And the Frogs finally make an appearance. This is the last part of this story. The sequel is titled 'Letting Go'.

Marko walked alongside Thorne on the sandy beach, hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. He felt pretty damn lonely right now, after all but being thrown out of the hotel while David had his fun. He sighed, pulling one of his hands out of a pocket to run it through his long hair.

Thorne barked up at him, whining.

"What, you got something to say?" Marko quirked an eyebrow, giving the Hellhound a subtle smirk, and kneeling to rub behind his ears.

"Do you miss Max, boy?" He asked, standing up again and continuing to walk. The crash of the waves licking at the shore gave him a shiver. It was a thrill to bathe in the salty water, if he could find the right standing pond. But if he was caught by the tide, he'd have welts all over his body afterwards. Running or moving water had that effect on vampires. He didn't really know why. But it was a hard-learned lesson after he'd first turned and tried to do a little body surfing against David and Max's advice.

His lips twitched at the memory of Paul doing the same damn thing. Dwayne was a bit smarter, though, and hung behind. They'd been turned on the same night...friends in life and death. They left the pack on the same night too...

"Fuck, man..." Marko kicked a shell and watched it sail through the air to land with a loud plunk in the water nearby. It really sucked, caring about others. Except for his 'brothers', he hadn't cared for anyone else in a long time. He'd never thought about losing them before...

Being undead...they all just seemed kind of indestructible. They were, in a way...until Michael's stupid little brother decided to play buddy buddy with those geeks at the comic shop.

"Hey...Thorne..." Marko knelt down again and pulled the dog into his arms, grinning as he leaned his face into Thorne's ears. "What do ya say we have a little bit of our own fun tonight, huh? Give the guys who helped kill Max a bit of a scare?"

Thorne growled, but it wasn't an aggressive one...it was quite agreeable.

Marko laughed, pulling away and sailing into the sky. "Think you can keep up?" He called down below, arms crossed as his legs dangled just a few feet shy over the Hellhound. Thorne playfully leapt to snap at Marko's heels.

"Alright!" Marko crowed, taking off. Those Frogs had taken his brothers, so...it only made sense to return the favor.

For the first time since he'd been staked below the heart, and felt himself falling to the ground at the bottom of the cave, stuck there until he was able to wake himself from daytime slumber to the agony of healing and hunger...Marko felt alive again.

But slowly he drew to a stop as a thought pierced his haze of blood lust and glee...they were probably stocked to the brim with crosses and shit at their little kiddy shop. When David and the others had gone in with guns blazing, that hadn't turned out too well for them...he'd have to think of a plan.

Marko crossed his arms, and felt a cold lump in the front pocket of his jacket. He raised an eyebrow and reached inside to pull out a lighter. His thumb twitched and struck the little flame into life, and he grinned. Who said revenge had to be subtle?

Sam listened to Edgar drone on and on over the phone line about Superman comics. Maybe he would have cared if his brother hadn't gone missing, or if the gruffer of the Frog brothers knew what the hell he was talking about. Everyone knew there was no such thing as pink kryptonite! And compared to Superman, Batman was a total wuss.

"Listen, Edgar, I wanna talk about Michael," Sam finally managed to jump into the conversation with something relevant to his own concerns.

"What about him? He...he turned back to normal and everything, didn't he? Cause if he killed someone, he's a bloodsucker for life, and you gotta stake him-"

"Edgar, shut up for a second, okay? Mikey was fine after the head vampire died. He turned back to normal and everything. He even told mom he was gonna go to the beach with Star this morning."

"Then what's the problem? Does he think Aquaman could take them on in a fight? Cause I can tell you right now, that makes your brother even dumber than a vampire."

"He went missing this morning. He didn't come home either, and I don't think he plans to. He didn't even tell his girlfriend where he was going," Sam sighed, leaning back against the headboard of his bed and glancing over at the Rob Lowe posted on his closet door. Why his brother thought it was funny to constantly sneak that thing back in here was beyond him.

"Well...he probably went to do some drugs and party. That's a pretty big deal around here." Edgar suggested this in a much more flippant manner than even Sam expected from him.

"Look, just...keep your eye out for him on the boardwalk, okay? Me and mom are gonna be real busy around the house until school starts, and we really need some extra help trying to find him. Promise me you'll do that for me."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Superman's dad is named Jor-El, not Jarrel." Sam hung up the phone abruptly after his satisfying final statement. Even if the guy did know a thing or two about vampires, he sure didn't know much about DC.

The next morning, Lucy and her dad had decided it would be a good idea to start discussing repairs to the house. She didn't have a job anymore, with her boss dead, so there were a lot of things to consider. Not matter how good her father was at his taxidermy work, it could only cover so many bills.

"Well, we can go to a few junkyards. A dump. I'm sure we'll find ourselves a good sink and tub that way, maybe even some old counter tops. Then there's the widow Johnson, always going on about renovating one of these days. Maybe I can offer some help, get her old stuff when I help her tear it out. Course, it's all gonna take time..." He reasoned, turning away from the fridge with a bottle of root beer in his hand.

"Dad, I'm sorry about all this," Lucy whispered, looking out towards the window.

"Lucy, baby, you don't have anything to be sorry about," her father crossed towards the kitchen table and practically slammed his bottle down.

"You've got a lot to deal with right now, and you sure as hell didn't ask for some vampire to stroll in here and destroy my house. You didn't ask for him to try and turn your kids into monsters, neither. I don't want to hear you say you're sorry again, you hear?" He chided, voice raised. Though his tone was full of agitation, it was concern that drove him.

He knelt down and took his daughter's hands into his, rubbing at her wrists gently in a soothing motion.

"Lucy, you're a strong woman. Now, you may not think you are. You cry, and boy do you ever cry...but lots of women do that. Lots of men do it too. But you try your best, and you don't give up. Michael will come back soon, I'm...hoping. In the meantime, I will always be here for you, because I'm your daddy."

She felt like a little girl again, hearing him say that word. 'Daddy'. The last time Lucy had called him that was before she snuck out of her bedroom window in high school to make the grave mistake of running off with her now ex-husband.

"Oh, dad," Lucy sobbed, leaning forward to embrace her father tightly.

He stroked her hair in turn and whispered soothing words to his only daughter, who'd been through enough garbage to last a lifetime. "Everything's gonna be okay, Lucy. I never much liked this kitchen anyway...and that bathroom needed a new tub. They both knew she wasn't crying about the house.

That morning, the Frog brothers found out from their parents that the shop had caught fire in the middle of the night. There seemed to be no logical cause, but maybe one of the customers had been smoking a cigarette, or someone outside had flicked one in and it hadn't really gotten going on a decent flame until Alan and Edgar had closed up for the night. Either way, they'd lost everything. So neither of them had much time to think about the promise Edgar had made to Sam.

Alan nudged a pile of charred wood with one of his feet before he and his brother were ushered away from the sight of their family's former livelihood. He just couldn't understand it. One night, and their whole lives were basically ruined.

"Edgar, Alan, come over here. Your father and I have something to tell you," Alan jerked toward the sound of his mother's voice. She was ringing her hands around the end of her rainbow neck scarf, and nervously biting her lip.

"What is it?" Edgar grouched, glaring still at the destroyed comic shop.

"It's going to take awhile to find out if our insurance is going to cover...any of this..." She squeaked, pressing a hand to her mouth to keep from sobbing. Their father stepped up behind her and placed a comforting arm around her shoulders. They were normally pretty laid-back, hardly even aware of their surroundings. But sometimes tragedy can be pretty damned sobering.

"If we can get enough money out of this, we're thinking about leaving Santa Carla," Their dad smiled weakly, trying to reassure them with his facial expression that it was a good idea.

Neither Alan nor Edgar could think of anything to say. At that moment, they finally let their tough guy acts drop, and they embraced their parents together. But at least they still had each other.

"This bites," Alan sighed into his mom's shoulder.

"You think we should charge them a bit more than we were thinking?" Edgar asked his brother conspiratorially. Somehow their parents missed it.

"Triple it." Alan replied quickly. Both of them wanted to stay and protect Santa Carla, since vampire hunting looked like it might very well be their only paying job now.