I help you with anything?" he asks in a dry tone as I squeeze in past him.

"No," I snarl, a little more viciously than intended. "I think you've done enough already..."

"Yeah, well, let's just hope you don't end up like her."

I stood still for a moment, frozen at his unexpected harsh words. That stung. A piece inside of me was instantly filled with inconsolable loss.

I knew instantly who he was referring to...

The woman who I had just witnessed him murder so viciously tonight.

Something bitter pulsated through my veins. I considered turning around, giving him a little piece of what's on my mind, an impulsive reaction. I'd never felt such things before about another, yet with David I felt almost as if I could contemplate murder. It frightened me yet I was automatically placated by the remembrance of the garlic I bought and the plans...

I was thankful for the much needed distraction and intervention as Max came into the room a moment later with drinks on a tray, and all the glasses rattled loudly as he set it on the table beside him. "Look at my delightful family," he announced with a high-pitched, cheery laugh as he sat into the leather armchair closest by the fireplace, watching, smiling proudly, as the boys all rushed over to get their glasses like a pack of underfed dogs finding scraps of leftover food and desiring nothing more than to scarf it messily, greedily, down their throats.

"Where are your manners, boys?" Max scolded, but the boys hardly paid him any attention. "Ladies first, always remember that..."

I leant down slowly, wondering what the fuss was all about. There was something red, a thick liquid in the glass. It didn't look very appetising at all. It could almost pass as red wine, but something told me it was something more than just wine... A sickening shudder passed through me when I looked down at Susie. She was up on tiptoes, her hands outstretched, and I could tell she was eager for a glass of the red liquid.

Max passed a glass generously down to her and she blinked at him impassively for a moment before raising the rim eagerly to her lips. I looked over my shoulder to discover Marko looking directly at me as he took a slurped sip from his glass; I wrung my hands nervously underneath his gaze and he smiled his vast smile, some of the shiny, red liquid bubbling through his parted lips and running underneath his chin. There was something animalistic in the way the boys drunk from their glasses. I couldn't place what it was exactly that seemed so, but it made me shudder uncontrollably.

"Ruby, darling..." Max began, and when I looked back over at him, he was perched on the very end of his chair, staring right at me, frowning earnestly. There was something encouraging, tender in his voice. I couldn't possibly understand on earth why. "I see you're not drinking your glass?"

It was more of a suggestion, rather than a command. Like a gentle lovers caress in a late morning slumber to arise.

He could see that I was reluctant to follow his suggestion. "Uh, I'm not thirsty, thank you," I lie.

He looks disappointed. "Oh, dear. You're not?"

"No."

It was then that I realized I had deemed him incorrectly from the very start. I never thought anyone could be as frightening as David, but he was more so in every moment that seemed to pass by. There was something unidentifiable in this Max man that gave me the creeps. Perhaps he kept it hidden better than David did? All I knew was that simply only by looking at me, he was almost goading me on, pushing me into picking up that cup and draining that unknown liquid down my throat.

He raised an eyebrow and looked at someone behind me. "Very well. This seems quite the unfortunate tragedy," he muttered under his breath with a shaky chuckle. "Uh, David?" So it was David he was talking to? All I could register was that by the look on Max's face, he looked abashed about something. "I... I thought you said that the girl had already joined us?"

I couldn't hear David's response, but all I saw was the immediate flicker of understanding on Max's face.

"Ah, of course," he spoke through the silence. "The other girl. She wasn't as reluctant, I see. But, given her age, of course..." He waves his hand vaguely, thinking something through.

When I turned around to look at David's face, all the little hairs on the back of my neck and arms rose. He was standing right behind me, looming over me. And then his face was in my entire world, blocking everything else out. "The inductions over, Ruby," he says, a chilling stream of air ricocheting against my cheek as he said the words, sending goose bumps all over. "Time to join the club."