TC Somewhere Near the End.

*
       “Are you hungry?” Shuylin interrupted those thoughts before they could even begin and Lawrence had to shake his head for a minute, rub at his eyes in gratitude, before he could finally look at her. He shook his head in absence, and she asked again, “Are you hungry?”
       Lawrence rolled that through his mind, suddenly so distracted by the simple question his uneasiness of a moment before was forgotten.
       “I don’t know—“ He started to answer and found himself swallowing the lump in his throat. “I— I think I’m hungry? But right now just thinking about it’s twisting my insides. Does that make any sense?”
       “But you are hungry?” She persisted.
       “I feel like I haven’t eaten in. . . days.” They both heard his stomach grumble.
       “Years, you meant to say.” Shuylin offered up with a smile
       “Yeah,”
       Suddenly their conversation had become comfortable, the air had cleared of whatever she had inadvertently called to his mind. She could feel that this was the Law of a few minutes before, the one, to her own surprise and horror, who had actually joked with her for a few minutes.
       “I know just the thing,” she told him. “Stop here for a minute.”
        She motioned toward the bright lights of gas station that they were at that moment passing, and Law had make quick u-turn, but not before glancing at the empty streets.
       “I’m gonna clean up,” he told her a moment later as she climbed from the cab, motioning toward the dried blood, not that she needed the example. She was nearly half as bad, and compared to Law it was still quite a lot. She pulled her hair up into a small, tight tail, the best she could do with her short hair, and tied it there. Rubbed at her face, brushed the dirt from her shirt and arms, looked down at her blood stained khaki’s, and walked very self-consciously toward the building.
       Lawrence watched her off, joking while she fiddled with her hair but gave it up without response. Once she had gone inside he pulled around to the side of the building, climbed from the cab, and peeled open the flat steel door marked Restrooms.
       The room wasn’t much more than he’d expected, four stone walls, six by six, a toilet, a sink, and a condom machine. A mirror, cracked from the upper left corner down to the lower right, made one side of his face higher than the other. He didn’t look all that bad he decided looking at his reflection. A little worse for wear, a little scratched up. Nothing hot water and a full nights sleep wouldn’t cure.
       Lawrence splashed on the cold, and after a few seconds, clear water, and then the hot, clear after few seconds more. There wasn’t much left to call a shirt, but he struggled it over his head anyway, pulled the cross and chain from around his neck and sat the both of them over the back of the toilet.
       The sink was semi-clean, the soap bar worn down to a curved nub he could fit in the palm of his hand. He cleaned his face and arms first, worked the lather over freshly strained muscles in his shoulders and down over several bloodied knuckles. Somehow he worked his hair beneath the faucet and lathered it with the strong smelling block.
       The soap burnt. A spot over his left ear was tender, the flesh broken but through some miracle not demanding stitches. A second cut was running just below the hairline above his left eye. The right side of his face was flat bruise, mostly over his cheek, that had already began to fade. The cut over his eye had hardly bled after he’d scoured it with soap, the spot over his ear had more.
       It wasn’t long before the sink was running with pink foam and his opinion had changed. He hadn’t escaped relatively unscathed after all. He hadn’t escaped relatively un-anything. Might’ve been better not to have cleaned up, he decided.
       He had to mat his hair dry, cleaning out the dispenser by the time he finished with his face. The rest of his body, whatever had happened or it had gone through, seemed to have escaped any kind of punishment and seemed if anything, better for the wear.
        The blood rinsed from his hands and face rather easily, hardly requiring scrubbing. After a few seconds under water the stain in his hair had vanished and didn’t return. The bleeding, there too, had stopped.
       He debated over his shirt, whether he should even bother with it or not, while he strapped the cross back over his neck. Running it beneath the water first then snapping the clasp tight over his neck and shortening the chain into a loose choker. The remainder hung in a loop down his back which chilled him for second where it touched. He did slip the shirt on, reluctant, but because it pulled attention away from his face.
       There were dark pits under his eyes that he didn’t remember, more worries on his brow, deeper frown lines about his mouth.  A rather haggard look about his whole face. His eyes were pale and ruddy, kind of lashed with a dull silver like the colored been worked to much. Or like it’d nearly gone out.
       They still sparkled though. If the life had faded it was returning now. And now he hoped, it leant him hope anyway. Hope that it was only sleep, all this stuff wearing on him. The last week of running and fighting particularly. Seeing all his friends die. . .
       He decided not to dwell on that. Rob in particular.
       Lastly he tied his hair out of his face. On second thought, he slid the chain over his neck and popped the clasp, dropping the cross below the hem of his shirt
       All in all he’d only spent about ten minutes in the bathroom he decided. But returning to the truck he found Shuylin still hadn’t returned. He could see her now, standing at the counter, chatting up the cashier.
       He tried a few stations on the radio and turned it back off.  A few minutes later she was walking back out. Ecstatic, smiling, she hopped up into the cab and slammed the door with a loud bang.
       She turned to Law and stared, fascinated, looking him up and down, and liking what she saw. For the first time she saw him as a man, instead of just some guy to bother. He definately looked better for the bath, other than a small cut at his temple you could hardly tell anything at all had happened.
       “What?” Law blurted at last, anxious and kind of feeling sick all of a sudden.
       “Nothing, nothing.”  She shook her head and looked away, quickly trying to hide her blush. “Your eyes are al silver and shiny. . .  You look better is all!” Not so much a lie there, she thought to herself, but sounded surprised. “Like you finally woke up. That bath did you good.”
       “Shocking what a little water will do isn’t it?”
       “Yeah I bet it was shocking.” she teased, pinching him and hopping back out before he could react. “Here,” she tossed him an over sized sweatshirt, “ be gentle with it huh, it’s almost the last of my money. I’m gonna go clean up.”
       “Ah crap!”
       “Oh, hah! I won’t be that long.” She left the door hanging open and was gone.

       Shuylin was half as bloody, and evidently cleaned up twice as quickly, because she was out before he had hardly noticed her missing. She’d gotten herself some baggy jeans from somewhere, rolled them up so the pinkish skin of her calves was exposed, and a coat, which she’d zipped partially over her shirt. Her hair was wet, and she’d let it hang. Her feet were bare, abandoning socks she wore her sandals open toe.
       Lawrence could see the line of a recent tan fading from bronze to pale white at her feet, the last faint trace of polish on her toenails, the thin cuts running over he knee’s. He didn’t need to ask what they’d come from, or the ones in the palms of her hands, he already knew. He’d seen the blood earlier, before Cam had recovered, and asked about it.  She’d explained, not so much delving into the details of the whole experience as skimming over the basics as they’d fought to keep the van running and on the road.
       He drew a sharp, involuntary, intake of breath and winced. Like his own, hidden under a layer of blood and dirt, they hadn’t looked so bad. But now he could see they had been deep, fairly serious cuts.  Several of the lines were bright and raw where she’d scrubbed them clean, dribbling blood. Probably because she’d had to dig the glass out as well, he thought, and tried not picture it. Failing miserably.
       At first he thought she’d rinsed the makeup from her face, how else could she have got all the blood off, but then he realized she hadn’t worn makeup, not that much anyway. There was a little line of freckles that ran across her nose now, the highlights over her eyes had disappeared, and her lips weren’t quite as dark.
       He found himself wondering just how old she was.
       “Come on,” she said, noticing that he was the one staring now, and blaming herself completely. She’d gotten herself into it this time, wherever this might lead, and she wasn’t sorry one bit so far. Anything to get keep that dead look out of his eyes.
        The smile never left her face and she seemed to be enjoying herself. “It’s just a little ways down the road.”
       Shuylin rushed him back out onto the road, making him think she might actually try to shift the truck herself if he didn’t move fast enough, and he found that a little of her excitement was beginning to transfer over to him.
       “A little farther to what?” he asked, catching a glance at his speedometer and letting the truck coast before he shifted it down a gear, producing a low steady rumble from the powerful v-8.
       “The college diet.” she said cryptically
       “Beer and cheetoes?” he laughed, noticing he had caught her off guard.
       “Oh, so you went to college? No, better,” she leaned close and whispered a provocative hiss into his ear, “Pizza!”
       “What’s pizza?” Law said, keeping a straight face long enough for her to delve over his answer. She looked confused, then surprised, then dismayed. Then at last, when he began to crack, sneaky.
       “Yikes! You are old!” she pretended horror. “Like, churned butter old.”
       “Like, pony express old”
       “Like, romans in the coliseum old.”
       They both enjoyed a good laugh, perhaps Lawrence more so than herself, and then Shuylin pointed out where he should stop. Surprisingly it wasn’t one of the huge chain franchises that spawn like rats, but rather, a small, personally owned place that sat on a narrow corner of the main drag. The corner being the narrow intersection of a one way alley which led to parking in back, and then to a slightly wider alley that seemed to stretch down the length of at least the entire block.
              Shuylin was out and moving before the bronco had even stopped rolling, and in another jest waited to open his door once he’d stopped the engine. He was immediately locked onto her arm and led like a stray toward the front of the building. She held the door, and once inside asked him to find a table, preferably a window seat, and went to order.
       He searched long and hard, being as the place was roughly he size of his living room, and settled on the best window seat in the house. One she was sure to love.
       When Shuylin arrived, she couldn’t help but smile as she sat. Staring out at the dumpster, and their bronco all alone beneath the burnt out bulb of a single light. The only light was a wash from the building itself, through the window, spilling outward across the wet walk and slushy lot in a yellowish glow.
       “Quaint.”
       “Well, you said a window seat, and this seemed to be the only one open, not to mention the best in the house!’
       Shuylin glanced around the nearly empty shop. Most of the patrons were teenagers hanging in the shadowed corners in groups of two or three. A few people sat alone, and the windows at the front seemed completely abandoned. “Your really starting to turn into a smart ass you know that?”
       “Rather be a—“ he smiled and started over, “ if only mom could hear you now. Using those big people words!”
       Shuylin had a good response, she knew she did, maybe a well placed smirk behind a raised digit, but right at that moment the waitress arrived. So she waited, smiling mysteriously toward Law as they moved stuff aside so there would be room for the meal. The waitress was young, and smiled a lot, particularly toward Lawrence, while looking at the same time like she would very much like to be off somewhere else.
       And Law smiled back, first at the waitress, and then at Shuylin, figuring her speechlessness and forced smile to mean that he had for the time being won the first round.
       Once their young connoisseur had left they both leaned forward, nearly at the same time, and breathed in the deep aroma of sauce and cheese.
       “Ahhh!” Lawrence couldn’t stop the compliment from slipping from his mouth. “Years.” he agreed again. To which Shuylin only smiled further.
       The waitress had left a slicer and Shuylin went to work dealing out the death of oversized slices. Law sat back, glancing at the shoddy decorations, street signs, stop lights, a disco ball, just to start with, that made this place what it was. It looked bad, corny to the extreme that someone should have shot the decorator, but in his eyes really kind of homy. It made him feel normal, and for the past few minutes he felt that that was exactly how he had been, and being here with a girl, even one who was only a friend, made it seem even more so.
       Shuylin was still smiling when she tossed the first steaming piece to the plate that had been set in front of him, and splattered sauce across the table and onto his pants, not flinching the least as it sprayed across his new shirt. Law jerked upright in surprise, letting out a yelp that drew stares from the staff and mostly teen age occupants, smacked his knee’s on the table, and sat back down, cursing softly.
       Shuylin decided it had been time for that smirk, but she also apologized.  Lawrence took the napkin she offered and scrubbed at the already cooling stain, proceeding only to spread it further. Finally he gave up, and almost threw the soiled paper at Shuylin, but instead sat it to the side, feeling a little less impressed than he had a moment before.
       “No, I really am sorry,” she said again, seeing the hurt look on his face. “Lawrence?” She leaned across the tabled and gently lifted his head upward from his chest, at which point his frown broke into a wild grin.
       “You son of a bitch!”  Shuylin whispered, taken by surprise. The tenderness was instantly gone from her voice.
       “Snappy comeback!”
       Lawrence dodged the light slap she aimed at the side of his face, at the same time managing to wrangle a piece of the pizza from the sizable heap on his plate at the same time. He smiled glumly, dodging a second, less accurate blow, and brought it to his lips.
       Hah...huh...huh..haaaa!” (Lawrence strained for air, wheezing past his half closed windpipe) he wheezed, straining for air, delivering a half choked hiss and was instantly bathed in sweat. He tried again. ‘Ha...hahaaa—”
       “Sorry,” Shuylin whispered guiltily, leaning over the table so no one wold here, and uttered one word. “Re— search.” she chimed
       “Garlic,” Lawrence dropped the useless slice of dough and toppings back to his plate and found a second napkin to wipe his hands.
       “Don’t worry, we’ll get another.”
        “Funny!, “ he said, very unamused and if anything a little upset and annoyed. He found the bread sticks, dipped one through the sauce and raised it carefully to his lips, nothing, he nibbled experimentally and tried to clear his throat with a sip of water.
       “And I saw that one. I could have died.”  
       Rather than answer Shuylin motioned to the waitress and asked to re-order, ignoring him for the moment
       “Why? Is there a problem?” she asked lamely, wiping her hands clean with her apron. A tag over her breast proclaimed her as “Becky” in a girlish tilt of letters surrounded by ink drawn flowers.
       “My vampire friend here’s allergic to garlic,” the girl shared a bemused look with Shuylin, who smiled, and continued. “Just give us one with everything minus the genus Allium.”
       Becky stared at her blankly,
       “Garlic,” Shuylin nipped, growing irritated, “Minus the garlic!”
       She shared a silent smile with Law as the teen turned her back and hurried away.
       “Doubtful,” she finally replied, wiping the scene from her mind and returning to their conversation. “I’ve only seen that happen in movies a couple of times. More likely there’d be some kind of allergic reaction. Numbness, swelling— huge, disgusting, disfiguring, boils. . .”  She smiled wickedly.
       “Ha. Ha.” Lawrence barked dryly, ‘I’ve seen my own fair share of vamp flicks, and lived my own fair share of drama’s. Garlic, is the most highly underrated means to our destruction.”
       “No, usually it’s holy water, I’ve heard it can literally melt the skin.” She too began to nipple absently at a bread stick, “Now crosses, there’s something that’s totally underrated. Just look at that huge gaudy old silver thing hanging around your neck—“
       ”No,” he interrupted her, “ the cross is the most highly overrated. (Give a little info here on why vampires are supposed to be afraid of the cross. It’s in stuff downloaded from the internet.) Do you see me writhing in agony, my head bursting into flames? The skin on my neck searing? Mucus dripping from my eyeballs— ”
       “Ah, but you have to have faith,” it was her turn to interrupt.
       “I have faith.” he said calmly, “I believe in god. Who else could be this cynical, to make me a vampire, and an elf? “ Law leaned close, whispering and Shuylin tried to slap his hands away from his ears but he stopped her, “No!” he said, immediately angering. “He couldn’t settle for one end of freekdom, so he decided to give me both.”
       “You starting to sound pretty cynical yourself!” Shuylin recovered enough from his light slap (or tap?) to respond. She tried to make it sound hypocritical, sensing the conversation was once more turning them back toward the dark, silent side of Lawrence.
       “There’s some old guy up there, with just a little too much time on his hands, and he’s bored.” he continued, unabated. “So yes, I have faith. I believe in god. And I know he’s mean, and spiteful, and hateful, and cruel, sitting on his throne up in heaven, just trying to figure out what way to screw me over next. And for absolutely no reason!” Lawrence’s voice had risen (into a higher pitched hiss, or it had risen unconciously) as he spoke and people had begun to stare, but at that moment their waitress had returned with a second, no less steaming platter and he was quieted.
       “Here you go, no garlic.” she spoke over the instant calm that had descended over the place. Several of the teenagers spoke in lowered voices, now obviously staring their way, and the cook was quite literally gawking from the kitchen. Law felt like flipping them off and maybe the look crossed his face because he could see Shuylin immediately began waving him off from the corner of his eye, looking anxiously like she was ill prepared to relinquish their uneaten meal. He blew all his frustration out in one hot breath and tried to calm down.
       The waitress slid the pizza across their tiny table with a little less poise than she had shown the first time, apparently anxious to be on her way away from these two loonies, Law thought to himself. Across the table Shuylin Smiled at him.
        Becky’s cold demeanor faltered, a professional smile blooming from the edges of her mouth. “You bill,” she said, turning to Lawrence as she handed Shuylin a thin slip of paper which she tore from a pad at her waist.
       “Cute ears,” She whispered sliding past Law. Flashing him the second, less professional and more real of the two smiles as she left. Oblivious to the dark stare hurled at her back.
       Lawrence blushed and Shuylin instantly turned upon him. He waited for the quick comeback or a snappy putdown. She started to say something, debated, and fell uncalmly (uncharacteristically?) silent.
       She didn’t care about the waitress, for the most part she’d just toss it from her mind, she just wanted to lighten the mood, to get it back to what it had been a few moments before, maybe to get Lawrence to lighten up some more. She was suddenly finding him interesting, young, for all the worry and distrust that mostly(always) covered his youthful face.
        “Does she even see me sitting here?” She joked instead,  smiling, and passed him a second slice which he looked doubtfully over at her. “Relax,” she calmed him and raised one had empathetically, “scouts honor.”
       “Naw, she probably thinks you’re my little sister,” Lawrence offered, not really feeling into it anymore but not wanting to let it die. For a minute there he had been enjoying himself.
       “Ha, ha, now who’s the funny one.”

       “I don’t hear them anymore.” I told Nadja uncertainly after several minutes, knowing she heard the question in my voice.
       “Listen Cam.” she answered, gripping my head gently between her warm palms. She smiled reassuringly and continued, “Not with your ears. They are not with us here in the van anymore. You have to listen with your mind. Listen to Pack.”
       “The dark spots?” I asked.
       “If that is what you see.”
       “No,” I answered hesitantly
       “What then?”
       “I see. . .” I felt like an idiot, “I see stars,” I answered, uncertain, to which she smiled even more deeply.
       “Stars are beautiful things Cam. Much more beautiful than darkness I think. Darkness is soft, and reassuring. It whispers and comforts, calms me. But sometimes it can be. . . dark.” She finished shyly, “ Light must feel much better. Like it is here.”
       I could see what she meant. Here had become the great ovalish shape of one of her lakes. Brought before us by much too short of a walk than it should have taken. Much shorter than my walk to find her.
        Ducks, geese, deer, fox, and fowl all coming seemingly in abandon and at random to water at our sides, as though not seeing, or not caring, that we were here. It was serene.  Sometime during our walk the sun had begun to rise. Flashing across the sky in an awkward movement that set it sinking below the eastern horizon after a blur of dizzying light. The ground all around us was once more dim in concealing light and shadows. Full of dusky reds and early yellow reflections. The waters surface before us had become a canvas of van Gogh, slashes of colors from where the sun lifted at the worlds edge, tossed thought the tree’s and fields, reflecting upward at us through the lines of natures paint. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Even the animals seemed affected by it. More than once I had watched a deer pause, caught in the visions of the water as though it were headlights, before drinking.
       Steam continued to rise, filling the valley in a veil of light mist. Keeping us warm in what might have been a cold morning. The water was warm, the warmest natural body of water I had ever touched, proven at the bidding of Nadja for me to drink after our walk. She to had tasted the clear blueness, but not before wading in to her waist and beckoning for me to do likewise. I had lightly refused, for no other reason than a slightly developing (slightly reced9ing phobia?) fear of water. Warm or otherwise. She had pouted, sadly if not a little disappointed, and after a quick dip had returned to my side.
       Since when we had listened. The voices growing clearer as I concentrated, until finally I might have been sitting right there, listening from the back seat, as well I was. For the first time Lawrence had seemed comfortable, open almost. And Shuylin had been her normal self, joking, poking, and perhaps unconsciously working not to injure Law’s feelings. More than once it seemed she might have inadvertently insulted him, to which each time one or the other had shrugged it off.
       At one point, in the beginning there had been something more, a picture, a face, and an insult, but it had been far off, an echo, as though someone had tossed it at them through the window. And it had faded before it had even began. Nadja heard nothing, but begged me not to dismiss it.
       At another I had heard the commanding voice of what could only have been a cop, and my heart skipped a beat. Surely it felt as though my body itself had leapt from it’s place of the floor in my sudden panic. I broke out in sweat, even here, and lost the voices. Nadja had slowly calmed me, assuring me Law was handling it very well, and by the time I heard them again, it was already over.
       Now, and for the past minutes there had been nothing. Nadja too had drawn a blank, but she assured me they were there only. . . they weren’t. If that made since. They were there, I could sense them, so could she, but neither of us could hear them.
       “Light Cam,” she urged me, and I closed my eyes despairingly.
       “Nothing,” I told her, feeling cold and hopeless in the warm air. Nothing except— for a second, I had stared out at the bronco. “Something. . . light” I said.
       “Listen to the light.”
       The light? The light doesn’t make noise, I thought of saying, but too late found myself in the dark. Wherever I had been vanished.
       “Good try.” she said
       “You saw?”
       “I did, through you.” she added as soon as the thought had entered my head. ‘Try more.”
       I closed my eyes a second time, thinking, willing myself to the truck from the back of my eyes and was rewarded, when I felt them open. I blinked upward uncertainly. The corners of my eyes stung from to much sleep and everything was a blur. The windows were wet and someone had turned off the heat. I made out the shady interior or the bronco, the black liner of the topper, the curve of the seat above my head, and realized I had willed (forced?) myself awake.
       “Shit.” I mumbled incoherently, the taste of something awful filling my sleep grogged mouth. Nadja stirred restlessly beside me, moaning in her sleep, rolling up against me, mumbling. Turning to her, fighting for every weighted inch a thought stabbed out at me.
       Cam! Her voice jumped at me, through my ear and into my mind while her lips did not move. Cam! She was worried, the anxiety rising in her distant voice as her body tossed more forcibly.
       My eyes closed once more, blessedly relieved of their fight and I exhaled sharply, immediately feeling myself begin to drift. I was shaking, being shook, could feel it here in my mind, and back where I lay, and in a moment realized that it was her. I was still there, and she wasn’t worried because I was gone, she was worried because I had dropped, dropped like a stone to the ground. The pain shot up my shoulder where I had struck the stone basin of the shore. Her knee dug annoyingly into my back where she had propped me upright. My own felt like it had cracked over a rock, but was propped so the pain wasn’t more than a throb. Some strong smelling plant was burning up my nostrils and my eyes blinked dazedly open.
       Above me she looked down worried and stroked my hair distractedly, immediately relieved when she saw my eyes open.
       “Wrong light.” she spoke quietly, with maybe the tiniest bit of humor. I nodded, agreeing.
       “No more light,”
       She smiled sweetly, and asked if I could stand. I assured her I’d try, albeit with the crippling pain of my knee still fresh in my mind I didn’t hold much credence.
       Together we could have struggled upright, alone she pulled me like a rag doll to my feet and held me there til I asked her to let go. I could stand, the knee wasn’t so bad after all. The miracles never ceased.
       “How did you get here!” she demanded, surprising me enough that I answered without thinking.
       “ I drifted. . . I— “
       ”No!” she stopped me with a quick hand to my lips. “Drift?”
       “I closed my eyes, and just. . . rested, I let myself float, I wanted to get here, to you. So I drifted.”
       “To me?”
       “Yes.”
       “Drift to Lawrence.”
       I shook my head, feeling the rattle that might be hiding there by now, but she would have none of it,
       “Yes, you drift to me, drift to Lawrence, Shuylin.”
       “I— “
       ”Close.” she put her fingers over my eyes and slid them shut. “Drift.”
       “I don’t want to— drift to far. Wren did something back at the hotel. You remember?”
       “Don’t drift too far.” she agreed, “Close your eyes”
       I did. I squeezed them tight, and after a moment felt her pressure release. I eased myself down, resting my back against the warm stone, the smooth surface curving with my spine, until I was comfortable. I sensed Shuylin sitting next to me. The wind blew a distracting hair across my face and immediately I needed to itch. Nadja beat me to it, rubbing the tip of my nose with one naturally manicured nail.
       “Drift,” she repeated.
        To which I reluctantly sank downward, easing my mind away from body without force. Quietly forgetting each sense of the where, wiping it clean. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the taste, and finally the touch. Until there was nothing but the lights and then the voices. And at last I allowed myself to drift.
       “Your. . .  

       . . . right,” Lawrence finally admitted after several minutes of silence, picking up his second piece. “Years.”
       “I told you!” Shuylin smiled, some of the cockiness seeping back into her voice.
       They both quieted, but not uncomfortably. Eating in silence for a bit they sat back and enjoyed their meal. For Law it was only one more thing to add to the gentle surreality of the night. Food, real food. A woman. All that was missing was dancing. He hadn’t danced in years, was probably a little rusty. All right. Really rusty. So no dancing was okay.
        How long, he only needed to start asking himself before he found the answer no more hidden than waiting just below the surface. A long, very long time. So long that thinking of it made him feel ancient.
       Shuylin, why for her on the other hand, he knew, this must be an every day experience. Guys, pizza, pepperoni with olives, bread sticks on the side, probably a quick stop at a party store to scam some beer with a fake I.D. The closest he had come to a normal meal in years was hard liquor, not beer, whiskey or bourbon, maybe a peppermint schnapps. Johnny Walker and Jack Daniels. Anything that burnt going down. His body seemed to have no faculties against discriminating as long as it was hot and wet.
       He made sure the amounts were little, not much and infrequent. God knew the last thing he  needed was a dependency to any substance, including blood. But some addictions couldn’t be beat, especially if you could die trying. And besides, blood didn’t make you a raving lunatic and you couldn’t drown your sorrows in it. If it did he would have been the happiest man on earth.
        Lawrence stared about blankly. Outward toward the dark lot, inward at the young pimply faces. Upward and downward, left and right. Gazing at the old and bizarre, the not quite right and the over the top trend of decorations. Seeking, with a confused, unspoken agreement, not to make eye contact. He was growing fidgety, tired. He felt worn down, like the energizer bunny must as soon as that damn camera got turned off. He probably just flopped right down on his flat battery pack ass, dropped his fuzzy pompom’s and called it a day. Law was ready to call it a day. He was ready to call it a week. Was the millennia open?
       God, he needed a drink.
       Shuylin sat quietly, thoughtfully brooding over the moment, the exact moment, this change had overcome Lawrence. Intentionally or unintentionally he was avoiding her gaze.
       He sat there now trying to pull his quiet, shy, sad serious routine.. His eye’s lost so deep in thought, so far down, so impenetrably deep he might not be here at all but in some other time and place. Some world beyond the here and now. She could only wonder what had changed him? What could scar, what could darken so bright a soul, what could have taken away his love for life, for a meaning beyond the moment?
        Leaning over him in the van,(was it the van or the room?) looking down at him, thinking he was dead. For some reason at that moment all of this had seemed an insanity. Everything. Why should they be hunted, why should they have to die? Every movie she had ever seen, every dark horror film, nothing could have made her hate vampires, except for this. Where was the romance, the love, the desire and lust of these creatures? All she could see was a dark greed, a hatred that was bred as deep as a festering wound. Where they really all monsters, blood hungry, hating and killing each other? Killing people like Cam and Lawrence and Nadja because they were all born with this disease rather than bitten.
       What would they think of her? What would they do to her if they found her? Why? That was the only question that needed answered, she had known, looking down at him. Why them? Why her, new, a lie, being thrown into this? Why any of us? Why Lawrence?
       Looking down at him she had felt sorrow, hopelessly lost and confused in this world, misplaced. And looking down at one bright spot, broken and bloody, fading, she had been so sad it had brought her to tears, filled her with an anger. Was that what the world was? A bloody, broken, merciless place?
        Why was right! Why did he have to die? She had cried silently, and her tears had fallen, and so had his own.
       They had connected. For one intense second, she was him. She could see him, taste him, feel him. Inside her and all about her. His blood was flowing through her, beating against her heart, pumping through her veins. His mind called to her, called for help, screaming and afraid at what had been left behind in the room.  But she couldn’t see. She had tried, but she couldn’t, she couldn’t see through the darkness that clouded her eyes. It was washing over and past her, coming into her, but it was unlike Wren. She welcomed him, felt his surprise, his shock and confusion at where he was. The unsteady beat of his heart quickening, rushing blood through his starved body, pulling her into him as well.
       The moment had passed. Leaving her empty and strangely alone. Burning yet cold with an unfilled void of yearning loneliness that she had been forced to turn aside.
       But that wasn’t the moment she had intended to dwell on. No, she was supposed to be thinking of the moment when she had first sensed him change, she corrected herself, when his mood had first lightened. The moment he had woken, truly awoken, and his reaction to the sun. He’d struggled toward the van, screaming like a banshee, wailing like his body was truly on fire. He’d fought to climb inside, realizing the sunlight shown directly through the interior and too stunned to think of closing the doors after he’d entered.
       Lawrence had thrown himself to the ground, rolling, screaming and swiping madly at the pavement as though trying to put out imaginary flames. Finally trying to pull himself beneath the vehicle.
       She’d been forced to throw herself on him. Somehow she’d held him still, wrapping her legs around him and pulling him over, pinning his arms above his head. He must have been weak, because he didn’t put up much of a fight to stop her.  
       “How old are you?” Lawrence broke through her thoughts.
        Shuylin reached past her empty crust as she mauled over the question blandly. She was astonished to see he had devoured three more pieces.
       “Sorry”, he said mistakenly, as she looked about lost.
       “No,” she answered him, “ I was drifting, what was it you asked?”
       “How old are you?”
       “Too young for you.”
       “Your grandmothers too young for me,” he answered..
       “Point taken,(too true)” She answered, oddly taken by his statement., “Are you really that old?” she asked.
       He nodded, “but you still haven’t answered my question.”
       “I’m seventeen.”
       Lawrence looked at her quizzically over the rim of his glass as he lifted it to take a sip. The cold cola splashed over his taste buds and forced an agreeable sigh from his lips. Honestly he was taken by surprise. She looked it, but being an exchange student some part of him had assumed she only looked young for her age.
       “They skipped me,” she went on, “A—lot. I started school two years late and they passed me through to second grade in six months. I finished second two months into the next year and third four months later. My parents got the bright idea trying to hook me on television might slow down my learning curve.” she smiled and continued in between bites. “It didn’t. I graduated high school to of my class when I was fifteen studying college level biology, trigonometry, American history, English, and drama.”
       “You sound like a résumé.”
       “Yeah, well it might as well be,” she said with a little distate, “After the original brush with geekdom my parents started loving it. Parties and bumper stickers, “my kids an A honor role bum, eat shit and die!” They’re probably still bragging to the neighbors. Or at least they will be til they find out I dropped all my classes.”
       “You dropped your classes?” Then it hit him. Of course she had. How in the hell could she run a life and run for her life? Even if she’d wanted to, even if she’d tried to keep some semblance of a real life teetering on the brink of the last few weeks she couldn’t have. He couldn’t have even pulled it off and he’d been working at it for... well, for a long time. Mikhail and the old school house had been the closest thing to a real home, and a real family than he’d had in years. He’d approached it all with the idea it would be short lived already in his mind. It was no surprise at all that it had ended. “Because of this?” he asked simply.
       “No, not all of it. Not at first anyway. Their scheme with the t.v worked. By the time I made it out of highschool I was so fed up with books and homework I couldn’t wait to get out of the house. I was hooked on horror movies, and a month after I got to America I switched all my classes for electives on drama and filming. American History X.” she mused.
       “And now you’re a freak.” Lawrence finished for her.
       “Exactly.” she said with a light mocking tone of voice. “And you?”
       “Oh, your right, I am too old for you. Jailbate.”
       “I’ll be eighteen tomorrow.” Shuylin leaned forward with a flirtatious batting of her eyes and blew him a kiss.
       “ I changed my mind. Your too old for me.” Lawrence grinned.
       “Seriously, How old are you?” she asked.
       “Yes Lawrence, how old are you?” They both jumped as a form appeared at Lawrence’s shoulder. Shuylin froze, her eyes growing wide as a deer caught in a headlight. Law turned calmly, ignoring the skip in his heartbeat as easily as he might have the missed the minute tick of a clock. He looked up at the figure of Wren, still clothed in Cam’s bloody shirt, one arm ripped nearly to the shoulder, dangling in rags, and tried not to act surprised.
        Staring out at them through his mane of sleep wrangled grayish black hair, silver eyes glinting, Wren tried to smile warmly (Wren tried vainly to produce a warm smile). His face was aching, his throat dry, shoulders cramping. The fresh nuisance in his arm was a steady throb that was beating at his brain and inciting more pain there. But for that, for all the world he would have sworn it was a hangover.
       “What happened to Cam’s?” he asked looking down at them, fighting through an evolving bout of double vision. The world teetered around him. His knee’s were beginning to shake and he clutched the edge of the table nonchalantly to steady himself. (Neither noticed.)
       “Change of plans.” It was Shuylin who answered. If she noticed this weakness she failed to respond. “We got lost,” she offered with a smile.
       “That might disappoint Cam, he was expecting to meet someone there tonight.”
       “Who?” Lawrence asked, his voice growing low and sour at this, above any other interruption.
       “Is that Pizza?” Wren asked, anxious to fill a steady rumble growing in his stomach.. He inhaled the strong odor, feeling it role across his tongue, caressing his taste buds. For the moment the pain in his gut weakened. It seemed nearly to vanish as this new toxin rose like a fog to envelop his senses.
       “Pizza?” Shuylin asked sourly, feigning confusion as though there were not a large deep dish scouring the table in front of them. He smiled lightly and accepted the ploy. “Rather uncharacteristic of you isn’t it?” she enquired, “You dodging a question?”
       “A friend,” Wren offered staring at her and twisting his jaw as he spoke so it hung open as though he were in shock. Realizing what he had done he straightened. Sarcasm? he wondered.
       “Who?”
       “Mind if I sit?” Wren pulled the chair from a table close by and slowly lowered himself before either could object. A few more seconds and he would have been sitting one way or the other. It took the world a moment to slowly settled around him. The interior of the restaurant growing shallow and dark like the ripples on a pond. Shuylin’s reaction to his invasion had briefly slipped his mind. Now it returned. With it, the recognition that Lawrence might well have already come to a similar conclusion about his own abduction. A little of the blur cleared from his mind, he slid to his chair to the left, placing himself an equal distance from either.
       Neither offered to serve so he retrieved his own, sniffing cautiously as Lawrence had, before nibbling absently at the slice.
       “Who?” Lawrence repeated with growing impatience.
       “Vin, she’s supposed to be at his home tonight and one more night. Before giving him, and the rest of you, up for dead.”
       “I don’t believe that.”
       “Oh, don’t believe it all you want.” he murmured softly, aggravated that the pain refused to leave, but trying to compose himself. Anger wouldn’t be a helpful factor at the moment, he knew, but the pain in his arm was nearly deadening to the point that it had become a solid burning sensation spreading up his arm. “I know how much both of you care for the pleasure of my company so I don’t hold you for your mistrust.” He breathed in a sharp breath, clutching at his arm. Much to his surprise Shuylin reached from her spot and slapped his hand away from the bloody cloth. He looked back a her in astonishment.
       “Leave it alone,” she warned.
       “Vin wouldn’t just give us up for dead.” Lawrence said.
       “Be that as it may,” Wren turned back to Lawrence, catching Shuylin with a perfunctory glance. “she will, because Cam told her too.”
       “So what! Just because Cam told her to do something doesn’t mean she’s gonna do it.” he shook his head incredulously. “I’ve known Vin for years. She’s not just gonna abandon us because Cam told her too. She’s not that kind of person. She’s gonna come looking.”
       “Perhaps you didn’t hear what I said. Cam told her too, and she’ll do it.” Wren said, his voice filled with a quiet assurance, but Lawrence still failed to become convinced.
       “Why? Why would she abandon all her friends because a guy she’s known a few weeks tells her to?”
       “Why do you think?”
       “I don’t know!”
       “Because Cam fed her.” everyone turned a curious stare to Shuylin.
       “It speaks.” Wren whispered whimsically.
       “Blow it out your ass!”
       “And what a mouth!” shocked surprise seeped from his lips.
       “Quiet,” Lawrence rumbled in a low growl. He turned his angry eyes to Shuylin. “How do you know that?” he demanded.
       “Isn’t it obvious?” she asked, caution written on her face. She could see the anger growing on Lawrence’s face. The wilting thought that somewhere there might still be someone they could count on looking. “He’s fed—  well, we’ve each fed off of him. Me, you and Nadja.” her voice softened as she tried to explain, “Vin was dying, and Cam couldn’t let her die if he could save her, so he did for her what he did for you and Nadja. He gave a piece of himself. His blood, to save you. A piece of his arm to save Nadja. I can guess at what he gave Vin.”
       “They didn’t have sex!” Law burst, nearly speechless and blushing. He shifted uncomfortably. The other two eyes in the room that hadn’t been looking directly at him had just turned his way.
       “No. Your right. They didn’t.” Shuylin followed his blush, and his stare out the window to the gloomy parking lot. There were people out there now. Two or three. One of the cooks, fresh off his shift, pulling the poofy white hat off his head so he could fit into the cramped interior of a red seventy something Camaro. A kid on his skateboard, way past curfew, was out there just hanging around. Maybe waiting for some of his buds, meeting up for a midnight robbing spree.  Htere might have been a few people out in the alley too. She couldn’t tell. The shadows were too deep. The wind through the tree’s making hem ripple. Seem almost alive.“Just blood.”
       Peering out at the dim light was disquieting.  Leg pumping anxiously beneath the table, (tapping) away and the plastic tiles, Lawrence felt disturbed, agitated. Frightened as hell.
        The yellow glow of cheap stained glass passing off through the dirty glass was scary as hell. Cheap horror film scary. This was the moment when all things would be revealed and suddenly, unexpectedly ,the Blob, the Wolfman, the Creature fro the Black lagoon and the aliens from mars would all come shattering through the glass. Ready to consume them. “Why? Why would he just tell her to leave us? How could he?”
       Wren smiled, a thin trace of his cocky ineptitude making it to his serious face, and held Shuylin off. “Because he cares,” he answered somberly, distaste peppering his mouth. Too bad. The pizza had tasted so good it might well have been a drug. Too bad.
       He dropped it half finished to the table. His face was a flat mask, not a hint of emotion showing. Beneath, the questions churned. “He cares for Vin enough not to want her hurt. He cared for the Indian enough to try and save him when he deserved to die. He cared enough for Warren to wish he could change what happened. For some strange reason he cares for all of you. He cares enough that even if it means he kills himself to get you out of this he will try. He’ll even try to save me. . .  even if it kills me.” he added as an afterthought.
       Shuylin mumbled something under her breath and Wren didn’t need to guess what. Glasses tinked and Law bent carefully forward, removing his drink from Wrens reach. The chatter of the room had descended once more but this was more than idle talk. People stared openly, a man had emerged from the kitchen and another stood talking quietly into a phone. Most of the teenagers had disappeared, the older folks staying on, obviously hoping to catch a juicy bit of gossip to share over breakfast the next morning.
       “I think we should go.” Wren suggested beginning to rise from the table. A hot rush of air brushed up his spine and into his skull. Before he knew it he was falling. An arm reached weakly for the table, and missing, slammed down on the corner instead, forcing a cry of anguish from his lips. The chair overturned beneath him, caught in his legs and spilled him into the aisle. The tremor in his vision returned, kicking up long enough to catch the floor that came to stare him in the face.
       Shuylin might have rushed to his side but for the face that turned to stare(the face that turned to stare, the eyes that turned to burn, as she rose) her in the eyes as she rose. Burning anger of his invasion flooded her and instead she looked down, overcome with triumph as she watched him falter. A smile might have made it to her lips except for at that moment she realized what it was she was doing. Silently she scolded herself. The least she could do was raise herself above him.
       Still she took her time reaching him, gently sliding out her chair and rising into the quiet din of the room. Conversation had quieted in the blink of an instant and returned to it’s fawning silence. The hot rush that had ascended to his skull spread like a flash fire across the rest of his body, burning down his back and legs and finally spreading even to his fingertips. The pain was nearly unbearable but he refused to cry out for a second time. The first had been a startle, that was all, he swore to himself, and quietly fought at what threatened to consume him.
       “Wren?” Shuylin pried at his arm, trying to drag it form where it clutched at his chest. His nails had drawn blood, staining the fabric in blossoming flowers of crimson at the red of his fingers. His jaw was clutched tight in pain and his eyes stared at her blankly. Deathly afraid she called Lawrence to her side anyway.
       “I can’t budge it,” her voice was a strained whisper as she fought his strength.
       “It’s his arm.” Lawrence pushed her to the side and grabbed roughly at his other arm.
       Wren had one fist wrapped in a death grip over the wound in Cam’s arm, squeezing in an attempt to cut off the circulation, the other cutting into his chest to distract him from the pain. His lungs screamed for air but he couldn’t breath. A heartbeat pounding like a caged animal leapt in his chest. The ache in his arm rose until he swore it intended to burst from the flesh. It rose, filling his ears as though something alive, something breathing, screaming so that he might hear.
       At last Law succeeded in prying his fingers apart wide enough for Shuylin to move his arm. Lawrence pinned the arm to the floor beneath his knee, worked at his belt and slid it free. Shuylin took it form him when she saw he couldn’t do it one handed, slid the belt back through it’s buckle, and cinched it tight over Wren’s arm. He rolled the tight body to it’s stomach, caught the other arm and lapped the belt around it also. The belt tied tight with a snap and the other arm was pinched firmly in the noose.
       “Grab his feet,” Law whistled through his laboring breath as he struggled to get the heavy shoulders free of the floor. Strangely you always think a body will be light until you try to lift. Together they more drug than carried his out the back. No one rose to stop them. Everyone stared. The door flipped shut behind them with a smack.
       Outside they struggled him up into the back of the truck. The tailgate hung open as he had left it and Shuylin had to climb inside to move Nadja while he held Wrens frozen form. He hadn’t moved since they’d pried his arm free hanging like a limp body in their arms as they pulled him from the interior out into the rain damp night. A chill wind blew, passing through Law’s shirt as though it didn’t exist. The clean material was already stained in the fresh blood and the dampness made it an even easier target to force a shudder from his body.
       Neither bothered to wonder what was happening now. The last few days were a blur of the strange, unexplained or in the least borderline crazy. The motel was still fresh in both their minds. The bizarre transformation of Cam to Wren and back. The invasion. The return. These were definitely not dreams. As far as both were concerned nothing needed explaining. They only needed to get out of here before the cops arrived.
       Wren suddenly grew like a dead weight in his arms and Law was forced to hobble awkwardly for a better grip. Finally he heaved Wren up in one great movement that settled him into his arms. With some of the pressure spread more evenly he inched toward the bronco and lifted Wren upward. Shuylin grabbed Wren’s shoulders and listened to his hiss of pain. The first noise he’d made since dropping to the floor. His cold steel eyes stared up at her.
       “You can put me down now.”
       Law jumped back but managed to hold on.
       Wren didn’t wait, “I can walk.” he said, wriggled from Law’s grasp. He fell as soon as he was free. His legs buckled beneath him and he dropped like a floundering fish to the wet pavement. Struggling awkwardly he reached for the truck. One hand found the bumper, fingers tightened, and he drug himself across the pavement in one smooth movement. His other hand found a perch and together his arms pulled him to his knee’s. He rested, winded, hanging over the rear of the truck.
       Law went to give him a hand up almost without thought. He reached out, careful of the wounded arm. The cool flesh touching his skin sent a shiver over his spine and he stepped back. Dead weight, he thought again, and shuddered without knowing why.
       Wren seemed not to notice. Unable to hold himself longer he slid back to the ground, propping his back against the truck.
       “I....I...” Staring up at them Wren tried some type of reaction and found the words stuck in his throat. “It wasn’t me.” He  mumbled at last. His eyes were quiet, lost in a place Law and Shuylin had never seen before and could only wonder at it’s vastness.  His confusion was so complete it left no choice to question.
       Experimentally he twisted his arm, extended a leg. He touched at the wounded arm almost absently. Like a man sensing something that wasn’t really there. The pain, the warmness, had vanished. Whatever it was had suddenly stopped. At some point the bindings had come loose and his hand slid easily beneath the loosely wrapped cloth. He was feeling along the torn skin, touching the scared flesh. Instantly he was jerking at the wrappings. A moment later puling the bloodstained rags away.
       Shuylin was already there, trying to slap his bloodied fingers away. Not as you would a child, purposefully picking at his scab. More like a sober man picking a fight with the town drunk.
       Lawrence moved forward to stop her, having already seen for himself what was beneath the bandage, but she stopped short, staring at the dried blood covering the spot where there should have been a piece of his arm absent. A pale pinkish scar in the shape of a ridged eye extended roughly five inches along the bottom of his arm, the size of the bite mark. The skin around it was smooth and hairless.
       “He—he did it himself”, Wren whispered, now so totally lost he was in awe. His body was still churning with a sickness but the weakness that had overwhelmed his had begun to fade. Slowly he fought to bring his feet beneath, gently rising, feeling the wind was over his refreshingly. Blowing his hair in a whirlwind across his face and drying the thin beads of sweat. His stomach tightened in knots and his arms shook uncontrollably from their grip on the floor of the truck but his legs supported him, and after a moment he could take his arms away. He hadn’t even noticed Shuylin, standing so close, looking so worried.(until now.)
        He held his arm up to the pale light circulating from the interior lamp. The last of the scar faded into pale white skin.