Disclaimer: I own nothing at all to do with The Lost Boys. Hope you enjoy this chapter and that it isn't a disappointment. It was quite hard to write, so I hope it doesn't suck...literally. Hope you enjoy!

And thank you all so much for the encouraging reviews; it amazes me and am so thankful. :-) I hope I've kept David in character; I don't really think mushiness suits him lol X CK X

Chapter Sixteen

"Okay, Ruby," I say to myself quietly as I walk along the wooden panels of the Boardwalk, trying to keep my voice as controlled as possible. "What happened is now in the past. It didn't mean anything to him, and it didn't mean anything to you..." Or did it?

I expel a breath, shaking my head. He made it seem as if it was nothing – no big feat – so then maybe that's all it was? Nothing. A ridiculous spur of the moment thing. It didn't mean that any feelings had surfaced between either of us.

I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. I didn't know why I wanted to; it wasn't as if it repulsed me or anything. My hand kept finding its way up to my mouth as I walked, touching my lips, and tracing the outline of them. My lips felt chapped and bruised, but it wasn't as if he had kissed me that hard.

I shook my head as I walked toward the steps of the Boardwalk in a trance.

It was nothing, I kept telling myself. A shimmer of excited laughter from a bunch of teenagers my age breaks through the air. I glance over at them quickly, though not really seeing them clearly, as one of the youngest looking boys of the group hangs down across the railings. It dawned on me then that I felt I didn't even quite fit in, with the teenagers my age anymore.

Now that I stay with the boys, it is as if they have opened me up to this whole new world out here and just as quickly invited me in. It dawned on me that what truly terrified me the most was stepping out of this comfortable circle, where I can be who I am – human, untouched, and unpossessed. I was afraid to be one of them. But then sometimes you can't let your fears determine the way you live...

I don't want to be stereotyped by who or what I am, or what I will be, if I relent – vampire, monstrous, cruel. But then perhaps they don't want to be either? Perhaps they didn't even have a say in what Max was doing to them at that time. But they too learned to step outside that circle and embrace what they have become.

I could do it just as much as they could-

"GROWL!" Susie yells as soon as she sees me, like a tiny little monster.

I gingerly turn and look at her. I'm suddenly startled as I see her face; she has a smear of red on her chin – blood, no doubt – and on her little hands and fingernails, as though she has been finger painting. Why didn't the boys bother wiping it off of her? She would have been a haunting sight for anyone to see, if they dared to pass and look down at her. But then, I was beginning to realize, the people of Santa Carla didn't seem to pay the boys much attention and, if they did, they wouldn't gawk at them for too long.

After what happened in the cave, how she reacted to my blood, she had altered for me in some way. I used to think of her as benign, a sweet little pearl; now I realize she is more like the boys than I had ever imagined possible.

Her long curly hair is blowing in the wind and she's barefoot. She lopes over to me and holds out her arms. I kneel down level to her and force myself not to recoil away from her as she wraps herself around my shoulders. "I saw her," she whispers quietly in my ear, as though telling me a deadly secret.

"Who?" I ask her as she leans against me, and I lift her up, her body limp in my arms.

"My old friend..."

Susie giggles, pointing past my shoulder. I turn my head into the direction she's pointing at. There seems to be nobody there, but then I see her; a woman is standing by the bulletin on the Boardwalk, observing the pictures closely. Who was she? She is wearing a long black summer dress that ripples slightly against the breeze.

"Oh, your friend is wearing a very lovely dress," I prompt, searching my memory for why she seems so familiar.

"Yes," Susie agrees, toying with a piece of my hair. She seems hyper almost, for some reason. Fully awake, and then it dawns on me that she had disappeared off with Marko, Paul, and Dwayne earlier. Had she only just fed minutes ago? "Her names Karen!"

Karen... I stare at the woman's retreating form, my mouth wide-open. I wanted to laugh uncontrollably as I realized who she was. Our mother. In a way I felt unbelievably relieved; she wasn't dead, as David had told Susie, but then it was as if Susie didn't even realize who she was – and how much of a big deal it would have been for our mother if she had laid eyes on Susie, when I was almost certain she assumed we were dead and long gone now.

I drag my eyes back to Susie, who has a finger in her mouth, sucking at the red stained skin on her thumb. "Susie, did you talk to her?" I ask her urgently.

Her little dirty face scrunches up in confusion. She doesn't answer me. I sink back down to the ground and pull her away from me, shaking her shoulders, taking a good look at her.

"Well, Susie, did you?" My voice rises and her lip quivers. I didn't mean to make her feel so upset in that instance, but I just felt scared. So scared. How much suffering would our mother be able to take until it was the last and final straw?

She looks small and scared now, tears clinging onto her eyelashes. "No!" she cries and then runs away from me, in the opposite direction. I realize the boys are standing there, right near us, probably having witnessed my outburst. She runs over to David, and starts to cry.

Oh, poor Susie. What have I done to her?

David glances at me for the very first time after the whole kissing incident, bends over Susie, and then whispers something into her ear. I don't know what he is saying to her, but I immediately feel wretched for making her upset.

She moves away from David and tugs on Marko's jacket. "Has Ruby been crying?" I hear her whisper to Marko, sniffing loudly. Marko looks at me silently, his forehead scrunched pensively, and then grabs Susie by her arms and hoists her up into the air, her giggling madly all the while to my relief; it seemed like a deliberate distraction on Marko's part so that he wouldn't have to answer the question and, more importantly, divulge to her why I was crying.

It was then that I realized Marko must have known, somehow, what went on between David and me barely half an hour ago. My cheeks burned in embarrassment over the unwelcoming thought. Things seemed different... there was a new air of serious tension brewing around us all; Paul didn't even seem on the verge of contagious laughter anymore. He was staring down at his hands, picking at the dirt from underneath his fingernails.

Dwayne was as silent as ever, staring down at his combat boots, his arms hanging at his sides. And David... well, he was the same as usual, indifferent, as though nothing strange had ever happened – and I kind of liked it that way. He removed the cigarette he had placed behind his ear and played with the metal lighter in his hand, flicking it open and shut with his thumb several times before lighting up his cigarette.

His face seemed to glow eerily white as the orange flickering flame connected to the end of his cigarette, his unshaven chin tinged with what I recognized was blood, and then he took a deep drag, his eyes closing momentarily before refocusing them onto me. "Here's the deal, Ruby," he begins as whitish smoke trails out of his nostrils, "You'll never see Susie again, not until you're going to be one of us, Ruby."

I stare at his face for a long moment, not believing and not wanting to. "You can't do this," I whisper resignedly, feeling too tired to fight.

"Do it, Marko," he says stubbornly, glancing behind his shoulder at Marko quickly. In that instance, I felt such rage. And hatred. And sadness...

Marko hesitates, taking one of Susie's hands into his own. He caught my gaze and I saw that, for once, he did not smile his vast smile as he usually did. I immediately missed that smile; it always seemed to lighten the mood, the tension in the air. But without it, my whole world was dark and gloomy, and stifling.

"Goodbye, Ruby." He said it in a hushed whisper, and then looked down at Susie, who was still sucking her thumb, watching me, oblivious to the whole thing. Then she struggled against him as he pulled her down the steps, causing her to topple sideways against the ground. I faintly heard her cry.

"Either you feed," David continues, "or you say goodbye to your little Susie back there. What's it gonna be, Ruby?"

I watch him as he flicks his cigarette down and over the Boardwalk with such hatred. I felt like slapping him out of rage, my fingers twitching, but then I couldn't bring myself to do it. Why was I hesitating, if it was the only thing I could do in defence? But then inflicting pain on him, the thought, made every part of me hurt inside.

David shakes his head in disbelief and smirks. "It's not that hard of a decision, Ruby."

"Yeah, come on, girl," Paul speaks at last, goading me on.

I could never, ever let myself live without my little sister. Although I trusted the boys would never dare hurt her, I just couldn't... She was my flesh and blood. That made her more like me than all of them combined, no matter if she does do what they do – feed on humans. I couldn't let her go...

"Fine," I agree quietly. "But it's so easy for you all to do and so difficult for me..."

And then David snorts derisively and laughs at some kind of inside joke that I'm not included on. "Oh, we can change that. Can't we, boys?" There's something cruel and knowing in his voice and I watched him strut away from me, climbing down the steps, his coat flapping against him, hating him so much in that instance and yet not really understanding why I couldn't hurt him to defend myself.

The temperature in the air of Santa Carla is dropping, the sky a coppery blue as the boys trudge along the sandbank. I try to keep up with them, the sand feeling heavy and slippery against my sneakers. I didn't know how long we were walking for, but it felt like hours. And then, suddenly, all noises; the leaves of the trees rustling against the wind, the sound of waves crashing against the ocean, the heavy clinking of the metal chains attached to Paul's jacket, are swallowed up as ahead loud music is played, blaring out of a stereo.

"Aerosmith on the boom-box," Paul comments, clasping his hands together excitedly.

In the distance, a party suddenly comes into view; two motorbikes are parked opposite each other, providing a soft dim light as four silhouettes - two slim shadows, obviously women – come into view, moving around. As we reach closer, I suddenly realize the two women are dancing, swaying their hips around sensually as the two men are sprawled out on the sand, drinking, observing them.

David slows his pace and then waits for me to catch up to him. He knocks his shoulder against mine. "You don't have to look so nervous, Ruby," he tells me gruffly. "Just let your instincts take over, channel all of that hunger and then" – he claps his leather-clad gloved hands together noisily and I wince at the unexpected sound - "you can come home with us, see your little Susie, and everything will be as right as rain..."

Screams erupt from ahead of us and it was then that I realized Paul and Dwayne had already jumped in. I stop still, frozen, shivering. How can I do this? Why do they make it sound so easy?

I feel ill as David strolls on ahead of me. His silhouette is lithe and dangerous as I make out him grabbing one of the women by the arm, wrenching her toward him, a high-pitched shriek coming from her.

The stench is overwhelming as I reach them and I have to cover my eyes as I see one of the men lying headfirst against the sand, blood and red entrails coming out from the wound on his neck. He is still and then it dawns on me that he is obviously dead. Paul is laughing, a spooky sound that seems to echo through the air, and when I turn to look at him, his hair is chaotically wild, and his eyes murderously red.

He grins at me as a small drop of blood dribbles down from the corners of his mouth, his fangs exposed and mouth full of red entrails.

Oh, my God!

This is beyond reality.

My hands start to shake as I watch David with the woman, one of his hands covering her mouth as her body shakes violently; she is very much still alive, her eyes wide-open in fear as she stares straight ahead at Paul who is now taunting Dwayne. Tears leak from her eyes as she meets my gaze and I hear her moan against his hand. Was she calling for me? Did she want me to help her by making David release her?

"Ruby." David's voice broke me out of my momentary distraction. His voice was encouraging, tender.

His other hand came up to her jaw, moving her blond hair away from her neck. He gave me access to her pale, clear flesh and I watched almost in fascination as she shuddered against his cold touch. I felt this intense longing, this desire, to reach out, to press my hand against her neck and feel her pulse reverberating through to my fingertips like a set of drums.

Without thinking, I inched closer toward David, and lifted up a trembling hand. I place my hand against her neck, feeling the warmth of her that must so mirror my own, and I felt her flinch against my touch. Her screams were muffled as David tightened his hand on her mouth and I suddenly felt embarrassed for letting my fascination take over.

I realized how overwhelming it felt, how thrilling, to see her shy away from me in fear. But why was she so afraid of me? Weren't the others – Paul especially – more frightening than me combined?

I felt like myself, exactly as I usually am. I'm not a person that people usually shy away from – so why was she so frightened? She made me feel as if I truly was one of them...

"Ruby," David prompts icily as she struggles against his hold.

It was then I realized I wanted her – to rip her apart – every inch of her. But I wasn't sure how.

"Can you do it for me, first?" I ask, in a small voice that didn't sound like my own.

"No problem." I observed him, reaching up on tiptoes to get a better sight as he lowered his head, pressing his mouth against her neck. She struggled even more violently against him, her shoulders shaking, her shrieks growing louder and prolonged.

And then David took his mouth away from her skin and I saw her flesh, open and ready for me. Drops rolled down the side of her cheeks as she became eerily still and I moved closer, David levelling her neck down to my mouth.

I was so close to her, I could almost taste it.

"Go for it, Ruby." I smelt her on his breath and on his lips.

This was it.

It had to be this way.

I have no other choice.

I put my mouth over the wound on her neck. I close my eyes and for a moment I am still, the tinge of her blood coating the saliva in my mouth. It wasn't nearly as bad as I imagined. She tasted of saline, coppery...

I felt David's fingers come across my cheek; his touch no longer cold, but warm in contrast.

The first mouthful of her made me want to gag, but I tried to hold on.

For Susie's sake.

It would seem blood was an acquired taste. The more I swallowed, the more easier it seemed to become.

As natural as anything.

Or so it would seem...