Author's Note: Hey everyone, I'm sorry for the worst gap between updates I've been guilty of so far, I didn't mean to be away as long as I was but my exams were getting closer and I needed to take a break to do some serious study because in my first week I had three very bad exams, but I finished them now so the worst is over and I promise to update between now and when my exams end as soon as I get the time. I'll also be updating my other story tomorrow in case anyone has been wondering about the lack of updates for it as well. Thanks everyone for being so patient and I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter and forgive me for taking so long. Thanks to all new favourites and follows and to Guest (response below), Minder Estrada, JaliceJelsa4eva, Flowerchild23, Eveline Wulf, LunarMaiden111, Guest (response below), TishaLiz, The Goofy Cat, Guest (response below) and sadlyhuman1997 for their reviews. Enjoy and please review!
Guest: Hi, I'm sorry for taking so long and I hope you get this reply, updates have been crappy I know! I'm trying to get more Bryn and Paul in don't worry, glad you like the Bryn and Dwayne stuff :) thanks for your review!
Guest: Thanks for your review, sorry the reply has taken this long! Yeah I tried to show her parents did care for her even if they didn't tell her about the adoption. Yup I agree they brought her up she is still kind of their daughter, more from mom in this chapter! Hope you enjoy :)
Guest: Thanks so much for your review and I'm glad you love it, sorry it has taken so long but I hope you enjoy the chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own The Lost Boys, just my OCs.
"We're never gonna find her." I sighed as I landed on the bed in a heap, the worn mattress giving a small sound of protest as I sat on it, starting to untie my boots.
Paul folded his arms and leant against the post nearest me with a sympathetic expression, "Don't say that, we've only been looking a few nights. We'll just try again tomorrow night."
I chewed my lip, "She might not even be here anymore. I mean, what would have stopped her from leaving? It's not like we parted on such good terms the last time."
"She's bound to have known you wouldn't take it well. She's gotta be around here somewhere, she just has a really good hiding spot."
I laughed at Paul's impressed tone, "I guess it wouldn't be a hiding place if it was easy to find."
"Exactly." He said, clapping me on the shoulder, "Okay all this walking has made me starving so I'm gonna go... Y'know." He shrugged before continuing, "You coming to the boardwalk?"
I deliberated for a second, "Guess I could go for some food while you're... Y'know." We both smiled awkwardly as we skirted around the subject of what exactly he would be doing for food. I changed my boots for a pair of comfortable sneakers before following him back up to his bike.
"So where does Shorty feel like going for supper?" Paul asked as he helped me off his bike a while later.
"The Diner? I haven't been there in ages." I suggested, Paul nodded in approval.
"Sounds good. I'm gonna look for the guys and catch up, grab a table and I'll be like ten minutes." He told me, I waved as I went in the direction of the diner and he went wandering about looking for the others.
I weaved in and out through the crowd as I went towards the diner, bumping shoulders here and there but it was usually my fault because I was trying to make sure Nick or anyone else saw me. It was only when a hand clasped round my lower arm and I was yanked in the opposite direction that I was jerked back to the present.
"Whoah, hey!" I cried as I started getting pulled in the opposite direction, I tried pulling my arm from the person's grip but it was tight enough to almost cut off circulation.
My attempts to get free stopped when I realised who I was being dragged by- my mother. She looked back for a second to let me know it was her before continuing to push through the crowd, not caring as people shot glares her way as she moved through.
We finally got to a break in the crowd and her hand went from clasping my arm to my back, she pushed me in front of her and we turned down an alleyway, "Where are we going?"
"Somewhere that they're not gonna find us right away." She told me, "Just keep going." she said, urging me forward.
"I told Paul I'd meet him at the diner, if I'm not there he'll be worried." I argued, she scoffed.
"Paul will have bigger things to worry about when he catches up with the others, they just came from seeing Max and from what I hear, he's not happy."
"About what?"
She laughed, "Me, the fact that I'm back here. Screwing things up for him again." I didn't ask anything else as we continued down the alleyways, soon enough we got out onto the streets and she started to lead the way.
"Where have you been staying?" I asked, not seeing anywhere around that Paul and I had checked.
Her shoulders moved in a shrug, "Here and there, I never stay in the same place for more than one night. Have to keep moving. Why?"
I groaned internally, why hadn't I considered the fact she'd be moving around? Of course she wouldn't stick to one place, "We've been looking for you."
"We?" She asked suspiciously, turning around with narrowed eyes.
My eyes widened at her stare, "Yeah, me and Paul. He was helping me try to find you. Dwayne a little bit too, but mostly Paul."
She snorted before turning back, "Well if they look for me from now on it'll be for him, he wants me found and my head on a platter."
"Max?"
"The one and only." She said with a bitter edge to her voice. After what seemed like a long time she stopped at a small coffee shop, one with hardly any people, just an old couple sitting near the window.
"You hungry?" She asked, I tried to suppress the bubbling in my stomach at the smell of coffee and cooked food but finally nodded, she got coffee while I went for Coke and a grilled cheese sandwich.
We picked a set of tables at the very back, she sat with her back to the window and poured sugar into her coffee while I dug into the sandwich.
"Don't they feed you at home at all?" She asked with a raised eyebrow when I had finished, I wiped my mouth self-consciously.
"I'm not at home anymore." I mumbled into my coke, she sat up straighter and set her cup of coffee onto the saucer.
"And why the hell not?"
I threw my hands up, "Would you want to stay in a home with people who had lied to you your whole life?"
"It's preferable to living with a bunch of vampires." She said in a dangerously low voice, I realised my voice would carry a bit in the all-but-abandoned coffee shop.
I leaned in, "Look, I feel safer with them, alright? I know it's stupid but-"
"You're right, it is stupid." She cut me off, pointing a finger, "You need to get away from them."
"They don't want to hurt me." I argued.
She shook her head, "You are a human who knows their secret, you are a liability. Any kindness they're showing you is just to keep you happy so you don't blab to anyone."
"You don't know them."
"I don't have to." She shot back, "I know Max, he doesn't want anyone knowing about him or these boys, any human that poses a threat there's only two possible solutions- turn them or kill them. And I don't think he wants to kill you. Me on the other hand..." She trailed off.
"How do you know Max?" I asked after a few seconds, her eyes snapped back to mine from where she had been staring into space, her gaze cautious and she crossed her arms defensively, "I just wanna know how I fit into this whole thing, nobody will tell me the truth about how I came to be adopted and have a mother for a vampire. I want to know."
She sighed deeply, sneaking a glance at the older couple who were getting up to leave before turning back to me, "I guess it would only be a matter of time before you'd ask me this. Look, I left you because it was the best thing for you, not because I wanted to. I didn't want to give you up but I had no choice, it was the only way I could think to keep you safe.
I nodded in understanding, "Max isn't your father, not biologically, but he had come to think of you as his daughter. He helped me when I had nowhere else to go when I was pregnant, gave me a job at the movie theatre he owned and basically saved me from living on the streets, nowhere else would take me because I'd been knocked up."
"What about my real father?"
She scoffed, shaking her head for a few seconds, "He didn't even stick around long after I told him, we were already broke and on thin ice with our jobs when I told him I was pregnant. He skipped town and left me to cover everything by myself. Within a month I'd been kicked out of our apartment and fired from my job. I'd nowhere else to go when Max found me."
"No family that would help you?"
She gave me a grim smile, "They way they saw It, I brought it all on myself. And I did, I knew things with your father would end in disaster but I was stupid back then, and careless."
I waited patiently for her to continue, she seemed to drift off for a second, her eyes flickering as if seeing things she probably hadn't thought of in years. After a minute she shook herself and glanced at me, smiling apologetically before clearing her throat.
"It doesn't matter what happened before, Max gave me a place to stay and I had a job at the movie theatre. And he was nice, he only had me work during the day and never gave me any tough jobs to do, mostly I was at the front desk serving popcorn and candy. But I was grateful, I'm not sure what I would have done if it weren't for him."
I managed a smile, "That was... Good of him." I said, trying to pick the right word for it. I was wondering exactly where this was going.
She smiled, "He did seem like a good man back then, the kind of guy I wished I had been with in the first place without wasting time on someone like your father. Anyway... We eventually..." She trailed off.
I searched her face, "What?"
"Ended up being together." She finished, it took a second to register before I grimaced.
"Oh God. But he's so... Old!"
Her shoulders lifted in a chuckle as I shook my head in horror, scrunching my eyes up to avoid any images flashing in front of them. I opened them eventually to see her watching me with an amused expression.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or-"
She waved it off, "It's fine, I guess I must have just decided I'd rather have a man that'd take care of me and actually handle his responsibilities well over somebody young and good-looking. You're young and would have no problem finding someone like that. Being pregnant sort of limited my options."
My face flushed and I nodded, "I guess so."
"Plus he had said he'd never had the chance to settle down and have kids. Right away he was prepared to fill the role of your father and that's what I really needed."
"He sounds too good to be true." I grumbled.
She smirked, "He was, I never caught on to why he always took late shifts at the movie theatre, it was so he'd have the excuse to sleep the whole next day and not go out. And why I always got shifts during the day when there was sunlight."
My eyebrows rose in realisation, "So you didn't know he was... A vampire?" I asked, lowering my voice on the next two words as a waitress passed our table.
Her eyes followed the waitress until she disappeared back into the kitchen, then her gaze shifted back to me, "No, he was very careful about that. I didn't find out until I was just about ready to have you, only a few days away actually, when he sat me down and told me his plans."
"What plans?"
Her mouth set in a bitter line as she looked down at her cup, spinning it slowly on the saucer, "He wanted a family, that I was always sure of, I actually wondered why he hadn't settled down before he met me. But that was probably because the family he had in mind wasn't exactly normal."
"A vampire family?"
She nodded, "His own little bloodsucker unit, complete with a wife and kids. I think he might have tried once before to make his plans a reality but it didn't work out too well, the reason he thought I'd be a better fit was that I would have my own child in the family, he was hoping to make the whole thing sound more appealing to me."
My nose wrinkled in disgust, "What did you say?"
"At first I thought he was joking, I really did. We didn't talk much for the next few days, I think he was trying to give me some space to think things over. I went into labour a few days later and you were born." Her lips stretched into a tender smile as she looked at me.
"Of course after that Max decided to pitch the idea to me again." She went on, "When I got you home from the hospital he started going on about what age would be best to turn you at."
I blinked, "But that wouldn't have been happening for years even if you did agree, was he thinking of turning me when I was a teenager?"
She shook her head, "More like five or six."
My mouth fell open, "What?"
"That's why he loved the fact I was pregnant, the opportunity to take you and decide when you would become like him. He wanted you to stay young forever, be his little girl. He wanted to turn me as soon as possible so I could learn the ropes about being a vampire then we could both raise you like proper parents." She spat.
"So what did you do?"
"For a few days I tried avoiding him, staying out as much as I could and keeping you away from him as much as possible. He tried to be patient but eventually he demanded an answer, I told him I didn't want to be any part of his family. He didn't take that well."
I noticed her expression darkened, I went to urge her to continue when the waitress came over with a bored expression, carrying a half-full coffee pot carelessly in one hand.
"Coffee?" She asked, gesturing to the cup my mother held in her grasp. When she made no move to reply and the waitress looked at me impatiently for an answer I smiled awkwardly.
"We're good, thanks." She rolled her eyes and walked off, I leant in and folded my arms on the table, "Then what?" I urged her to continue.
"We argued and eventually he just... Stopped. Went back to being all nice and kind, told me that he respected my decision and that we could both stay human."
"So how'd you end up being a vampire?"
She sighed, "I should've been used to Max lying by then but I somehow thought maybe he'd let me leave and just wait until the next woman came along. Turns out he spiked all the drinks in the house with his blood."
"Shit." I swore in a whisper as it clicked.
"I'm not exactly sure what I took that turned me into a half-vampire, all I knew was he got his way in the end, with me at least. He came home that evening and he could tell I had changed, he told me all I had to do was feed. He said it'd be easier if I didn't fight, that I'd see he was right about everything and that everything would be perfect when we had all turned."
I sat back in the chair with a sigh, thinking how much I wanted to punch Max right now, or find one of the guys and bribe them to do it for me.
"I left the next day, while he was asleep." She confessed, my eyes snapped back to her.
"Where did you go?"
"Anywhere that wasn't near him, I didn't take any clothes or any belongings of ours because I didn't want to give him any indication of where we had went or anything he could use to find us. I took my purse and whatever money was inside, which didn't get us very far. After a few days the vampire symptoms started taking their tole and I wasn't in any fit state to handle looking after you whilst trying not to feed."
I guessed now why she had left me, I must have been such a burden to her, "You probably had enough to deal with yourself never mind looking after me."
She shook her head, "It wasn't your fault, I couldn't look after you properly. I slept all day even when you cried and missed most of the times I was meant to feed you because I wouldn't wake up until the sun went down. I had violent mood swings and there were times when you cried that I just got so angry about everything, I was so scared I was going to wind up hurting you."
"So you gave me away?"
She nodded, "Found the nearest hospital and left you outside. I didn't want anyone seeing me so I just left a note and-"
"Oh!" I exclaimed suddenly, startling her a little. I dug the note from my pocket and unfolded it, handing it to her.
"Where'd you get this?"
"My p- uh, Julie and Peter kept it. It was the only information they had on me." Her eyes ran over the paper, tracing the worn edges.
"I didn't want to say too much, in fact I probably said too much, Max could've maybe tracked you down with these details." She said, her brow furrowing.
"I deserved to keep a little bit of myself though, even if it was just my name and my birthday." I argued, she smiled and a thought struck me, "What's my real last name?"
"Stuart. What is it now?"
"Williams. It's a long way away from Stuart so I guess I was safe." I told her, musing over the new name in my head, "Bryn Stuart. That'll take some getting used to." I snorted.
"You can keep your old name if you want, it's your decision."
I ran a hand down my face, "Maybe I should take a leaf out of Dwayne's book and just drop the last name, avoid all complications." I looked up to see her eyeing me with pursed lips, "What?" I asked self-consciously.
"Dwayne's the one with the dark hair, looks Native American?" She guessed.
"Yeah. Why?"
She shrugged, "Just curious. Do you spend a lot of time with him?"
I thought for a second, trying to fight the blush threatening to creep up on my cheeks, "I don't know, I guess?"
"I know you've grown attached to them, especially Dwayne and..." She trailed off trying to remember Paul's name.
"Paul." I told her.
"Right, I know you think they're your friends but they have a loyalty to Max that goes beyond any friendships they have. No matter how much they mean to you, if Max gives them an order they have to follow through. If he told them to kill you, they'd have to do it." My blood ran cold at her words, a shiver of fear creeping up my spine as I imagined Dwayne's orange eyes staring at me, his next kill. He wouldn't really do it, would he?
She sensed my fear and reached over to lay her hand over mine, "I didn't mean to frighten you, you won't be killed, Max has probably still got a soft spot for you. If he's kept you alive for this long, he must."
"So instead of killing me he's just going to turn me into a vampire like he planned all those years ago?" I asked, my voice trembling.
Her eyes flashed, "I won't let that happen."
"How?" I asked helplessly, "What can I do?"
She looked around as the waitress noisily began putting the chairs on the tables, shooting us a glare telling us we had overstayed our welcome, my mother ignored her as she turned back to me, leaning in.
"Give me a few days to get things sorted, I need to lie low and you can't stay with me, you need to go back to them and pretend nothing happened. They'll probably do the same for you, they don't want to scare you by telling you what Max has in store for me, probably."
I covered my face with my hands and let out a groan, "Paul's probably looking for me, I told him I'd meet him at the diner I don't know how long ago."
"Then you should go back." She said hurriedly, standing up and gesturing for me to do the same. She threw some bills from her pocket onto the table, walking past the waitress mumbling a thank-you as we exited the café.
"How will I find you?" I asked her, she thought for a second before putting her hands on my shoulders.
"I don't want to risk anything so I can't tell you where I'll be, but I will come and find you as soon as I figure things out. You need to sit tight with them, pretend like everything's fine. Whatever you do, don't take anything to drink from them and if you have a drink make sure you never leave it alone, Max might have passed on that little piece of wisdom to them."
A tear slipped down my face that I hurriedly brushed away, "You promise you won't go away and not tell me?"
She wrapped her arms around me, holding tight for a few seconds before pulling back, "I swear. Go back and find Paul, and make up an excuse."
I nodded, she turned to walk in the opposite direction, she only got a few steps away before I remembered something I had wanted to ask her.
"Wait!" She turned, "I don't even know your name."
She chuckled as though she couldn't believe she hadn't mentioned it, "Rachel. Goodnight, Bryn."
"Night." I called and she turned round to go the other way, I did the same and headed back in the direction of the boardwalk, trying to think of what I was going to tell Paul.