Michael flinched when he heard the screams echoing from the very heart of the hotel, bouncing through cracks and crevices, reaching and trailing into the lobby to beckon them forward as they arrived on the scene.

"You brought someone home? Why? Didn't Thorne go hunting tonight?" He glanced over at David, who'd already slung an arm around his shoulder and leaned forward with a smug grin. So, essentially, he looked the same as he always did. Self-satisfied and arrogant.

"Ah, see, that's the thing. That favor you owe me...Michael, you never play with your food. You never have any fun with it."

Michael frowned, "what do you mean? I chase them down all the time..."

"Sure, you do. But that's about it. You get your hands on them, you feed, and it's all over."

"What's your point?"

Chuckling, David flew into the air and signaled for Michael to follow him, "I want you to let go. Let everything go. You should have done this sooner, but I guess now I have to force your hand. So, you're going to give everyone a show tonight. And you're going to make it a good one."

She shouldn't have gone out alone tonight. She shouldn't have ignored her parents when they told her to stay away from the boys on the boardwalk. There were so many things Alex should and shouldn't have done. Most importantly, she should have believed all the stories she'd heard...and now it was too late. The turquoise mini dress she'd worn to bring out the green of her eyes was dirty and stained with mud, her polished nails chipped and scratched, cuticles bleeding from when she'd tried to dig fingers into the crumbling walls of the pit around her and gain purchase against a few rocks.

When she'd ridden with them to the bluffs, she'd somehow thought she was one of them. The mysterious group who people said never seemed to grow old...she'd wanted to be a part of that. Wanted to have stories told about her, people in awe and fear of her. At worst, she'd just thought they were punks with insanely good PR. But that was the problem. She'd only lived in Santa Carla for about a year. How could she have known? And now...now she was trapped...and they were all staring down at her with those terrible eyes, laughing and pelting her with pebbles whenever she tried to plead with them to let her go.

"Please! Please, just let me go! I don't want to die down here!"

"So how do you want to do this? You just want me to poke her a few times and say something scary?" Michael glanced around at the others. They were standing a good dozen feet away from the pit now, where the girl couldn't see them. Somehow, being left alone seemed to freak her out even more, because her screams were beginning to get so loud he wanted to just rip her tongue out and shove it down her throat to get her to shut up.

"No, you gotta make it good, Mikey," Paul insisted, reaching forward to yank at the earring in Michael's ear. "Make her think you're just like her, huh?"

"...That's not a bad idea," Dwayne agreed, and he looked almost flabbergasted that Paul had come up with it.

"I like it," David agreed.

"This is stupid. I don't see why I have to do this..." Michael sighed, shrugging off his jacket and plucking the earring from his ear. He tucked it into the pocket of his jeans and glanced back towards the pit. There was no way she'd believe he was a victim, just like her. If his own mother got scared when she looked at him, Michael seriously doubted this girl wouldn't lose her fucking mind.

Marko bit the thumb of his glove, snickering, "you could probably do something else for Davey inst-" Michael punched him in the shoulder, effectively cutting him off with a growl. Marko dropped his hand and snarled, "I was just trying to help!"

"I don't need your help, Marko," Michael spat back.

"Okay, girls, kiss and make up. We don't have all night," David drawled, rolling his eyes.

Star trailed towards the pit, peeking down to watch the girl below, who'd become so hysterical she'd taken off one of her pumps and was beating it against the wall, trying to embed holes into it to she could gain better purchase on the crumbling rock. "She's almost clever...I'll definitely give her that..."

"If she was clever, she wouldn't be here, would she?" David chuckled.

Alex was beginning to lose hope, when she tossed her broken heel to the side and tried to dig her fingers into the hole she'd made...could barely fit three in there. Not nearly enough to help her climb...she pressed her forehead up against the rock and sobbed. She was going to die here...and nobody would ever know what happened to her...all alone. In the dark...

"LET ME GO, YOU CRAZY BITCH!" A loud shout interrupted her whimpers and cries, causing her to jerk back and gaze upwards to the lip of the pit, where a guy struggled to keep his footing as the girl in that monstrous gang gripped his shirt collar and shoved him closer and closer to the edge.

"No!" Alex wailed, "don't kill him!"

And then...he was falling. Falling through the air...hurtling to the ground...and when he finally hit the ground with a sickening crack, she knew he was dead. No one could survive a fall like that...

Alex rubbed at the tears in her eyes and stumbled towards the body, falling to her knees and reaching towards his neck to dig two fingers against the surprisingly cold skin, too cold for a living person...or even someone freshly dead. She was sure of it. She didn't even feel a hint of a pulse.

"Hey...hey..." Alex whispered, gripping at his black t-shirt and trying to give him a few good shakes. Maybe she was wrong...god, she hoped she was wrong. She wasn't a doctor, maybe she hadn't even felt the right place for his pulse...or hadn't waited long enough to find it. Starving to death down here would be bad enough, but with a dead body to keep her company...she was sure she'd go mad long before she expired.

And then...oh god...oh god, his eyes were open. He was squinting up into the sparse light from the top of the pit, and then looking right at her.

"Are you...are you hurt?" She asked, nibbling at her bottom lip, voice cracked from all the screaming and crying. She was sure she looked like a monster, clothing shredded and her heavily applied make-up dripping down her face in sticky streaks.

He squeezed his eyes shut and took in a deep breath, arms moving towards his own chest, "yeah...yeah, I think I'm okay."

She almost laughed from relief, "here...let me help you up," she urged him, putting a hand behind his shoulder as he tried to heft himself into a sitting position. Wow...he was in better shape than he'd looked. Maybe the fall wasn't as bad as she'd thought. Her eyes darted up towards the top of the pit where the monstrous group had gathered again, faces twisted into nightmarish grimaces...eyes glowing like fire...

"How did you get here?" She asked, inspecting his face and frowning. Something seemed very off about him...maybe he'd been here longer. Maybe they'd kept him somewhere else, and just decided to save space by putting him in here with her now. That must be it. It was the only way she could explain why his face looked so hardened and cruel. Which meant they probably planned to draw this out for a very long time. That was okay, she decided. If she had someone to die with, someone to keep her company in the darkness, at least...at least she wouldn't be as scared. Who knows? Maybe they could figure out a way to escape together...

"He's not going to pull it off. She can already tell he's not normal," Dwayne remarked, watching the scene unfold beneath them.

"Is that a bet, Dwayne? I think he'll pass with flying colors. The denial is strong with this one," Paul replied, leaning into Star at his side and pinching at her rear. She jumped and glared at him, then back down at the pair in the pit below.

"She's going to be scared when he kills her. Isn't that the whole point?" Star rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, but where's the fun in a bet like that?" Marko nudged her shoulder, tossing his braids back over his shoulder, "you gotta make it interesting. Like me, for instance...I think they'll get a bit of nookie in before he seals the deal. That's what I'd do, anyway."

David flicked the ashes from a half-finished cigarette, tucking it between his lips and closing his eyes, "he does that and they're both dead. I seriously doubt Michael's nearly as hard up as you are, Marko. Hell, it's been long enough. Its about time he learned to really cut loose. Already would have if he'd actually killed that fishy twerp when he got the chance," he referred to the only member of Shane's gang Michael had almost offed before letting him run off and then playing his own disappearing act to boot.

"I don't know...it's all kinda hazy," Michael shrugged, leaning close to the girl for 'support.' She was nice enough. Dumb, but nice. Clean, too. Under that sticky sweet body spray she'd doused herself in, and the scent of mud and dirt, the blood pumping through her was strong and young. Since half of his diet the last couple of weeks had been junkies, he had to admit he didn't mind having a meal like her once in awhile. But...dragging it out...something about that still really bugged him. He'd just have to let that part go, like David said. Since he wasn't going back to see Lucy or Sam anymore, it didn't seem to make much sense to cling to that final scrap of humanity anyway. And frankly, it was beginning to exhaust him, too. Fighting what he was. Fighting what he really wanted to do.

"Don't worry, we're going to get out of this," she insisted, looking about at the pit around them. "We just have to wait for them to go away...they can't hang around forever. When they're gone, maybe I can climb on your shoulders, or...or I don't...I don't know, but we'll figure something out," she was babbling now, pulling away from him to snatch her broken heel up from the ground. "If we work together, maybe we can dig out some steps into the wall..."

Michael took the shoe from her and watched the girl stumble back to her project, almost frenzied as she scooped up her remaining pump to start to work again. Having someone else there with her seemed to give her a new burst of energy. He could hear it, the way her heart had begun to pump anew at a much faster rhythm. It was tantalizing...

"My name's Alex, by the way. I guess you probably got into the same kind of mess I did, huh?" She called over her shoulder, not realizing he'd already climbed to his feet, and was slowly drawing closer to her. He let the broken shoe fall to the ground the moment he was within a foot, so close he could hear the song of her blood crying out to him...he hadn't eaten tonight. He was in a bad mood. This was just what he needed, to forget.

"So, what's your name?" She asked him, when she felt a clawed hand suddenly dig into her shoulder. The girl stopped scratching at the hall with her shoe abruptly, eyes widening like a terrified dog. "...You..." She gasped, as he pulled her around and shoved the girl against the wall, fangs dripping with saliva.

"You're one of them!" She screeched, throwing her shoe ineffectively into his face and trying to kick and struggle in his grasp. He could end it now, but then there wouldn't be a 'show'. Then, he wouldn't be 'playing with his food'.

"Michael. You know, like the angel," he gave her a sardonic half-smile, leaning forward to sniff at her neck and lick along the skin, tasting fear and salt...

She whimpered, "why are you monsters doing this to me? What did I ever do to you?!"

He paused, as if in thought, pulling the girl close to his chest and forcing her to sink down to the ground with him while he drug jagged claws through her hair, just barely scraping at the scalp, "you didn't do anything. Most of them don't...but I've got an idea. Tell me a bedtime story. If it's good, we might just let you go. If not...well, I think you know what'll happen. He licked along her neck again, this time dragging his fangs across her skin just enough to draw a few droplets of blood. It was going to be hard to push back the hunger long enough for her to try and come up with some bullshit story...but that would be just long enough for the fear to pump through her veins and make the blood taste that much better.

So Michael finally let go. And when he was done...he didn't have one scrap of guilt left. David was right. He really should have done this a lot sooner...

Author's final note: Well. Hope you liked this last chapter. Don't forget to check out the newest story I've just started with Kagemirai, 'Lost Call'. It's going to be a little bit different from my usual fare, but still crazy. Maybe even crazier.