That night, Sam sat in bed staring at the ceiling, willing his brain to shut down. Alan was wrong. He hadn't seen Mike. There was no way.

Sitting up, he turned on his side and gave his pillow a few good punches to fluff it before laying back down. Why would his brother be on the boardwalk?

He huffed, reaching under his sleep shirt to clench a fist around the cross he'd begun to habitually wear around his neck. His thumb rubbed over the wire tying it to its chain, reminding himself that even if it only cost a quarter at the coin machines at the local bowling alley — it was just as strong as any other cross. Alan had one made of popsicle sticks hanging over his bed, after all. He insisted at some point it saved his life, though he never elaborated.

Alan hadn't even given him any details. All he said was that he'd seen Mike on the merry-go-round. Did his brother just have a mental breakdown? Sam never thought he'd find himself thinking that was actually a good thing. Good if it meant there was no other reason he'd ditched their family without a word. No way would his mom let him go out at night to find out. Going out during the day was pushing it.

Sam squeezed the cross tighter, feeling the impression it would leave in his palm. He could check out the weird cave again where this had all started. Triple check and make sure Mike's bike wasn't there.

Turning onto his other side, he bit back an anxious shriek when he found himself faced with a mouthful of gnarly yellow fangs.

"Grandpa!" Sam shouted, nearly batting the stuffed rabbit from the old man's hands. What kind of rabbit had a face like that?!

"Couldn't sleep. Figured I'd show you my latest project for the widow Johnson."

The old man had a funny way of showing up whenever Sam was on the very edge, like he could read his mind and knew just when to strike.

"Maybe he's a vampire too," Sam muttered, sitting up in his bed with his hand still tucked under his shirt safely grasping his cross.

Grandpa Emerson gave Sam a funny look and lowered the stuffed rabbit, "come again?"

"Nothing. It's a nice rabbit, grandpa," Sam lied.

His grandpa smiled and nodded, admiring his work, "she's got a funny sense of humor. This one was an inside joke, between you and me." Without an invitation, he sat down at the foot of Sam's bed, forcing the boy to draw his knees up to make room.

"Is that it?" Sam asked. He slowly released his hand from his cross, realizing he probably looked pretty weird with his shirt half-up.

"What?" The old man looked between Sam and the rabbit, which he'd placed on his lap and began to stroke as if it were a beloved pet, "nah. Figured you was upset, seeing as you haven't said two words to me our your Ma since you got back from your friends' place. Worried about school tomorrow?"

"No," Sam replied, sullen, "I can deal with school."

Grandpa Emerson nodded, not taking his eyes off the rabbit. "Guess it's your brother then, huh?"

Sam remained silent. It was an answer, in its own way.

"Not surprised. Hey, why don't you follow me to the shop? I'll give you a lesson or two about what I do."

"No thanks, grandpa. I'm—" Sam couldn't think of a good excuse, "—allergic to sawdust."

"Good thing I use wood wool, then. I use borax to dry them, too. No worries about that." Grandpa Emerson gave Sam's knee a pat and stood up, "come on. I'll even let you have one of my root beers." He paused, "but the Oreos are off limits."

"It's a school night," Sam pointed out.

"I guess you've got a point there," the old man replied, nodding and scratching his chin thoughtfully. Just when Sam thought he had an out, his grandfather unexpectedly slapped his knee, "bus takes about twenty minutes longer than riding with me. You can sleep in a little longer. Problem solved."

"You're not gonna let me sleep, are you, grandpa?"

"Nope."

With that, Sam was reluctantly dragged from bed by a crazed old taxidermist he could only distantly believe he was actually related to. Maybe his mom was adopted, he hoped; if not, he prayed the weirdness wasn't hereditary.

To his utter shock, when they got to grandpa's work room, Lucy was waiting for both of them with a magazine and a cup of tea.

"Sam, sweety," she said with a soft but weak smile, "I think maybe it's time we talked. About everything."

Sam glanced back and forth between his grandfather and his mother, "uh–so no stuffing Bambi tonight?"

"We can figure out a way to do both if you like," the old man replied. He didn't sound like he was joking.


They flew through patchwork rooms packed with fragments of memories. A broken door here. A petrified frame every now and then. Piles of old clothes and bones. Some things may have been remnants of the hotel in its glory days, like an ornate iron bed frame wrapped with rotted lace and spiderwebs. Others spoke of wild parties or hunts. Michael could even swear he thought he glimpsed a living person huddled in a corner somewhere, shivering and half-starved. It was hard to tell.

They all flew too fast for him to process it all, and every time he tried to linger, David's hand would reach back towards him and urge him faster.

Always faster.

He didn't know if he could keep up.

They soon found themselves so deep within the heart of the hotel that the darkness hung about them as thick as water. To Michael's new supernatural senses, it was almost dim. He'd never been this deep before.

He heard water crashing against wet stone. Trickling down walls. Sliding through cracks.

They each settled to the ground on different rocks. There were no trappings of human life here. No patches of old wall or broken furniture. Stripped bare, it was only nature here. Cold and brutal. Just like them.

"Ready?" Dwayne asked the rest of them, prompting Paul to begin stripping off his shoes and socks.

Michael was sure he must have looked confused, because Marko was giving him this funny grin and David approached him from behind to grab his shoulder. The blonde had a funny way of always being close.

"C'mon," David gestured ahead towards a narrow passage between the walls. It looked almost too tight to slip through.

Paul was down to his acid washed jeans by now, skipping and hopping towards the passage with hands frantically working on his belt. Marko was soon to follow. Then Dwayne. Finally, David, who all the while faced Michael as he backed away towards the passage.

Words and questions danced away from him as Michael watched David strip off his coat and wrapped it up over an arm. He distantly recalled what he'd felt like when he first met them, David, Star…

David's easy smile twitched for just a moment, not quite faltering.

"Come with us, Michael," he urged, setting his coat on the ground and kicking off his boots. Michael sank into the easy energy he'd come to recognize between them all, now. He didn't know what was about to happen or where they were going, but he didn't need to. So Michael took off his jacket too, relenting to David's suggestion. Command?

Gloveless, David reached for Michael's hand and he took it, following him and his brothers through the crevice in the wall where the sound of water echoed the loudest. As strong as the sound of blood pumping through a dying heart.

In this passage, the darkness had finally become too strong for him to see anything. He trusted in his senses, the feel of David gripping his fingers, the laughter of Paul, Dwayne, and Marko echoing in his mind. He didn't have any sense of fear or nervousness when it almost seemed too tight to pass through the rocks, or his foot almost caught in one spot here and there. Several slow minutes passed of them making their way through whatever this place was, and then David disappeared into an empty void below.

Michael followed.

A cushion of crisp, salty air carried him down through a pit where he saw the others again. The darkness had edged away, and far below he saw dark ocean water lapping at rock and stone. It was just light enough now to see.

Dwayne was the first to plunge into the water, his black hair disappearing like a splash of ink in a glass. They all, in their turn, made their way down to follow him. It was cold. Freezing. If he were still human, Michael was sure it could have killed him in time; but he wasn't, and it didn't.

Maybe keeping their pants on wasn't the best idea, but it felt good to push his body to the edge. Michael enjoyed feeling the water bite at his skin, washing away any bits of blood still clinging in his hair or nails. He surfaced and brushed his hair back from his face, unsure how long he'd been below. It didn't matter much. Breathing wasn't necessary any more. He wondered how long they could stay down here in the icy black water.

"As long as we want," David interrupted his thoughts, drawing Michael's attention. The blonde was pressed back against one of the pit's rocky walls, grinning. He looked at home right now, teeth sharper than any natural predator that could possibly be lurking below them. The others hadn't come back up yet.

Michael drifted closer, sidling up against the wall beside him. He hadn't really intended to, but it was comfortable. Relaxing. Like the moment when his nightmares about coming back had clicked into the new rhythm of joining them on the beach instead of fighting them. He didn't understand that part of himself anymore. Nor did he want to.

They enjoyed the sound of the cave and the water meeting, for a time. Long enough for Michael to wonder where the others had gone. Were they coming back? He let his head rest against the wall and closed his eyes.

"I ate Star," David was the first to break the silence.

"What?" Michael asked, not sure he'd really heard him right, opening one eye to glance over at the blonde.

"She came back. I ate her."

"Is this a confession or an apology?"

David shrugged, "I'm not sorry."

Michael tipped his head back to stare towards the seemingly endless ceiling of the cave. He let his fingers glide over the water, enjoying the feel of it on his skin. He liked Star. Once. He wondered idly why it didn't seem to bother him much when David confessed.

"She wasn't one of us," David answered his thought for him.

"But she could have been. She almost was," Michael pointed out, "I wasn't one of you either."

David moved quickly, his hands gripping Michael's chin, face suddenly pressed so close the younger vampire could smell the smoke and iron on his breath.

"You are, " David whispered. His voice danced somewhere around the edge of panicked and predatory. Michael couldn't deny his surprise at the sudden gesture. There was an unsettling parallel now between tonight and when he'd almost…

"I am," Michael admitted, "yeah." They were close now. Michael felt one of David's legs pressing between his own, and for a nervous instant was grateful they'd kept their pants on after all. David had a supernatural talent for confusing him in so many ways, and tonight was no different.

"We should probably dry off," Michael suggested. All at once, David was on the other side of the pit, and one-by-one the others were finally coming back to the surface. Something in the pit of his stomach twisted, and for an instant he wondered what would have happened if he hadn't said anything at all.

The mood had died, and Michael wasn't even thinking about Star anymore.