The Midnight Family

Chapter 6

I awoke on my bed in Max's house, how did I end up here? Wasn't I with the boys last night? Who took me home? I rubbed my eyes and checked that sat on top of the nightstand, it read 6:29 PM. Wait, PM, as in late afternoon?! When did I sleep this late? I threw the covers off of me and raided my drawers for any type of clothing that would look good together. It ended up being a pair of faded jeans and a Rolling Stones shirt and my white Keds and practically ran out of the house, trying not to wake Max up from his sleeping.

Once I stepped outside my eyes started to burn. The sun almost set but it hurt my eyes. I covered my eyes and retreated into the house. I grabbed my black cat-eye sunglasses and repeated my way out the door, the glasses helping much more. I ran my walk to the boardwalk, dodging the people and getting stared at weirdly from passerby's, mostly older adults. I took brief notice about my throat burning but figured it was because the running and continued my trek to work.

The sun was down by the time I got there, but it had just been setting. I moved my glasses away from my eyes to the top of my head, pulling my hair back out of my eyes with it. When I entered, Maria was already there looking at me with knowing eyes. "What are you doing here? You don't work for an hour?"

She shrugged, "Max called in me." I rubbed the back of my head and gave a brief hello as I made my way to the counter. "Rough night?" She asked, ringing up a customer. I nodded, leaning against the counter and rubbing my eyes.

"I'm not too sure, but I think so. It's mostly a blur." I replied. She nodded and handed the customer their change, saying to have a good night as they walked out.

"Max wanted to talk to you, he's in his office." She stated. " Wait, Max is already here?" I asked.

"Yep, he got here a few minutes ago." I started walking to the back, wiping the sweat that formed on the way here and thought, 'I hope he isn't too mad. I don't even know what happened last night.'

I knocked as Max's office door and heard him say to come in. I sighed one last time and turned the knob, walking in he sat at his desk that was cluttered with papers, and some bills. He was shuffling through some of the said papers and eventually looked up.

"Ah, Cheyenne. Glad to see you could make it!" He said with absolutely no sarcasm in his words. I gave him a confused look and sat down. "If this is about being late it was a wei-" I was cut off by max holding a hand up.

"That's not what I wanted to talk to you about. I knew you'd be rather late this evening, that's why Maria was here already. I wanted to ask you about something else. How do you like Santa Carla?" I gave a sigh of relief and replied,

"I love it here. The people are strange, but everything is strange when you're a stranger, right?" He laughed and nodded his head.

"That's very true. Now let me ask you this, would you be heartbroken if you didn't work here anyway?" My eyes widened.

"You're firing me? Already? Did I do something?" Max's face faltered after my questions.

"No, no, no. I was wondering. You're young, you should be out there with your type of people." He explained. I let out a breath.

"I'm not letting you go, though, you're still welcome to stay with me. You are still practically my daughter after all. I'm sure you have questions about what happened last night and things you've never experienced have happened today." I furrowed my brows.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"...I'll have the boys explain it to you."

The revving of motorcycles took their usual place in front of Max's Video and the four boys sat there waiting. "That would be for you." Max said, nodding over to the door. I gave him a small smile as I made my way out. Passing Maria she gave me a nod and raised her eyebrows as I looked at her in confusion.

"There she is!" Paul and Marco exclaimed at the moment they saw me. I shook my head at them and laughed.

"Well don't be too excited." I stated. David gave a brief nod as a greeting and Dwayne motioned to the back of his bike and he got off of it. I took that as an invitation to ride with him and he gave a look of annoyance when Paul whistled when Dwayne helped me onto his ride. I stifled a laugh as I wrapped my arms around the black-haired male's torso and felt him loosen up a bit. David gave the signal and we were off. I wasn't able to actually enjoy the ride yesterday from fear of dying, but that wasn't a problem today. Instead of being terrified, I actually laughed with the rest of them, I actually trusted Dwyane not to kill us both. They took the same path the did yesterday, down the stairs to the beach, road, road, more road, and then the forest that kept the fog as it seemed to never leave the area. The sound of waves crashing against rocks signaled to me that we were almost there.

I made a mental note to keep away from the fourth step but never paused as we went down the death trap that they had as stairs. Marco lit the trash cans on fire for light as David sat in his wheelchair that I guess is his throne. Paul, Marco, and Dwayne walked over to the couches near David, but I was too busy looking around, taking note of any changes. There were none. I snapped out of my thoughts as Dwayne took my wrist and motioned towards the rest of the boys. Marco and Paul shared a couch while Dwayne and I sat on the other. I pulled my legs up closer to me and put my chin on my knees, looking over at David since he seemed to want to be saying something.

"So I'm sure Max talked to you?" The blonde leader asked, raising his eyebrows. I shrugged.

"Kind of, he said you four would explain it."

"Ha, he pussied out of it!" Paul stated as he and Marco laughed. I gave them a look of confusion, a look I've been doing a lot today and my gaze fell back onto the man in the wheelchair. David met my gaze and rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward.

"We're not normal." He stated. I gave a light laugh,

"Yeah, kind of realized."

"No I mean, we're not human. And neither are you." I leaned further into the couch.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, slightly scared. David paused for a moment and looked at Dwayne. Everyone was silent.

"We're vampires. And you're close to being one, you're a half-vampire." He explained. I shook my head,

"Vampires aren't real. There's no way. You're messing with me." My eyes probably said a different story.

"What time did you wake up today?" Breaking his silence, Dwayne asked. I looked over to him and his face was different than David's, but no the stoic looking one I'm used to seeing. "Around six-thirty? I don't see how that has anything to do with anything." I replied.

"Have you noticed your throat burning?" This time Marco asked.

"Well yes, but I did had run from Max's house to his store."

"What about the sun? Did it burn your eyes?" Paul added a question, pointing to my glasses.

"I slept for a while. The sun can do that." David shook his head and gave a small chuckle.

"C'mon, we need to show you something."

Everyone stood up and Dwayne held his hand out to me, his eyes seemed clouded, but I took it and he helped me up. He also never let go, not that I exactly minded. I was led back to the motorcycles and sat behind the man like when we came. We drove down areas of the forest until David signaled they found what they were looking for. The raven-haired man took my hand again and led me over to a tree, I heard him whisper a small "sorry" but before I could ask what he meant by that he was gone. "You're gonna want to see this." I heard Marco say before he disappeared too. "Climb the tree," David demanded as he and Paul went. Against all better judgment I had, I had climbed the stupid tree. I watch the four boys head over to a group of partiers that stood around a bonfire and most of them seemed intoxicated. They and the boys exchanged some words before they attacked. Screams ripped through the air, blood was sprayed everywhere, the partiers we running but were stopped by...monsters. I freaked out and my grip from the tree was released causing me to fall backward out of the tree and hit my head on a root that was making its way above the ground..

Smart move was all I could think before four faces were looking at me from above. I could barely recognize them, golden eyes, different facial features, and fangs. "Now you know what we are. And now you know what you are. You'll never grow old. And you'll never die. But you must feed." Was the last thing I heard before my vision blurred out.