The Midnight Family

Chapter 9

So, Star wasn't exactly happy about being a vampire, well, half-vampire at least. Laddie was too young to understand what had happened but he never had as many urges as Star. Max said it was because he was younger, and his body was different than a fully grown adult. Star refused to feed, but she would grow weak soon. I couldn't blame her for that, if it weren't for my accident, I would have been hesitant to do it too. When we went out of the cave you could see the girl keep away from large crowds. The young boy, on the other hand, we refused to let him feed, it was immoral to keep Laddie as a ten-year-old forever, besides, Star didn't want him to either, so we decided to turn him fully vampire when he grew up. But he, unlike Star, grew to like the company of the four boys. Paul and Marco were like his cool older brothers, David was the strange brother who never really spoke to him, and Dwayne acted fatherly towards him. Paul and Marco joke how Dwayne and I are like Lad die's parents which I don't mind, and I don't think that Dwayne does either. I even think Laddie accepted us as his guardians.

Riding to the boardwalk was always interesting with the boys hollering, Laddie laughing, Star being the quiet one, and me watching Paul making sure he wasn't being too reckless with the young boy holding on behind him. We were quite the group. Upon arriving to the boardwalk Laddie was the first to jump off and rush over to Dwayne and I, he was bouncing up and down as Dwayne picked him up and placed him on his shoulders. I smiled at the two, watching them both smile at each other and then over at me.

"Can we go ride some rides?" Laddie asked.

"Maybe later little dude!" Paul replied, coming up next to us, David and Marco following, but David kept walking. Star stayed put by the motorcycles.

"Star." David said in a stern tone. Her eyes watched him for a moment and her feet started to move in our direction. I kept my eyes on her, letting her walk past me, and watching as she kept her distance between her and David.

She eventually stopped and waited for me, moving once again once I was next to her.

"What? Don't trust me?" I asked her in a joking tone. She sighed, "You let them do this to me." I threw my head back and laughed.

"Trust me if it were up to me you wouldn't be here right now. Not going to lie, you'd probably be dead." She looked at me, eyes wide before she started walking quicker. I let her go, never really wanting to have a conversation with her in the first place. Two arms got thrown over my shoulders, they could only belong to the wild blondes since Dwayne had his arms keeping Laddie steady and David was in my line of sight.

"What'd the chick say?" Paul asked, knowing full well what she had said. I shook my head,

"She still hates us. Shocking, really." Both boys laughed.

We settled for our usual spot near some railing. David was leaning against it with Star next to him, he didn't like her to stray far from him. Paul and Marco left to probably go flirt with some human girls, lead them away maybe. I looked over to Dwayne who was eyeing a bookstore nearby. "Go." I said to him. He gave me a strange look and I motioned over to the store.

"Go. I'll watch Laddie." The raven-haired male pulled Laddie from his shoulders and set him on the ground, kissed my head, and headed off. "Can we go do things now?" Laddie exclaimed. I laughed and ruffled his hand,

"Sure, bud." I looked over to David, 'We'll be back.' He gave a brief nod and I grabbed Laddies hand and dragged him, or well technically, he dragged me away.

We ended up riding a few rides that consisted of a roller coaster, merry-go-round, and some ride that span fast in a circle, nearly making the kid puke. Lucky for us he hadn't ate yet, but that was next on his agenda apparently. Running off with my hand in his, "Laddie! Slow down! The food isn't going anywhere anytime soon!" I yelled after him, but he kept running. He led me to the cotton candy stand that we went to when we first met him. He was still jumping around, dodging all the people who passed by and he pointed to the blue candy floss that he wanted, practically jumping up and down.

"It's been awhile since I've seen two others like me." I heard a male voice say behind Laddie and I. My first instinct was the pull the young boy behind me much to his shock of the fast movement. "Much less a mother and child." There stood a man around the age of early 20's. His heartbeat wasn't normal, he wasn't normal.

"Can I help you?" I asked with a cold voice. "Well someone is quite testy, aren't they? I'm just trying to make some friends." He said with a mocking tone.

I glared at him "Is there something you need?" I questioned.

"Actually, I was just shocked to find other...well...you know." He moved his hands between the two of us to motion the word "vampire". "I've been travelling for quite some time, no luck in finding others like us though. Kind of a shock to now there are some in Santa Carla." Was that really a shock? David said this placed crawled with weirdos. I took time to look at his clothes, black coat- with a cape might I add, black combat boots, tight dark blue pants, dark brown hair that was spiked up in the front and piercing green eyes. He looked like he walked out from a cliché vampire movie.

"Well it's great to meet you and all." I tried to hurry this little meeting up. "But we really should get going, and not because this is making me uncomfortable at all." I gave a fake smile, turned around and grabbed Laddie and disappeared into the crowd. David wouldn't like to know there's another vampire making themselves known around here, he claims "it's our turf", but he says that to the Surf Nazis too.

Lucky for me all the boys were back from their endeavors. I must have had a strange look on my face because even Paul seemed concerned.

"We need to talk when we get home." I stated as I let Laddie run over to Paul to tell him all about his night. Dwayne put an arm around me as I went next to him to lean against the railing. David had a look of questioning on his face, Paul was too busy with Laddie to do anything, Marco kept the same face as David and Dwayne had a face of concern.

"Whoa, not only were there her and the boy. There's a whole coven." That familiar voice spoke again. Shit.

"Or we'll do it now." I mumbled.

"Cheyenne, who's this?" David asked. I shrugged.

"I didn't catch his name. Can't say I exactly wanted to anyway." Marco chuckled at that statement.

"The name's Damien. The most notorious Creature of the Night." He struck a stupid pose and brought his "cape" up to cover his mouth and nose which made all of us look at him weirdly.

"Pretty sure that's Dracula, buddy." Paul butted it.

"Anyway," Damien ignored Paul and continued. "What's the plan tonight? Some epic action?" He asked. I gave Dwayne an annoyed look and shook my head.

"Not really."

The night went on with Damien never leaving our side. Hell, he asked so many questions I'm sure even Paul was willing to stake him right then and there. We were at the motorcycles when we decided enough was enough of the guy.

"Well, we could be leaving now." I said to him, his eyes flashed a certain way but disappeared as soon as it came.

"I'll see you guys later, right?" He asked.

"Don't count on it." I heard Dwayne mumble as I went over to Laddie and kneeled in front of him.

"You're riding with Dwayne tonight. Okay?" I told him. He smiled brightly and ran over to Dwayne. My mate gave me questioning look, 'I don't trust Count Dracula over there.' I thought to him. "Paul!" I shouted to the wild blonde. "Mind me riding with you?" He smirked and nodded, motioning towards his bike. Dwayne gave a low growl and a threatening glance to the Paul, probably giving him the same warning, I give when Laddie rides with him. I watched as Star got on David's bike, forgetting she was even here.

The motorcycles sounded and jolted forward, and I held tighter to Paul, not entirely trusting him with my life. He doesn't care about safety at all and that was apparent with his driving skills. Maybe I should have rode with Marco. Looking to my left I saw Dwayne and Laddie, Laddie was, as always, laughing and it was cute to see those two together, like a father and son. As soon as I saw the Hudson Bluff, I gripped tighter to Paul, he's normally the one to cut close to the cliff. "I swear to God Paul I will kill you if you get me killed." That only responded a laugh from the blonde as he cut close anyway and when I mean cut close, I mean maybe a few centimeters away from the edge of the cliff. "Paul, you little shit!" I yelled at him once we stopped and I was a safe distance from the edge. He laughed and threw an arm around me. "Aw come on Cheyenne! Loosen up!" He exclaimed.