Disclaimer: I own nothing at all to do with the Lost Boys and never will. Thank you all so much for your reviews. I really, really appreciate them. Really hope this chapter doesn't suck!

All the little hairs on the top of my scalp rose as we continued on down along the Boardwalk.

Edgar.

I was certain he recognized me from before. In the record store, it had been me, who told him and Alan that I was living with a houseful of vampires. Did he remember that? How could I have been so stupid? Out of my own foolishness, was I putting Susie at risk? Was I putting the boys at risk? The boys who were vastly becoming like a family to me and my little sister...

I look behind me quickly to see both Edgar and Alan staring straight at us. They catch my eyes, and then quickly lower their heads, staring at something on the wooden panels of the Boardwalk with fervent enthusiasm. Were they trying to cover their tracks? "Are they following us?" I breathe, horrified.

David looks over at me and realizes I must be scared. "Good. Let those kids follow," he says, absurdly pleased. "There's nothing like a good meal that comes readily to you..."

"I have this feeling that they are. What if they try to hurt Susie?"

The faint orange light from the end of David's cigarette flickers against his face, and I thought I saw the slightest shimmer of worry in his expression. "Don't worry about it, Ruby," he says gently. "If the time comes, I'll take care of it..." His voice turns dangerously low, and there's a threat evident in it.

"I wouldn't want you to, David."

"Wouldn't want me to do what, Ruby?" He turns his head toward me, looks at me. He's trying to read my face, for what?

"You know. Take care of it. Whatever that means..." I shove my hands into my jeans apprehensively at his searching gaze. "Although, I think I already know what it means..."

And I already did.

I knew if something happened David would be the first to lunge into attack and protect Susie. But was it from Edgar and Alan that Susie truly needed saving from?

Or was it from me? The reasons behind all of this...

I find myself back into the old hallway of my house yet again. Like in my dream before. I search for my mother, calling her name, once, twice, three times loudly, but she never responds. I think I know where she is. I think I know where this dream ends...

I turn, looking up the staircase. Unlike before, the door blows wide open, and the faint dim light of the bathroom peeks through, blinding me momentarily. I blink several times, and then slowly step up the staircase. My sneakers squeak loudly with every step and once I reach the top, I take a deep breath before entering.

My mother is lying in the bathtub, fully clothed, her brown eyes wide open, staring straight at me. I don't need to think so much of it this time around – I know what this means. She is dead. She has been lying there for a while now.

The skin on her neck is ripped apart, red and insides everywhere. I feel like crying. How could I have let this happen to her once again? Did she do this because of us disappearing?

"Ruby!"

Susie comes running into the bathroom and she flings her arms around my legs. When I turn to face her, her chin and cheeks are tinted red with blood. Our mother's blood?

"Susie?" I sink down to the floor, bending over Susie's little body. She stares straight behind my shoulder; her eyes a murderous red and fixed on our mother's dead body. "Susie, what happened to her?" I ask, although I think I already knew the answer.

At first she doesn't answer. Her face scrunches up and then she giggles boisterously between exposed fangs. The laughter doesn't quite suit a little girl like Susie. It frightened me in that instance. The haunting, high-pitched sound seemed to echo against the cold stone walls.

"David said I can play with Karen," she whispers in my ear excitedly. "I play with Karen, but Karen can't play anymore!" She touches my face and I flinch away at the iciness of her tiny fingertips and the wet unnerving sensation of her skin.

And then I hear a noise from downstairs: a faint rustling noise coming from the kitchen.

There's a clatter of noise, something breaking. Susie stares at my face, wide-eyed in fear. She looks so tiny and scared.

"Susie, stay right here!" I tell her firmly. She nods.

I get up and slowly exit the bathroom. I trudge carefully down the stairs, clutching onto the walls for support, so I don't fall. Someone groans loudly in the kitchen – a despairing, agonizing sound. Who could be in there? What on earth is going on?

I follow the sound, and then peek into the kitchen.

A young man is lying against the counter in a strange, rigid pose. Something is keeping his body stapled to the counter. I slowly inch around the corner and then realize the refrigerator door is wide open. The soft dim light emitting inside of it provides instant light and it covers the man's form.

Suddenly everything is still. The only thing I hear is the clock ticking on the wall.

I creep closer, and then finally I am able to make out who the young man is, and comprehend what has happened to him.

David.

Tick, tick...

I stare at him in numb shock. He is lying peacefully, serenely. It's hard to believe this is the same David I know when I am awake. He looks almost younger, a more benign copy of himself.

"David, what happened to you?" I ask, in a panic. "How did this happen to you?"

I am no longer afraid. I move directly in front of him, closing the gap between us forever. My stomach tightens as I see what has him confined to the counter: a set of deer antlers are wedged into his stomach, his stomach opened up like a bowl of red soup. Oh, David! What happened to you?

And then his eyes slowly flicker open. He stares straight through me as he looks at me, his slate blue eyes distant and faraway, drifting. He tries to sit up, but the antlers are preventing him from doing so. I never thought I could ever see something so painful...

David opens his mouth to say something, but nothing seems to come out. I lean down, my mouth level to his ear, waiting for it.

David says something into the back of my neck, as gentle as the wind whooshing in your ears, that I don't quite catch.

"What, David? Please speak to me!"

"Sometimes..." his voice comes out low and rasping. It was painful to listen to. "Sometimes dead is better, Ruby."

I jolt awake. Darkness surrounds me, caging me, suffocating me, and I search around me with my hands. My hand clasps around someone's elbow and I cry loudly, and then just as suddenly I remember its Susie sleeping next to me on the floor in the cave, while the boys are hovering above us.

It was just a dream, I tell myself over and over, trying to regain my dignity. David isn't really dead... (Well, not in that sense anyway)... and my mother, we saw her. She's not dead in a bathtub either.

But why the horrible dreams all of a sudden? We were safe here. That's all that mattered. But Edgar, seeing him and Alan tonight and his words, I was almost certain they would probably be coming for us. And all at my own stupidity. How would the boys ever learn to forgive me?

If they get hurt by this, it will all be my fault. There are no buts or ifs about it...

Sometimes dead is better, Ruby...

His words from my dream replay in my head like a haunting videotape. He had spoken them as though they were choking him... I shudder at the realization. But what could he have meant? Dead is better? Aren't there many things better than... being dead?

Somebody or something touches my hair and I try to cover myself with my arms quickly. Was it Edgar and Alan? Had they come to kill Susie... or me?

"Take it easy, Ruby."

Oh. "David?"

Suddenly a bright flickering flame from a match illuminates the space above me and I make out David standing over me and Susie. What was he doing awake? I would have assumed he was sleeping, like the other boys?

"What are you doing?" I ask quietly, trying not to wake anyone.

"You looked like you were having a seizure for a moment there..." Has he been watching me that whole time, while I was dreaming? His voice is so low and quiet that I can barely hear him. "What's biting you, Ruby?" Probably to kill the time waiting for my answer, he lights a cigarette, his hair dark gray in contrast to the darkness.

"I just had a very unpleasant dream..."

"No shit, Sherlock." He snorts loudly.

"I'm sorry for waking you," I say honestly, leaning back against the wall. How could I have been so foolish? All of that was just a dream. It didn't mean a single thing...

"Wanna tell me about it, huh?" he asks gently, and I have to stifle a surprised gasp.

Why on earth would David even care or want to know? Thinking the dream through, it embarrassed me. The very thought of confessing what I had dreamt to David was mortifying to me. More so the fact that the sight of David lying there against the counter, wounded, impaled, hurt me to no end.

Before I am able to contain myself, I hop up onto my feet and twine my arms around David's neck. I lay my cheek against his shoulder, the soft fabric of his coat. I supposed then that this was my way of grieving, of accepting how much the thought of David injured wounded me. I feel his body stiffen underneath me, startled or in shock perhaps over my antics. But at least know I knew for certain, David wasn't dead like I had dreamed so horribly. He was a solid body, real, unharmed and untouched.

We stood like that for a long time, my arms around his neck, holding his body pressed to mine with all the strength I could manage. And then soon the reality of what I just did began to sink in, sickening me, and I quickly separated myself from him.

I couldn't bear to look at his face, so I kept my eyes low, staring down at my hands.

"Ruby." David's voice is unbelievably soft through the darkness. I could hear the unmistakable tension in his tone.

I peek up at him, anxious and rigid with trepidation. And then he blew a cloud of whitish smoke into my face, and turned away from me.

Was I in love with David?

Not only a walking contradiction – he could be kind-hearted, cruel and friendly – but a killer? Why was I so quick to embrace him like that?