A/N: I own nothing at all to do with The Lost Boys. And never will sadly. :)

Thank you so much for your reviews. I really love reading them and your thoughts. Words cannot explain how much so. A special thank you to Sunlit Mercy for Pming me and reminded me to get started on a new chap. I really appreciate it! :) I really hope you enjoy this chapter, and that it isn't boring. :S

Chapter Eighteen

Nightfall...

It cannot be avoided.

I keep my eyes tightly shut as I hear faint rustling noises above me, coming from the boys, who are now rousing from their sleeping. Susie stirs, turning on her side, yawning loudly, a small little hand pressed against her mouth as she wakes. I wonder what will happen for a moment if I stay here forever, pretending to sleep. Would the boys get angry and demand I get up?

Somebody steps on my elbow with their boots, immediately thwarting my plans as I gasp loudly against the pain. I jolt up on my knees, squinting in the darkness. "Oh, sorry, Ruby," Marko says, smiling down at me apologetically.

"Ha ha," Paul says humorously, pushing past Marko impatiently as he steps out of the crack. "Can't believe you slept on the floor, girl!"

I ignore his taunting. Something has me irritated, something about last night that I couldn't seem to get my finger on. I get up slowly, lifting Susie into my arms with me as I go, thinking hard. The woman – before I did what I did to her – she looked at me, so afraid, as though I truly was one of them. But why?

"Why was that woman so afraid of me last night, before I fed on her?" I ask Marko, who is standing right next to me, rubbing his eyes with his fingers, off guard.

But it was David who answered. He was standing right behind me. "Take it from me, Ruby: you might wanna look at yourself before and after you feed," he says as I set Susie onto her feet, without taking his eyes off of her, who runs over to Dwayne and he lifts her up onto his shoulders. "It's killer."

Marko laughs. "He means that literally, Ruby," he says quietly, with a knowing smile. "Killer."

The way Marko says it confuses me. "I...I don't understand." I pause on the spot, trying to absorb what they have just said. David knocks into me, and I take this as a warning to keep on moving, or else. I step out of the crack and David pushes past me, preoccupied with something.

He sighs loudly and reaches out for something. He places the jewel-encrusted alcohol bottle filled with blood into one of my hands. "Drink some of this and see for yourself!"

Five eyes suddenly focus on me, Susie falling quiet as she bounces on Dwayne's shoulders. I feel self-conscious and shy all of a sudden, and shield my face from them as I unscrew the cap on the bottle. I take a quick sip and am amazed to find swallowing wasn't as difficult as it was before. The taste was no longer as foreign to me.

I begin to feel slightly dizzy as I glance at my reflection glinting off the alcohol bottle. Now I am beginning to see why the woman was so afraid of me last night; I don't look at all like myself, yet I feel exactly like myself. Who was this girl? Her mouth opens slightly in wonder; the canines of her teeth longer, her eyes a murderous red. She didn't at all look like me. It was hard to believe she even was me...

David puts his arm around my shoulder, jostling me, and I have to force myself not to pull away from him. "My kind of girl, isn't she, Marko?" And then the boys burst out laughing, the air shimmering with haunting, cruel laughter.

I truly was one of them. I realize that now...

I realize I cannot escape this. Feeding. No matter how unnatural and inhumane it seems to me. These rules and regulations now belong to me, now that I belong to their world. I stop and watch as the sight unfolds before me. Susie is standing still in front of one of the tall surfers surrounding one of the bonfires on the beach, her arms dangling at her sides, knots of her curly dark hair dangling down her back.

"I want him," she says softly, to David.

He doesn't respond. She tries again several times, and then he takes hold of her arm. "Get out of the Goddamn way, Susie!" He wrenches her out of the way, and then she stumbles and falls headfirst against the sand. She bursts out crying, but then her sobs are drowned out by the yells resounding from the surfer, who David is now feeding on.

Oh, little Susie.

After David is done feeding with this surfer, I watch as he kneels down next to Susie, who is still crying. He takes firm hold of her shoulders. "Take it easy, Susie," I hear him tell her gently, trying to placate her. But she shrinks away from him.

How dare he treat her that way? I think sourly.Susie is only a little girl, anxious to please David, as though he truly is her father.

After giving up on comforting her, David stands, brusque and grumpy, and goes off with the other boys, resuming his feeding. I walk slowly over to her. Susie is sitting in the sand, with her hands folded in her lap, and her knees together. I bend over her to discover she is staring at the Surf Nazi's body, the one she wanted to feed on before David got to him, and he is lying still against the sand, with a belly that is opened up with a soup of red entrails – all thanks to David.

"Are you all right, Susie?" I ask in a hushed whisper. She hops up and almost collides into my legs and is startled, her mouth wide-open, and then she cries again, flinging her arms around my waist. I pick her up, so light and wasted in my arms now, and carry her away from the boys.

"Where are you taking her, Ruby?" I hear David call. I glance behind my shoulder as Susie buries her face into my neck, shying away from his icy voice. I see the briefest flash of regret in his murderous, red eyes as I meet his gaze.

I didn't know why it surprised me so much; to see David act the way he did toward Susie, after she had told me last morning before drifting off into a restless slumber. It would seem I wasn't the only one who was afraid of David. Yet, when looking at him while he was like this, with blood and muck on his face and those eyes... it was as if he had disappeared.

The David I knew before wasn't ever unfriendly or grumpy toward Susie. He was only that way toward... me. And, because I am the age that I am, I've learned not to take it so personally. But Susie was only a little girl, she couldn't tell the difference...

"I'm taking Susie with me for a walk, David," I tell him, purposely trying to be vague on the matter. How was any of this his business anyway?

"Fine," David says, shrugging. He lifts an arm and wipes off the blood on his face with the back of a hand. "Don't be too long."

I tighten my hold on Susie, her body shaking against me. "Of course not," I answer quietly, turning away from him.

Poor Susie...

She is shivering so intensely that she makes my shoulders shake, makes my arms vibrate as I hold her. Did he really make her that scared? Of course, I couldn't blame her.

"Don't cry, Susie," I whisper to her as I carry her up the stairs along the Boardwalk. She moves her face out from my neck, tears clinging to her eyelashes, a look of pure desperation on her tiny face.

"Why does David hate me so much?" she asks in a hushed, small voice.

"He doesn't Susie," I tell her, feeling the rage simmer inside of me, racing through me. "Why don't you ask him next time? He'll say he doesn't, and then you won't have to be sad anymore..." I dodge a cluster of teenage boys, who are laughing boisterously and chasing each other along the Boardwalk. "Just remember what I told you: some men are grumpy when they are trying to eat!" Susie sniffs loudly.

"I don't know..." she cries into my neck. She won't seem to stop crying.

"Okay, Susie." I try to brighten the tone of my voice, looking around us. "We have a few hours by ourselves. Now, what do you want to do?" I kneel down against the wooden panels of the Boardwalk, and pull her away from me, forcing her to look at me.

She wipes her eyes as she thinks this through. "I want to go on the..." She says it so quietly, that I have to ask her to repeat herself. "I want to... go on the Ferris wheel!"

I gasp and feign a shudder. "The Ferris wheel, Susie? Oh no. It'll be too scary! I'll start crying!"

She giggles and I immediately feel relieved at the sound of it.

I stand, taking hold of her hand. "Okay, Susie. The Ferris wheel, it is!"

We walk slowly toward the Ferris wheel, a monster of a contraption. I'm suddenly anxious as we wait in line; I've usually never had a very strong stomach for high rides. But if it makes Susie happy, then I'm willing to risk it, for a night or two. A crowd of children and adults, who had ridden it before us, come bustling through the gates, an elderly man looking ill and clutching his hat against his head apprehensively.

Susie starts bouncing around excitedly as the seats of the Ferris wheel start to slowly fill up for the next ride. She grins at me widely, a gap in her teeth showing, as the man helps her over the railings and into the seat. He beckons me in and Susie squeezes up against the end of the seat, her eyes tightly shut in anticipation, her little hands clutching tightly at the protector rod keeping her safely in place.

I sit next to her, feeling suddenly anxious as the machinery of the Ferris wheel starts creaking and groaning loudly as we are lifted an inch off the ground, so that the seats below us can be filled, and then I hear a man's voice say from below us, full of anger and irritation: "What do you think you're doing, Ruby?"

David.

Oh no.