C H A P T E R  S E V E N T E E N

{A thorn in the side...or more like four}

The nights in Santa Carla were freezing. Enough to make you shiver down to your very bones. Teeth chatteringly cold. Mix that with being injured, mentally unstable to the point you didn't know what the hell was happening around you, and starving enough to eat anything available? It was a recipe for disaster.

It was this that didn't help Hesperia in understanding if she was happy to have gotten what she wanted. That being some version of freedom at the request of someone unknown to her.

It was a short, not so sweet, release from her own personal carnival of misery provided by her captors. For a little while, anyway...and it was nice.

Not good. Not great. Not fucking spectacular.

This rushed reprieve was just drearily nice. Nothing glamorous about it, no embellishment to it. Simple as that.

Because how could it be? How could she truly appreciate it when things were so bleak she just wanted her world to stop turning? To let it all crash and burn to nothing. Until all that remained were ashes of what had once been.

As it stood, though, even for all of its harsh weather and murderous reputation, a good thing Santa Carla coveted were its night skies. They were something to behold. Something she was grateful to get to experience when her normalcy now was wet dull stone and nothing much else.

It was refreshing to be in the embrace of nature, all crisp and clear air that was rejuvenating compared to the cold yet somehow stuffy temperatures in her new 'home', with cloud free skies where the stars glimmered and glowed and showed her she wasn't alone, shimmering with extra beauty when she felt particularly sad.

There it was again...they really did seem to glitter ever brighter with each solaced, morose exploration of their constellations she took in.

It was as she stood under that calming sky that, for the first time in what felt like years when in reality only being two days...or three? Timekeeping was not a main priority to her anymore–but it was then she felt like she could think. That was the main takeaway.

Nothing was left interfering with her consciousness, it was all her and though it was an oblivion of unforeseeably ending depressive ideas and musings going through her mind, the respite and release from David's gifts, from them all? It was liberating.

To a degree, of course, because her stained appreciation at being outside wasn't really able to be all that comforting or real. Even if she'd wanted it to be. It was sullied by two things:

One being that her brother was still trapped back in the cave now hidden below her as she stood at the bluff's edge, thinking quite dismally what it would be like and feel like if she just let herself topple over into the bone chattering, rock barbed depths of the seething sea below.

It was tempting, but she concluded such a horrific death would be too painful for her to bear even thinking about committing to and going through with. Things were already excruciating enough. Didn't she deserve a more dignifying end? The universe owed her that much for its recent cruelty against her.

The second problem and the worst of the mood ruining factor's not letting her enjoy herself. She wasn't alone, denied the independence and liberty she pined for.

The men who had hijacked her happiness and replaced it with mournful gloom waited on their bikes, allowing her a 'kindness', as Marko had so wrongly phrased it, in letting her admire the ocean one last time before she would be carted off to somewhere unknown, then dragged back kicking and screaming to the cave after their alluded to 'business' was finished.

Kindness. Fuck, what a joke. An outlandish notion to her now. A remarkable feat. Something that just...didn't exist in her world anymore. A common thing, basic human nature; harmoniously existent in most people.

Then again, these weren't people, were they? Not by any virtues or standards she had encountered and could hold them to.

Did the four ghoulish deviants even know such a thing as goodwill or the care to be decent and at least a little fucking nice that wasn't debased by their darkness?

...Had they ever?

"Times up." A voice enounced, self–assertive. Without any hint of benevolence or humanity, cutting through her peace and the calmative air: unforgiving and final like a serrated blade through butter.

No. They hadn't ever been kind, she concluded, because there was no tenderness. No understanding. Not even an ounce of charitable warmth to soothe her misery in that feathery, resonant, slight southern timbre...that voice which could convince even the holiest of souls to commit the darkest of deeds.

To accompany its harsh lilt, a hand seized her uninjured wrist with the same vicious energy to drag her around and force her to face her lecherous demons. It was David who was leering impassively upon her when she turned, and his eyes glinted for a fading instant at the defiance coloring the contours of her face with sallow hate.

His stubble dusting his slightly hollowed but full cheeks and his hair spiked to high heavens practically aglow under the beams of the pale full moon in all its glory–lightening the cloudless sky above them–was a glorious but stinging sight for her eyes and her mind.

How she despised his beauty that always tried to mellow her abhorrence. Even as he mocked her, even as he showed no remorse or sympathy for what they had done, what they would do...she wanted to just accept how much her heart demanded she surrender.

"We've established already that you're not changing my mind, sweetie." He told her when she, yielding no profit for it or any result, struggled and wriggled her arm in his grip. It was a sickening thing to admit, but he just wanted to be vindictive and see that admirable fight he enjoyed become listless and null. Smothered and made into nothing, all for his own amusement.

He just wanted her to give up. To accept them...to accept him.

"And we've also already established that you should fuck off," She said in rebellion, resenting him then for the reaction and the result she knew he desired his words would extricate from her. With the fakest, sweetest smile, she suggested, "So, maybe you should go ahead and do it?"

She was within the sights of a meltdown, on the precipice of having a conniption, grinding her teeth together to the point she made the sensitive nerves in them blaze pain through her mouth. But the pain caused by him that was flaring along her wrist was even more agonizing.

"No." He grinned. Big and wide and irritating enough to deserve a balled fist to the nose like Paul had gotten not even an hour ago. "Now, pick a rider and stop being cute."

"No," She copied his grin and his smug superiority. It was worth it to see and feel the fizzle of anger he exuded, a physical aura crackling in the air around him. "You're a crazy fucking prick if you think I'm going anywhere."

She thanked the stars he was holding her intact and injury free wrist, because her verbal barrage that was incoming would have undone all of their hard work of fixing it.

His glove actually made a noise of complaint as his grip tightened and now, Hesperia was getting unfixably aggravated to the point her tongue had a mind of its own, "Get the fuck off and leave me alone! As if I'm willingly gonna hop on your bike and go to some random place with you. I already made that mistake once. Never again." She spat out a scoff of pure venom at him and defied the treacherous organ in her chest forcing her to live; it was aflutter with delight at his close proximity. She was scandalized by herself and the thoughts that surely...couldn't be hers.

If her words had been physical poison, she would have burnt him to nothing but bone and haggard flesh and at her vitriol, that flash turned into an appreciative but annoyed beacon of glinting amber fire in his normally icy, snake–like eyes at her resistance.

"Ow!" She squealed in pain when he, flashing his teeth and fastening his locked fist on her wrist so flesh bruised and muscle squished horridly to bone–to the point she feared it would shatter into shards, pulled her away from the cliff and pushed her up against his bike. "David, ow!"

She stilled. Entirely. Frozen when he let her wrist go, only to loosely wrap his hand around her throat. She gulped, pulse thrumming away like mad as he tilted her face up, their noses brushing and his body trapping her to the bike.

He just stared after drinking her in at her pretty face so suddenly close, and for an odd pause in time she, too, was stupefied by his face...his stupidly handsome face and his possessive glare so near her. There was also the heady intoxication from the wrongly pleasant smell of his cologne mixed with the heavy scent of cigarettes.

His voice was low and lethal and he somehow got even closer–so close, in fact, that his lips could have touched her own, his hips digging into hers and squishing her to the metal of his bike, his eyes relentless in their peering into her wide ones. "You will pick, Hesperia. Now. Be thankful I'm even letting you do that over showing you a much less enjoyable form of travel."

She knew not what it could have been, this evasive way he was going to get her to wherever the hell they were going. But the way the boys–sans Dwayne, as usual–who were watching the show laughed and jeered in menacing anticipation...she was sure she'd rather not find out.

And then, half of her attention was allotted to them. Just out of the corner of her eyes, as she deliberated the choices that had brought her to this and the choices she was faced with now, she could see Paul hopping around like a mad thing on the seat of his bike, waving his hand in the air while practically screaming, "Me! Me!" He even went so far as to clasp his hands together in front of his face in false prayer, begging her with his expressive eyes.

Yeah, sure. As if she was going to willingly hop on that killing machine with him. She wanted to die, but not that fucking badly.

Suitably put off by him but amused when Marko kicked him in the side with a barked, "Shut the fuck up!" and while David continued to stare down at her with iron–willed firmness, bathing her in resolution, it was the motivation for her to make her selection.

"Dwayne." She said shortly as an answer, wiggling her face in his bruising grip. There was no hesitation. Not even for a second, it was an obvious choice to them all. A no brainer.

Dwayne was a smug git for it under his stoic charade. His choice of being diplomatic and neutral had paid dividends.

"I'll ride with Dwayne," She reiterated when David nearly tore her goddamn jaw off because of his displeasure over that, "Now let me the hell go and keep your hands to yourself." The next part was supposed to be under her breath...but he infuriated her, and it was worth it to see him balk like he'd been punched. "Fucking Billy Idol reject."

The terror twins, making everything a mockery, chorused some very disquieting laughter. They were in a riot over what she'd said, the enigmatic Paul swooning into Marko to disguise his honest disappointment at not being picked.

He was the one this time to nearly cause himself injury instead of the little cherub who caught him in his arms, all big smiles and loud, melodramatic shouts, "Oh! I just keep falling for you harder babe! Pipsqueak, pinch me so I know I'm not dreaming."

When Marko actually did, clamping the skin of Paul's exposed stomach through the mesh of his top between two knuckles, the wild rocker yowled like a cat and popped back up in his seat, rubbing the area with a confessedly adorable pout and wide eyes.

"Ow Dude! I wasn't being serious! Motherfucker."

"How am I supposed to know what's a joke or what's reality with you? You literally told me to do that, so fucking quit whining. Christ."

"I didn't think you were actually gonna try and rip my nipple off, you little sadist!"

"Dude, gross! I was nowhere near your man boobs!"

They continued bickering, but it was just background noise to her. She was suddenly affixed by their fearless leader. David's eyes...they were like the deepest, clearest pools of the most gorgeous arctic water and she felt like if she fell in and drowned in the fatal chill of them, she'd die somewhat happy.

Wait, no...she was mad at him...wasn't she?

She blinked, tore her gaze away with a struggle she'd never admit to, blinking rapidly once her eyes looked strenuously, as far as they could, down at the ground. Yes, she was furious with him. She despised him...

So why did that feel like a lie?

David, quite admirably when considering how loud his two friends were being, ignored them and his answering grin to her demands was tight and unpleasant when she took a glimpse of it through her lashes, wetted by tears from both the wind's sting and from distress.

"Fine. Ride with Dwayne. Go on, run along little mouse."

He released her both from his hold and the subtle lure he'd been trying to use to get her to change her mind. It hadn't worked for reasons impalpable to him and a little put out, he watched her, like her unappreciated nickname, scurry over to his dark haired brother with thinly concealed annoyance that she hadn't picked him.

He smoothly mounted his Triumph, revving the engine and forcing his face to remain stolid at the sight of her wrapping her arms around Dwayne's waist, her hands crossed over the bare flesh of his built torso.

A feat nearly impossible, he kept up the bluff of indifference to sequester the anger in him as he imagined what it would feel like to have her go to him as willingly as she did his brother, to have her arms wind around him, cozy and secure while she had that look of slight content he hadn't seen since she'd been with them.

He could have forced her to ride with him, could have forced an unnatural feeling of happiness over her: but then she'd just hate him even more, in the end. He didn't think he could take that.

"Let's go, boys." And with that quick utterance and a fake smirk to augment the feeling of being in control when he felt anything but, he was the first of them to gun it away from the bluff without even a spare look back at the woman driving him to madness.

"What do ya say we make this fun?" Marko challenged Paul with a scheming lip bite that had her flushing pink in a mixture of attraction to him and fear at the wayward look in his eyes, because when Paul grinned like the fucking Joker and when they both took a quick onceover of her, she felt like the doomed Harley Quinn about to be pushed into some horrible plot that would get her killed.

The cliff and what lay below it wasn't looking too unappealing now.

"Go on. I'm listening. Wow me, shortstack."

"First one there gets a whole night with Ria to bond. Alone. No interruptions." Throttling the unearthly sounding engine of his bike, Marko's limbs were restless and his muscles were jumping with uncontained excitement at his proposition he knew Paul couldn't turn down.

And he was right. The psychotic pothead clapped his hands, letting them fall to grip the handlebars as he pushed off the kickstand. "Oh, you sneaky little fucker. You're so on."

What the hell did Marko even mean by that?

Before she could make a move to protest that she didn't want whatever was on the cards for her, they howled and laughed into the night like the horrid creatures they were and reeled away in a cloud of dust through the fog, filling the quiet expanse of nothingness that stretched on for presumably miles with piercing screams of thrilled adrenaline.

It was just her and Dwayne and it was so peaceful now the rowdy blonds' annoying comments and loud voices were but a distant call on the wind. It certainly was a kindness to her ears to be bereft of their company.

Dwayne didn't turn to face her, didn't speak–but he wanted to. That was pretty fucking clear. She felt the seriousness in his taut muscles as he ruminated over something that remained an enigma to her; sensing the words stuck on the tip of his tongue with him just not knowing how to get them out, she watched his aggravatingly pretty hair and his wolf fang earring swing back and forth in the breeze as she waited.

Mere seconds later, after silence so suffocating she thought she could have actually choked on its thickness in the space around her, he spoke.

It was a murmur, hardly more than a whisper. He had packed it full of meaning that left her heartbroken but for once since they had taken her, comforted. "I'm sorry, Hesperia. For the way we have treated you and for what we're doing now. Take some comfort though, princess, in knowing there are reasons for this all–and that I'll do my best after tonight to make them treat you better. The way you deserve."

His voice...so rare to hear, the same infamy to it as the sighting of some mythical creature. It was pure molasses. Rich and deep and just reassuring, because unlike David's cold steel words sharp enough to cut and Paul's loud bursts of energy truly deafening to her ears–even Marko's deceitful sweet whispers that promised trickery–she found no underlying motive in it. It was just honest, not slicked with any hidden lie or horrific power trying to force her into a complacent lull.

It was all so bittersweet, because what she wanted more than his apology and the blanketed warmth that baritone wrapped her in was to grab her brother and to get the hell outta dodge. But as far as she knew, this was to be her fate now. For the foreseeable future. The fact he was bothering to even be kind to her like this, to apologize, it meant a lot to her when faced with that harsh truth that everything to befall her would be unapologetically done on the other three's parts.

Dwayne was still in her bad books, though. For all his 'chivalry' and his efforts of changing her view of them, he wasn't actually helping her the way she needed. However, it was a start and she was hardly going to spit on this miniscule development of a possible ally, this shaky olive branch teetering on snapping based on what she did next.

She could cuss him out, slap him, hit him, try to run away only to be realistically caught and unwantedly punished.

Or she could accept him–not her situation, not her fate, there was still cause in her to fight and flee at the best opportunity–but she could accept his kindness. For now.

So, she sucked up her pride and squeezed him around the waist as a show of her gratitude and rested her chin on his leather shrouded shoulder, closing her eyes against the building wind.

"Thank you, Dwayne."

It wasn't much. All she was willing to give him and he accepted that where the others would have pushed for more, knew to leave her be in her own mind to process this all.

With much more grace and control and delicacy for her sake, he was considerate and slow when he took off after his rowdy brothers, her tears and soft sobs not noticed in the harsh howling draughts and gales of the night as she buried her face into his back and tried to imagine it was all a dream.

There was a lot to appreciate–even when things were so up in the air and helter skelter–as they drove through Santa carla. The wind was hounding the delicate skin of her cheeks, the tops of her ears frozen to the point they were numb, and it was going straight through the flimsy barrier of her dress and her jacket that she was sick of wearing.

But still, she enjoyed it, even as they avoided the boardwalk and all of its vivacity, instead traveling to the rich and respectable part of the town she hadn't seen before.

Although, really, it was the man in front of her who was holding all of her attention in spite of Santa Carla's rare beauty. He was strong, and kind...compassionate, caring in all of his subtle ways she wouldn't have noticed if she wasn't the observant type; making sure she held on tight, asking over his shoulder if she was cold even though she was shivering–the obviousness of that against his stomach, her hands freezing. And he was driving so slowly they were sure to be late to wherever they were going. She had to appreciate his emphatic thoughts where the others lacked them.

If the unlikely phenomenon of favorites was to be picked, he'd be the shining star. The sole winner. Though, that wasn't saying much when her other options were all cretinous, evil men always up for a laugh at her misery. There wasn't much to contend with to come out on top.

All too soon, she could see the boys in the distance through the tears blinding her sight from the wind. They were up the dredge of the steep hill, and she cursed in her mind as her peace shattered into shards like the surface of a mirror.

"There he is! Big D himself! Where ya been, man?" Paul exploded when they pulled up in front of the largest house on the block, placed in a lonesome solitude, even when surrounded by other houses, at the top of a sort of cliff overlooking the ocean and beach. It was pretty and she envied the owner. Whoever that was.

The three boys were trying to occupy themselves as they stayed, sitting on their stationary bikes in front of the pristinely kept white gate. With a jolt of the key, the rumbling of the modified bike below her was cut short, and silence prevailed.

Paul sought to change that.

He was smoking one of his overly pungent joints, as usual, and his red rimmed eyes were looking with extravagant, staged suspicion between them both as Dwayne turned to her. He pointed a finger at them in a flourish, moving it from side to side, tutting. "Or should I say did you give her the D, my cheeky friend?" He cracked up and did his little wiggle to exacerbate things, eyes glinting and face slaked with sly respect, "Oh, you naughty boy."

Marko snorted from his space next to him where he lounged with his hips tilted back and his arms crossed over his chest, the taller mans just as evil co–conspirator, "Think that's why they were so long, Paul? Gotta say, I didn't see this coming. Thought you of all people, Dwaynie, were more respectable than such debauchery. Fuckin' on a bike under the moonlight? Now that's charming." He faked a posh yet God awful English accent and he and Paul dissolved into hysterical laughter, as always working together to cause chaos.

"I can just see it now," Paul puffed his chest to mirror the way Dwayne was louring daggers at him, his face so strained he looked constipated and Dwayne had stopped trying to get Hesperia off, thoroughly unimpressed as the two trouble makers mocked him. "She turns him down and storms off or something and our sad, stoic little muffin. He's so desperate for a good fuck at such a cocktease, at wanting to feel in control again that he starts wacking one out under th—"

"Boy's." David cut in when Hesperia's mouth dropped open. "You're traumatizing our poor sweet darlin'. That's enough."

She...couldn't actually believe what she was hearing right now. Were they all serious? Even David was joining in?

That reprimand from him was all it took. They stopped, but they weren't deterred if their mischievous little glances shared were an indicator–and David, he was no better. Serious to a point, but his smirk was the most genuine Hesperia had seen. It was almost a smile.

He had only stopped them for Dwayne's benefit, not hers like he'd tried to play up.

The burly and rigid fucking tank of a man in front of her looked half ready to pummel them so far into the ground they'd reach and perish in the Earths core. If he wasn't otherwise occupied trying to see if she was alright with a mumbled, 'you okay?' over his shoulder, she knew he'd have done it. Especially if she'd said she wasn't and Hesperia eyed the two little shits as he fussed her.

They were grinning...hungry sharks that had scented the blood of a weaker animal in the water when Dwayne tried his best not to rise to the goad or give them a response. Instead, he turned his back to them and offered his hand to her blushing self. She didn't pay attention as she took it. That was stolen by someone else.

David.

David who was impassive.

David who had just shown he had the ability to not look so angry and as if he had a stick constantly shoved up his ass.

David who was silently enjoying all of Dwayne's glowering misfortune, smoking away at his own cigarette not laced with what she would guess was the strongest, premium, A grade weed Paul could find from the best Santa Carla dealer if the smell was any nerve damaging clue.

There were four or five butts of spent cig's littered around David's dark boots, one of which was scraping against the gravel beneath it in an annoying periodical rhythm as his leg subtly twitched up and down. Hesperia wondered, even when finding the thought ridiculous and hard to digest and while still ignoring Paul who was yammering something to Marko about Dwayne doing something very unpleasant to her, if he was actually nervous?

No. no way. Not possible.

It didn't bear thinking about...because something bad enough to make David nervous had to be terrifying, had to be something she should count her lucky stars she hadn't encountered.

It looked like her luck, however, had run out.

Dwayne squeezed her small hand in his to get her to focus so she didn't trip as she dismounted, allowing an odd current of electricity to jolt through them that was only intensified when, in passing, they stared at one another. She didn't let this strange occurrence so similar to the feeling in her chest last and instead let him go, stepping away from them all to be closer to the gate. She pretended not to notice his sadness or her own as the electrifying sparks vanished.

Coming back to herself when the spell of awe from Dwayne's touch receded, she seemed to only just get what Paul and Marko had been insinuating fully.

And shit, she was fucking angry.

They kidnap her and now they want to be disgusting pigs and make sex jokes at her expense? Were they stuck in the fucking fourties, making such vile quips like that? They really were foul, loathsome men and she wasn't going to let them off scott free. Not now she could actually speak her mind again.

"Keep making your silly little jabs, Paul. Marko. It isn't going to change the fact that Dwayne is the only one I can fucking stand. The rest of you are disgusting and I wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole. Who knows what diseases I'd get." She snarled at them, only gracing the two stunned men with some side eye and her nose in the air while keeping her back to them all, facing the veritable jungle of the house's garden and inching closer to it to escape them.

"In fact, you know what you can do?" She smiled. Big, ridiculously big and suspiciously pleasant.

"What?" Marko cajoled, entertained by her finally speaking up for herself instead of being meek and sad. He was admittedly a cruel, sick man, and enjoyed her either way–but this particularly lit a fire of admiration in him.

Especially when her smile broadened to be absolutely wicked. "Choke on eachothers dicks."

They hollered with cackles when they overcame their bout of shock that she'd bothered to talk back, the typical glimmer of matching mirth in their eyes that was never missing.

"Damn, kitty's got claws tonight boys!" Paul wolf whistled, egged on when Marko copied him and knocked into his shoulder with his own in encouragement.

That just pushed the over–the–top rocker to take it a step even further when she kept her back to him but her head tilted so she could just about see him. He rubbed a hand along his stubbled chin as he lent his elbows on the handlebars of his bike, a dark malevolence suddenly tainted over him and his voice a serious octave lower. "You know, Ri–Ri, you didn't seem to find me so disgusting when you were kissing me back. I think you liked it really, baby. Hell, I certainly did."

"Well, see, that's good for you if assaulting a woman gets you excited, but you're mistaken when it comes to me. Was my attempted disfiguration of you too subtle a message that I find you repulsive?" She wondered sarcastically and he was still unbothered, shaking his head and pulling a long drag from his nearly spent joint.

"Nah, I thought it was pretty kinky, girly! You clearly just like me so much you were overwhelmed and didn't know how to properly show me you had the hots for me. Spur of the moment passion kinda thing. S'okay, I get it." His shoulders shook when he giggled and she could only gape, awestruck that he'd turned something so violating and telling of her dislike towards him into something convoluted like that. Her mouth couldn't be closed, her shocked horror when he licked his lips and winked at her wouldn't allow it. "I feel the same–I mean fuck, I'd let you fucking bite my dick off if it meant I got to touch you again."

What...he...what was wrong with him?

She was convinced after that, totally unchanging in her opinion. He was actually an escaped mental patient from some psychiatric hospital,

"You really are disgusting." She wrinkled her nose and scoffed, and yet her mind was still flashing back to him touching her. To the kiss they'd shared...and how she hated that what she was seeing and remembering didn't disgust her. Even the phantom recollection of his lips against hers made her stomach flutter and electricity fizzle through her nerves.

She just wanted to fucking die.

In real life, however, she made her voice thick with as much hostile hatred as she could manage, her heavy lidded eyes practical slits oozing scorn, lip curled aggressively. "Let's just agree you should keep on dreaming about that, loverboy."

"You got it, sugar...and what sweet dreams they'll be. Mm." He was trouble personified, humming and drooping his lethargic body from side to side, dancing to that unobservable wind that only looked to exist in his little world—and when he batted his lashes at her, all dreamy and sappy she didn't know whether to go and punch him or to keep trying to choke back her smile.

Christ. Did anything faze him? Ever?

"This is really scintillating to listen to, but let's table this discussion, hm?" David intoned, emotionless, knowing gaze honing over her shoulder onto the house before them rather than her for once. "We've got company."

Perfectly apt, their company appeared right as he uttered the last syllable–and the first of it was a massive, snarling, growling snow white husky that sprinted its way towards them before it was stopped by the gate. Its head banged against the pickets, splintering the wood with its spittle flying everywhere.

It was something straight out of a nightmare.

Hesperia burst out a piercing shriek of pure adrenaline filled terror, stumbling backwards past David's bike on her tensed legs that refused to unclench. After all, the dog wasn't stopping and she felt her blood turn to weighing cement in her veins, each muscle in her body locked and the key to release them thrown away in her torment. She was frozen as if she'd just encountered Medusa and was trapped under her spell.

Consequently, her lack of attention to her surroundings had her ending up in a pair of waiting arms that keenly slid to pull her flush to a toned chest.

"Easy. Easy, baby," A low voice soothed in a coo, their mouth grazing the shell of her ear. Leather covered hands did the same to try and steady her racing heart, rubbing up and down her arms drawn to her chest. The tone was too soft to belong to David and the leather wasn't all encompassing, the warmth of the person's fingertips a comfort on her goosebump ridden skin. That only left Marko.

He kissed her cheek with surprisingly silky lips and wrapped his arms tighter around her waist in a squeeze, his ringlets soft and grounding and actually sort of nice against the wind whipped skin of her face, his chin on her shoulder and his cheek pressed to her neck. He was as close as he could possibly get.

"He's harmless really, doll. He just doesn't like us all that much." He comforted, but it was a useless attempt.

"Y–yeah, sure. Harmless my sweet ass," She puffed out shallow breaths, blown eyes transfixed on the raging animals glinting teeth; she willingly cowered in the arms of a man she was supposed to despise, disturbed as the dog barked and howled and tried its best to get at the four boys who were grouped around her. They kept her in the middle of them all, suddenly on high alert. "That's Cujo 2.0 right there."

Paul giggled at her, an arm hung on her shoulder Marko wasn't using.

"Thorn! Enough!" An aged voice boomed, effectively quelling the dog. The night was still once more, chirping crickets and the call of some exotic birds much preferred to the vicious noises bellowing around them just seconds before.

The faithful hound scampered with sheepish embarrassment that was strangely human back up the pathway to a figure that was approaching. She was surprised and yet, a little sickened to find the newcomer was another man. A man who looked wholly unimpressed with the odd entourage on his drive, disrupting his once tranquil night.

It just had to be a man. She mused, dead eyed and a little defeated on the inside.

She'd had enough of those, but he was pretty non–threatening when placed in comparison to the group she was burdened with. His miss matched style and failed attempts at looking trendy...coupled with his big wire glasses...made him look a little like a nerdy teacher. A passed–middle–aged dork.

But Hesperia had learned the hard way of course, never to judge a book by its cover. If he knew these men, then something nefarious had to be lurking beneath the surface of that unassuming facade. Something evil.

"Evening, Max."

David was to her left and slightly in front of her as Dwayne was on her right–to stake his claim, to actually protect her from this stranger, the reason cryptically evaded knowing.

At 'Max's' arrival he abandoned his position and with cool ease he glided to the gate, paying no mind to the dog sitting dutifully at Max's heels. It growled as he closed in, a clear threat.

Her midnight clad demon stopped just shy of the fence. It was not out of courtesy that he had abstained from his advances. He was baiting the man, his smirk eerie and pestering on purpose: I can get in, but I'm just playing with you. He reeked of cocky assurance.

His head tilted back so he could ponder the clear inky sky dotted with stars, and it allowed her to see the same amount of mischief Paul and Marko possessed in that fraudulent expression of serenity. "Beautiful night, isn't it old friend?"

"It had been, yes." This supposed Max returned, already irate. For all of his gentle and kind appearance, he was fairly aggressive in face as he scanned them all. Upon spotting her, however, he brightened.

"Ah, and who is this pretty little lady?" The smile he gave her was supposed to charm her, she was sure. It only had the undesired effect of making her skin crawl and roused a hefty atmosphere of aggression from the men boxed around her. Marko nearly broke her back when his arms slid tighter around her, constricting her with the same strength as a steel press, squeezing the air from her lungs.

"Lighten the grip, dude. She's gonna pop." Paul winced, hearing the strangled gasp she released.

Marko apologized quietly and lessened the pressure so she could gulp in a relieving gush of air, but he didn't let her go.

"...Hesperia." Dwayne managed to disclose through his tight lipped mouth when she couldn't answer in her awkward, frozen state or for the more apparent cause–the pain ricocheting through her ribs.

Fuck, had he cracked one?

Dwayne's arm brushed against hers, a deliberate thing. It was for support, and he quirked a small smile so occasional and seldom to see to ease her.

The nerdy man waved a large hand invitingly, his stupidly puffed grey jacket making him appear hulking in size. Yes, there was nothing comforting about him. Not even for all the effort he put in to portray innocence. "Hesperia...the evening star. A rare name to encounter nowadays, how beautiful. Greek, is it not?"

Polite even when feeling so lost she could be and wanted to keep silent, she jerked her chin once. She didn't smile. He hadn't earned that. None of them had. "Yes. That's right, Sir."

"Such manners," He praised with an approving warmth to him and again, he swept his arm and bent his upper body in welcome, "Come closer, my dear. Fear not. He won't harm you."

Was he talking about the dog or David? She was uncertain. Both were just as savage as the other, both watching her every move with the same keen eyes. Regardless, she obeyed when Marko let her go, even when having no clue who the hell this dude was and why she was listening to him and not begging for his help.

Perhaps it was because she had a hunch that his intentions were not of the aiding kind. They couldn't be if he was associated with the likes of her kidnappers. There was an obvious forced kinship between them that didn't allow for her to let her guard down.

She blushed when, she the moon and they the tide that followed its every command, the rest of her unruly 'bodyguards' shadowed her as she walked cautiously towards the opposed pair silently facing off against one another. They were all plastered so closely to her that Marko was able to keep a hold of her elbow in case any sudden threats showed themselves, Paul kept a chunk of her long hair trapped between his thumb and forefinger and Dwayne, well, he pressed into her and nearly shoved her over.

She didn't voice how ridiculous she thought they were being. How their care was more a thorn in the side than something she admired.

The newcomer had invited her, so subsequently he'd invited them; but when David pushed the gate open as she reached his side, the man and dog alike both were bothered by it and the same as his canine companion, the man's heckles would be raised if he possessed any when they all stepped foot officially onto the grounds of his home.

"Let us not dilly dally," He hurried and said nothing more, turning and rushing back up the walkway. It was a rich neighborhood, the driveways of the large homes around his occupied by Bentleys and cars so expensive and modern she couldn't recognize them.

Perhaps he was embarrassed or worried to be seen with the punks by his neighbours?

Either way, his shifty nature was a little disquieting.

"...Dude is weird." Hesperia observed, meant to be more to herself while walking in step with David, but he laughed cooly at her astute awareness and Marko squeezed her arm, so close to her that the toes of his boots were treading on the heels of hers.

"Weird don't even begin to cut it, babydoll."

The stranger, or Max as he had proved David right by introducing himself when he'd welcomed them inside, had a lovely if not somewhat odd home full of anything and everything: Flashy neon signs of differing geometric designs, a painting of an art nouveau cow that was really freaky looking and had made Paul burst into laughter at her creeped out face and uttered words of 'its eyes are following me.'

There was a jukebox with dated songs as the choices like Sinatra, Crosby and Billie Holiday, and the furniture...animal print that was so hideous it hurt her eyes.

It was a bit strange when taking into account that the owner of this amalgamation was so pedestrian, but she was discovering that most things in Santa Carla were more on the abnormal side. Who was she to question such eclectic tastes?

And then, well, he'd divulged the reason as to why things were cooky and seemed to be pulled out of a portal of swirling, lost objects of time that he'd given a home. Max...boring, plain, benign Max was a vampire. A very old vampire–and, oh, he was her kidnappers sire. She hadn't been so relaxed at the sight of him then. She knew she was right to be so suspicious.

She was terrified at the prospect of being mentally tortured by yet another vampire...but unlike the ones she had been exposed to, he was kind. He'd scolded the boys at the sight of her lazily bandaged wrist that was throbbing with pain, he'd taken her aside to apologize for their behavior: 'boys will be boys' he'd said, but he'd been a rightful amount ashamed of the ones who were apparently his doing.

And now, he was even offering her the chance to use his very hightech shower. To give her some privacy and a true respite from them. She'd obviously jumped at the opportunity...with Dwayne just outside the door to ensure she couldn't escape, of course. That had been the catch.

So really, he wasn't any better than they were at heart. Just as warped, just as keen to not acknowledge how sick it all was. He knew what they'd done, he knew they'd taken her against her will–and still, he had said nothing about it or why they possibly had. She was beginning to wonder, or more likely understand, that this behavior for vampires was an everyday occurrence.

What Hesperia didn't know as she ran the shower and tried fruitlessly to open what she discovered to be a bolted window before resigning herself to just give up, that there was no way out and she may as well take the opportunity to get clean...was that Max was actually furious.

"What on Earth has possessed you to do this? That is an innocent child!" He squawked with a face like thunder, shaking and sneering with the same hatred as a beast that had crawled straight out of Hell down at David, his hands clenching the lapels of his son's coat in his balled fists.

David was pointing his own monstrous visage right back up at him as Max shook him, his amber eyes aglow with disgust at the hands touching him. "If you'd given me the chance to explain instead of immediately berating me and jumping on my case, you'd fucking know. Now let go."

Max eyed him with anger, debating his options. Yet, casting a fleeting look to Paul and Marko who were ready and waiting behind David to step in if he took his scolding any further forced him to make his choice.

It wouldn't be the first time they had done so, that they had defied his orders to stay out of it so they could defend their brother with loyalty they never bestowed upon him...and sometimes he detested them so fiercely that he cursed the Devil he'd ever created them.

David, always in control even when Max scrambled to feign his, didn't say his next command allowed. He wasn't a totally intolerable man, he still tried to preserve his sire's reputation. Even as he was being wrongly assaulted.

Let go, Max. I won't ask again. Don't make me do something you'll regret.

Max knew when he was bested, and slowly, he let David go from his throttling grasp. His son stepped back three paces calmly, dusting and smoothing the wrinkles in his coat, just a displeased click of his tongue showing how annoyed he really was.

"Why?" Max hissed, crinkling his prominent nose when David lit a cigarette and Paul fell onto his pristinely clean couch, all at once messing it out of shape. He pushed his bifocals up when they fell down his straight ridge, moved by his strong sneer of repulsion for their attitude.

Wasting no time to storm closer in a maelstrom of fury, he lifted a foot to nudge Paul's feet from being able to dirty his coffee table with the soles of his aged boots, ones that had seen better days. Crossing his arms with a tut thrown at the grinning and falsely innocent boy, he turned to David who was on the other side of his precious table. "Why have you kidnapped that poor girl?"

"We thought you'd be happy, daddio!" Paul giggled instead as an answer, flipping through an addition of 'Everybody's' magazine that had to be at least thirty or fourty years old, tearing the glossy pages with his clunky rings.

Max resisted the urge to face palm.

He snatched it from his idiotic son, ignoring his cried protests so he could put it back where it belonged. When he stood straight, his hands were borne imposingly on his hips to try and induce some sort of respect from his boys.

He sputtered, Paul's logic insane. "Wha—why did you think I'd be happy with this appalling development, Paul?"

"Well, haven't you always droned on and on and on and on about how you've wanted a daughter?" Marko responded in their youngests place from his position behind the couch, gnawing his teeth at the tattered leather of his glove while observing all the gaudy art decorating the crimson walls with a critical and unimpressed eye. He winked at his sire when he peeked over his shoulder. "Consider this us fulfilling the brief–and damn, such a pretty one, too. You should be happy."

"Stop deliberately avoiding the question!" He all but yelled at them when they chortled gratingly in sync, a pair of scheming vultures swooping in to feast upon the carcass that was his endurance for them.

Near beside himself already after only five minutes of them, he turned to David, his eldest and most respected son simply watching their theatrics with detachment. "David, answer me. You've never done something so foolish before. You're too calculated. Something is afoot here and I demand to know what it is! Who is she?"

His son avoided the question, a far away look of nostalgia falling to command his mind and relax his appearance as he reflected on a time Max wished to forget. "You remember, about thirty years ago now, when we were at our worst? Constant murder spree's, carelesness, mangled bodies, the poilce on our backs. It drove you fucking mad."

Yes, Max recalled that little blip perfectly well. They'd been unmanageable, especially with the final addition of Paul to their ranks. He had been with them only for a short time in vampiric terms back then, and in his wild behavior and will not to listen he had driven them to act the same. Even the experienced David had been uncharacteristically rambunctious. They'd killed and maimed without a thought of the lives they ruined or the consequences to follow. Sometimes, whole towns had paid the price for his need for companionship.

"Vaguely." He responded in a flat voice. If it was a reaction they coveted, then one they were not going to get.

"'Vaguely,'" David parroted, shaking his head with a cunning twist of satisfaction on his lips as he took a long drag from his cigarette, pleased when Max grimaced at the ash that fell to stain his cream carpet.

David paced idly around the table, still looking into the past. "Well, you weren't so disinterested then. Practically purple in the face by the fourth town, screaming and raving about how you should just kill us all to 'rid the world of such evil'. I'd been convinced, for a moment, that you were really going to."

He pulled a face of wicked disbelief at the memory he was reliving–the thought Max would do it almost an atrocity to consider–passing his silent sire to drop down next to Paul on the zebra printed abomination; leaning back with an arm spread on the couches back, he passed the cancer stick to his eager brother.

He looked up at the man who'd created him. Eyes glinting. A nasty shine of burning malice Max could feel crawling under his skin. "Then, you went all quiet. Much like you have now...and, you know, I'll admit, when you got that scheming little look in your eye you truly made me shiver. You'd only ever been weak, complacent, a fucking pushover I had no issue walking all over, but not then. For the first time, I was actually scared of you, because you told us something that gave us such hope. Something that made us sick with intrigue. What was it, Max? What did you say that made us finally quit being such little shits? What made us fall in line?"

Max had to rack his brain for a hot minute.

Even as a vampire, old age still caused memory issues. Often, he struggled to recall anything past what was important and what was occurring in the present. He'd lived such a long time that things tended to blend together.

But he remembered the night he vowed he was done with them.

Summer.

1966.

Paul had been young, for a vampire then. Only just over his fortieth year. The craving for blood and the call to engage in the sinful pleasures the undead provided was always strong then, but his other boys. They had years where his youngest son didn't. Years that were supposed to make them more controlled, stronger. Strong enough to avoid and ignore the behest and buzz for slaughter so commonplace in young vampires...years and experience he had hoped they'd use to rein Paul in.

Classically, though, Paul had been a terrible influence. That hadn't changed, even now. Their bond only worsened it for his more controlled boys. True brothers, drawn to be together. Drawn to cause chaos. After all, it was David who had convinced Max to turn the charismatic and disaster bound boy.

He'd had to uproot their lives so much back then that they'd only been settled in Darby...a near deserted, hole of a place in Montana that they'd hated, for less than a week before his sons had spoiled it. When he had found them at an abandoned factory on the town's edge, renoundly kept away from by the locals because of rumors of hauntings that were actually his boys wreaking havoc, they'd been drinking and smoking and were surrounded by the mutilated corpses of around sixty people.

Paul and Marko had even been playing a twisted version of volleyball with a woman's head.

That had been it. He'd utterly ripped into them verbally before he destroyed them, revealing something he knew, from experience, they wouldn't be able to pass from their mind as easily as it was to kill.

It had worked, for some time. Even now, they were different, picky, careful with who they killed. Careful to avoid past mistakes. Careful to not get under his skin.

He'd gotten what he wanted, but that insatiable appetite for destruction and fun had remained...and there were times–even here, in Santa Carla–he was powerless to stop them.

He sighed, shoulders sagging, repeating what he had done to try and ruin them. "I told you, there was someone out there who eventually would bring your fun and your easy little lives to a halt."

"That's right." David nodded, a dark shadow slipping over his blank guise of aloofness. He remembered that well. It had changed their lives, dulled their fun and made them face reality again instead of the blood and murder filled euphoria. "What else?" He pushed, unemotional until the end.

"That this person was made to make you stronger, but also to placate you. To temper and make you learn to control the beast within. You thought I was lying."

"Well, duh–doy." Paul guffawed, twisting the spiked bracelet on his right wrist. He was bored, as evidenced by his stuttering leg jerking up and down. He'd never been good at long conversations. He didn't have the ability to sit still for long, his mind too active and bubbly and ripe with manic floods of thoughts.

Besides, he'd had too fucking much of etiquette and decorum in his mortal years. Being a vampire was supposed to be nothing but fun. Nothing but sex, drugs and misbehaving with no consequences.

He sighed out a cloud of smoke, thumping his head back against the couch cushions, a petulant pout on his lips that squished the butt of the cigarette. "We thought you were just trying to spook us, old timer. Wouldn't be the first time, huh?"

"Mhm," Marko nodded as he grew bored of his perusing of Max's trinkets, skipping to lean his torso and arms on the back of the couch to be in between David and Paul's heads, blinking up at Max with sweetness and the trickery of convincing that he possessed a pure soul. Max shivered at the treacherous deceit of Marko's entire persona. "You were spouting some shit about 'soulmates' and 'destiny' and honestly? I thought you'd finally lost the plot. Took a visit to loony town and set up permanent residence."

Paul snickered, bobbing his head and mane of out-of-control hair in agreement, speaking up in a voice a little too loud in the quiet home. Max withheld the desire to bark at him to be quiet.

"It's not like it changed anything all that much in the end. We still relished in the kill, still destroyed all in our wake, still partied until dawn, still defied you at any chance, but man was it hard not to be distracted from all of that with what you'd dumped on us! I mean, it sounded pretty sweet to me. A total babe, meant to be with me forever? Someone that it was nearly impossible to grow tired of? Who was meant to accept me and love me and be what I am?" He whistled, cocking his head as he occupied his boredom by pulling one of Marko's curls pin straight, watching it bounce back. He cut a look up at max, shrugging a shoulder. "Gotta be honest, sounded too good to be true."

"But," David dragged out, smirking sardonically, and ever the showman he spread his arms wide, "What do you know? Turns out you were right, old man." His ill–intended smirk was weighed impossibly with more sinister happiness when Max's hands dropped from their not–so–intimidating position on his hips, eyes wide and mouth agape.

"You mean to tell me that..." Involuntary, he took a glimpse down the hall where he could still hear the shower running, where he could hear the pretty little lark they'd dragged along humming a haunting tune. A melancholy song of woe he hadn't heard before.

When he turned back to them he was so spooked it was like he'd seen a ghost. His glasses were askew, but he wasn't focusing on that. For the first time in centuries he felt sick. He felt his long shriveled heart bleed sadness for another. "Oh...oh no. That poor girl."

"Awww," Paul pouted, wiping away a fake tear with a sad little frown that Max wouldn't come to know was, in some parts, genuine. He thought it was all an act and doubted they could even feel sadness anymore. "There's just no pleasin' you, huh? Ain't you happy for us, Maxi pad? You've finally got yourself a daughter in law! And a beautiful one, at that."

"Yeah," Marko, huffy and easily riled, rose to fold his arms loftily, a glare beset over his brows. Now, his anger Max had no qualms to believe. Marko had always been a hothead. "We thought you'd be ecstatic for us, dad."

"Are you all insane?" The ancient vampire bristled. "Why would I feel any joy when that doomed child is shackled to the likes of you for the rest of eternity?!"

"Ouch." David blew a sharp breath through his teeth, touching a black bound hand over the resting place of the heart he very much didn't possess anymore. All that was left was an odious pit, full of nothing but foul things. Max glowered as he, half assed, suppressed his menacing laugh leaking into his offended remark, "That stung, Max. Honestly. I'm at a loss as to why you aren't pleased. Isn't this what you've wanted for so long?"

"What do you mean?" Max's growl couldn't be helped, he was starting to be a victim to his own impertinence. He had no idea why David loved to play the games he did; to toy with others minds and to drive them mad.

But that very man knew the simplest way to do that with Max was to keep his cards close to his chest, to drag out the point for as long as possible and his sire was nearly insensate for it.

David was secretly thrilled at the effect he had to annoy him.

He relented, in the end. This was an opportunity, as much as he despised the man, to gain a new vantage point. To manipulate help.

"What I mean is that you wanted us to find her, ah–" He pursed his lips and took endless amounts of glee in brandishing a retaliative finger at Max, the very same action the man had done to him countless times. His sire was practically a kettle of frustration ready to scream and David grated out a very pleased chuckle. "Don't deny it. Max. You can play the civilized man, you can live in the falsehood and the dream that you're a normal, all American citizen. It doesn't change what you are. It doesn't change the fact that ever since you created us, you've been dying for that 'poor doomed girl' to come along and spare you the trouble of trying to change us. Haven't you?"

"Yes," he whispered in quiet admittance, in defeat. For as much as he could be as vicious as his boys, Max liked to pretend he was better than that. That he wasn't a monster. But how could he try to be different when he'd been longing to condemn a poor innocent soul to the task of fixing his mistakes?

And he had it now. What he'd desired. This girl...a young woman who had once had a prosperous life ahead of her was jinxed to live forever in darkness. Forever a monster as they were.

"I still don't understand why you've done this, David. Why have you taken her in such a monstrous way? Why didn't you put the effort in to win her affections? Even I can see she is traumatized by whatever heinous deeds you've done." Max turned the tables, eager to ignore his own malefic ways in favor of shining the spotlight on theirs.

Monstrous.

Now that really did hurt.

They weren't monsters. They didn't try to be. They hadn't asked to be.

David was disarmed by that word, his usual tricks nowhere in sight to be played. He answered with no games, no illusions. He was straight to the point and felt no shame for his vulnerability he tried so hard to keep at bay.

"Because...we couldn't stand to wait. She's a drifter, she'd have left us. Simple as that."

Simple. He shook his head. Such empty words. It was anything other than simple.

He was starting to let his frustration bleed into his voice like his smugness had, tapping his leg once more as a substitute for the craving to inhale the smoke of a cigarette he didn't have. "She would have been gone before anything could have been explained and we didn't know what else to do. All I knew was that it hurt when she ran from us, when she was scared of us, when she wouldn't even fucking let us get close enough to even meet her and I couldn't condone that. It wasn't just myself being affected by it, it wasn't just myself I had to think about. I couldn't bear to see my brothers in pain–but now she is because of us and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do this. All I know is I can't..." He was finding it hard to articulate just what he was feeling, his jaw ticking in frustration.

...Actually, no. He did know. That was the problem, that was what he was starting to hate, because he tried. He did, he really did make attempts not to be evil. Not to give into his monstrous side, as Max had eloquently put it.

But this... what they had done to her? It was. And he couldn't stop it. He didn't want to stop it.

His gaze of malcontent darkened with the thoughts of not being with her, and Max shivered under it. "No, I won't let her go. That I do understand. Not now that we have her. Not ever."

Max felt some sympathy for them then: After all, perhaps he should have done a better job of keeping their compassion intact. Being what they had been for so long–just boys who'd never heeded the word 'no', immature and rampant in their desire and greed, it had desensitized them so much they'd forgotten what it was like to be somewhat human, what it was like to understand that which had only been their prey for decades.

He couldn't say their methods were unconventional. Many vampires he knew, when their mates turned out to be human, often executed the same ideas: take them, turn them, keep them until they eventually gave into the strange pull they had no want of understanding for.

Except...Hesperia was still mortal. That was where the kink was in David's winged plans and what was even funnier to Max, was that his normally head strong and decisive son hadn't seemed to even clock his screw up.

To save the girl–though it would make things harder for his sons–Max wasn't going to tell David to change her. There was a lesson to be learned here. A mistake to grow from. They needed the challenge instead of things being too easy.

David's laugh was as void as the stare he set onto the flabbergasted Max when the man failed to reply. "I bet you're happy now, huh?" He spewed–aggressive, with such bane Max recoiled as if he'd been hit by a shotgun blast, Davids words the bullets, "This is what you wanted, right? To see us like this? To know you were right and that you've won?"

Max's brows virtually blended to his hairline. Never had David said he was right, but his son wasn't himself right now.

He was even sighing and rubbing a weary hand down his face as he said, "You were annoyingly accurate when you said that she'd ruin things and that things would change and fuck, it's not like we can hate her or blame her for the fucking turn of things. It's not even her fault, none of this is but I can't think of anything but her and I hate it. I can't enjoy what I am anymore because she detests it so much. None of us have eaten properly in days because of the guilt–"

His face twisted, soured as if there was a lemon suddenly shoved into his mouth, the word tart on his tongue. Disgusting. Guilt. Who was he anymore?

Paul took over when it was evident David was losing himself, carefree even though he'd just shoved the discarded cigarette into a flower vase, playing density to Max's appalled and open mouthed frown at his gall. "Yeah, these pangs of regret we keep getting are a mega, mega downer. Like, we're constantly ashamed of taking her, riddled with the self loathing of just being and doing the things a vampire should do because she'd feel sick... if she could or did ever see us doing what nature intended. It's..." Tongue in cheek, he cocked his head, staring into a void of nothing. "It's laughable, honestly...Ain't life just a cruel bitch?"

There was a somber quiet, the words hitting close to home for all three men, even Dwayne who could hear it all from his guarding position down the hall.

Their roles switched, Paul now the one to be snared by that very thing they were discussing, and David was satisfied to continue when he regained charge of his irritable mood swings–to bring their messy thoughts to a close, at least. "And as much as we can all hate you, this is all too much to handle alone. It would be too much to deal with even if we understood how to and I know...I just know that we've fucked it. How the hell is she going to love us or accept us when we've done this?"

"Because as corny as it will sound to you, that is the way the elusive fate has written it to be." Max responded without missing a beat. He sighed, once accusing eyes softened with affection. More than they had been for his distraught boys in decades. "It's hard right now, but there's a connection linking her to all of you for a reason. It won't be so melancholy in time, but you have to be sure. You're certain she is meant for you? You felt everything I said you would?"

"Uhhh, fuck yeah." Paul answered in a 'duh,' tone, rolling his eyes. "We're basically obsessed with her, like hopeless puppies begging for even the tiniest scrap of her attention. It's pathetic, man. Normally the chicks are running after us like headless chickens, not vice versa." He huffed stroppily, but upon noticing Max's serious, contorted brow he held his hands up in surrender, already knowing what was going to come tumbling out of his sires poised mouth. "Sorry, language, language. I know–but being totally transparent? She's the real deal. We knew the moment she stepped foot in Santa Carla."

"Then there is nothing you can do now but try and fix it with her. You can't change it or take back what you've done. If you let her go, which I would have suggested had we not had this truthful discussion about your surprisingly accepting feelings for her, she will either run to the nearest authorities in attempts to expose us all or she will try to get as far away from Santa Carla and the four of you as she can." He was purely speaking facts, but even prothetizing her leaving them hurt their hearts.

David would rather have ripped it out then feel that pain again.

Max hummed non–comitally, pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes squinted shut. He sighed...an admission of defeat. "No. You will have to continue as planned, as sick as it is and just wait until she gives in. Do not forget, however, to treat her with respect and with deserved human decency. I saw the bruising on her lips and neck. Which of you is responsible for that? Hm?"

Max could truly enact the fatherly role when he needed to for them, and Paul felt like he was a five year old again as he sheepishly raised his hand and Max's stern lour was snapped to him. It was even worse when the man tutted in exasperation, pressing a hand to his no doubt aching forehead. "Paul, my boy, I must admit I am disappointed. How do you expect her to fall for you or even have the time to submit to the feelings of the bond if you are too busy violating her and sending her mind into turmoil? There will be urges from you all, including her, to engage in such...activities, but you must remember that while on the surface she may seem receptive, it will not be so in her mind or her feelings or what she really wants. It is purely the bond operating and controlling her."

Oh...

Oh, fuck.

Paul hadn't considered that, hadn't even bothered to think over if she was just feeling the same undeniable feelings they were and if she couldn't control them. He felt disgusted with himself.

Max sighed sympathetically when Paul, quite abnormally somber, stared into the oblivion of his mind and grunted, "Fuck."

Even in that basic word, it encapsulated just how greatly he'd messed up.

Max wouldn't chastise him for his language. He may not have a mate, but he had seen how hard it could be. What kind of sire would he be if he didn't do his best to help and give his best advice?

"You need to show her you care." He concluded, so serious they all didn't even want to mock him or make this a joke, make him the expense of their ridicule like they did on the daily. "Show her that you will care for her in every way and in any situation–even if she cusses you out, if she screams and bawls about hating you. Patience is what is needed here, boys. Give it time and everything will come together."

They hated the man before them sometimes. He was just so different from them, so stern and strict and eager to live as a 'happy family'...but, he came in useful with stuff like this and it was bitter to admit they felt like a load had been lifted off them with his advice.

Do what they had been, but try to be nicer. Sweeter. It was gag–worthy, but he was right. If they continued to fall for her baiting and her allure to them–the natural magnetism she possessed that clouded their judgment and hers, and if they kept hurting her emotionally, they'd just push her farther away. They would change...only for her...or they'd be in agony forever.

It was an enlightening revelation and though they'd dreaded the whole ordeal, traveling to see Max had been a much more worthwhile excursion and 'waste of their night' than they'd thought.

"I hate to spoil this when things are starting to look hopeful but, um...there's still the other issue of, err..." Marko scratched his cheek awkwardly, laughing to get rid of some of the horrid nerves fluttering away under his sternum: tar slicked butterflies of dread sticking relentlessly to his chest cavity, refusing to leave. "There's the matter of her brother."

Max's good feelings over their progress broke and frittered away. He must have looked as perturbed on the surface as he did in his mind, because Marko started to blurt things out in a rush. "We just panicked a-and it was mainly the reason the whole 'kidnapping plot' arose. He's a strong character, he pretty much dictated her life and her choices and threatened to take her and it just cemented that we had to do something drastic to prevent that, we–"

"Wait, wait–wait!" Max held out a hand and as if some invisible force had been expelled from it, Marko's mouth clamped shut, his verbal attack stopped to the relief of everyone. "A brother? That you haven't killed or manipulated to leave and forget her? Why did you omit to mention this?! I taught you better than that!"

With each utterance from them things just grew bleaker and bleaker and Max felt a little part of him die inside when Paul lifted a hand with a hesitant grimace–grin. "Well A: We didn't think of that and B....because...he's kind of...a, um, a fallen angel that we've trapped and left to die?" Paul's little laugh was timorous, his anxiety breaking through the calm, weed filled haze, skyrocketing when Max's eyes flashed gold.

He went radio silent, and it was then they could hear the aligorical timer of his fury, a bomb ticking down before its destruction.

Three.

"Oh boy..." Marko cringed, anticipating the worst, backing up to the floor length panel window that overlooked the sea and the outline of the boardwalk in the very far distance. It was a feeble search for protection.

Two.

Max was turning red and Paul could almost envision the steam bursting from his ears. He sunk his torso down into the couch, chin squished to his chest and the scratchy mesh there. He couldn't take his eyes off the eruption he knew was coming. "Not good. Brace yourselves."

David was not afraid in the slightest, even with Paul's foreboding warning hanging in the air. His eyes were wide with a sickly and gleeful anticipation. "Here we go."

That sealed it.

One.

"What the Hell have you gotten yourselves into now?!"