He gunned the engine of his Porsche. So he had to smooth things over with the kids so he could get back to Sarah as the pup. He had time. Sarah would be at the club for a little while longer with Donna. And Donna would probably spend about an hour trying to convince Sarah to stay away from him. He knew she didn't like him. She was protective of Sarah. She saw her as naïve. And Sarah was. So he couldn't not like Donna because he wanted to do the same thing. Except he needed to give Sarah some hard lessons that Donna most likely wouldn't like him teaching her.

He stormed up the steps to Emily's room taking every other step up. "See? I'm alive," he said spinning around in front of her as he reached the sitting area.

She looked up from the spell book she was reading from the couch."Glad to see it. Go show Raven. And then your daughter."

"Would you guys just lay off? I've got business I've got to take care of. I don't need you in my mind every ten minutes and Raven calling me the other ten."

"What business?"

"None of your business!"

"Not Salvatore."

"What do you take me for? You think I'm going to go head on with him right now?"

"You're hot headed."

"Thanks. But I'm smart too. Especially when my life, my daughter's life, and the lives of my friends depend on it."

"Thanks," she said quietly.

"For what?"

"For calling us your friends."

"I've got to go," he said heading for the stairs.

"It's okay, you know," Emily called to him.

"What?" he said stopping on the stairs.

"Having friends. Having people you can depend on."

"Just..." he held up a hand and took a deep breath. "Don't. Not right now," he said quietly.

"Okay," she said and looked back to her book.

"You got any protection spells in there?" he asked coming back up.

"What for?"

He picked up a book off the table. "Can I borrow this?" he asked flipping through it.

She shrugged. "Sure."

"Thanks," he said and headed back to the stairs.

"Trey."

"Yeah?" he asked stopping again halfway down the steps.

"Whatever you're doing. Just...be careful, ok?"

He walked down the rest of the steps and slammed the door shut.

She shook her head and said a protection spell over him.

"I felt that!" Trey called from downstairs.

"Good," Emily muttered flipping a page of her book. "Maybe you'll realize we do care about you."

Trey stopped at the end of the stairs and looked up. He had of course heard what she said. She probably knew he could too. Where was Emily five hundred years ago? He sat down on the bottom step and took a few deep breaths before getting back up.

He stopped in the kitchen. Sam was poured over college catalogs. With a pencil in hand she scribbled on the notebook in front of her, frowned at it, and the flipped the pencil over to violently erase at the paper.

"How's it going?" Trey asked leaning on the doorway.

She looked up.

It still astonished him how much they looked alike. They were exact duplicates. Except for Sam's shorter hair, and the fact she looked him dead in the eye and held them with not a hint of blush on her face.

"Hey, where have you been, stranger?" She said with a pleased to see him smile. That was still hard for him to get to used to.

He shrugged. "Around."

She sighed looking back at the book in front of her. "I'm trying to come up with my class schedule. It's harder than it looks. I've got to take my core classes, then classes for my major, plus electives and fit it into a five day schedule without overlapping the classes or have me running across campus with only five minutes between each class," she said with a sigh and looked back up at him with a defeated look.

"It helps if you can turn into a bird," he said with a smile holding out his arms and flapped them.

"Easy for you to say," she muttered.

"Ray's good at that sort of thing. Organizing. You should talk to him," he suggested.

"You think?" She asked with a frown.

"Yeah. He did my schedule. Made it work. And on a vamp's sleep schedule. He's upstairs," he said with a wink.

"Thanks," she said getting up and gathered her books. She went over to him and kissed him on the cheek. "Are you going to be around awhile?"

"No, I'm heading out again."

"Be careful, Trey. Whatever you're doing."

"I will. Don't worry your pretty little head," he said ruffling her hair.

"I do worry. We all do."

Trey looked away and sighed. "I know. I'm fine. Really. I'm not going after you know who. Just got some things I've got to take care of."

"You promise?"

He looked back at her. "Yeah, I promise."

She smiled and hugged him.

"But one day I will and I may need your help," he said softly.

"You've got it," she said wiping away a tear. "Just wait until after I get through one college course. I'd, at the very least, would like to have been through one college course before I die."

"Don't joke," Trey said pulling away.

"Only way we'll get through this."

He put a hand to her head where she had fallen. "I'm sorry for what he did to you. He will pay for it."

"Just wait. Wait until we can all come up with something together to stop him. Don't do it alone."

He brushed a thumb across her cheek. He nodded in agreement but he wasn't sure if he could keep that promise.

Sarah still wasn't back when Trey returned to her apartment. He slipped in and said some protection spells around her doors and windows. It wouldn't stop Sal but it'd slow him down. He settled down on the couch with another book he'd found on her shelf cloaked in a false cover. "Crystals: Their Natural Power". Not one he'd read before. He'd used crystals before in the old days and reading through the book refreshed his memory on their uses. Some things he'd tried before and knew it wouldn't work. Others he thought were too powerful to be in a coffee table book and he scowled at the author's name on the cover. He didn't know of them and thought maybe he should and tell them a thing or two of what he thought of them. He certainly didn't want Sarah trying some of those things. Not without having full control over her powers.

He heard her steps approaching and he quickly slipped the book back onto her bookcase. He went into her bedroom while her key slipped into the door. He quickly changed into the pup and crawled under the bed.

"Trey!" she called from the door.

His muscles still ached from the change and he stretched his legs.

"Trey!" she called again. "Time for a walk!"

Oh joy, going to the bathroom in public, and in front of her. Not one of his proudest moments either. But he would do what he had to do, he thought, crawling out from under the bed. Besides, a walk would do his new short legs some good.

She strapped a collar and leash on him. Maybe in other circumstances he might not mind that but right now it was downright degrading.

"That's a good boy," she told him patting his head.

The only way he was going to be able to call her that night was if he wasn't the pup sleeping at the end of her bed, he thought, as she climbed into bed glancing with a slight frown at the phone on her nightstand. Sure, he could talk to her telekinetically but he didn't think she was anywhere near ready for that. He slipped under the bed and pretended to go to sleep. Sarah leaned over the bed lifting the covers to look at him. He had been sleeping at the foot of the bed. He had to stay where she would think the pup was safe while he was calling her as himself.

"Okay, sweetie. You can sleep there. Good night," she said and her head disappeared.

The lights turned out and he listened to her breathing and her heart rate until he was sure she was sound asleep. When he was sure she was he slipped out from under the bed and crept out of the apartment in human form. He walked down the road and sat on a bench by the bus stop.

The phone rang waking Sarah. She groaned pulling herself up looking at the time. It was one in the morning. "Hello?" She said sleepily.

"Sorry, did I wake you?"

"Demetrio?" She asked sleepily.

"Are you expecting someone else to call?"

"No, no," she said fully waking up and pulled herself up to a sitting position.

"Sorry it's late. I should have waited until morning."

"No, it's ok. I was up," she said running a hand through her hair.

"Liar," he said with a chuckle.

"Okay, I was sleeping; but it's still okay."

"Did you have fun at the club after I left?"

"Not as much. I wish you could have stayed."

"Me too. Believe me."

"I do," she said quietly clutching the phone.

"I should let you go back to sleep."

"No! It's okay. I'm awake now!" She protested not wanting him to go.

"How awake?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, can I see you?"

"Now?"

"Yeah."

"It's one in the morning."

"And?"

"And it's late...I don't think so," she said thinking of Donna's warning that he may be after only one thing.

"Tomorrow? Dinner?"

"Yeah. That sounds good."

"Good. I'll pick you up at six."

"Sounds good."

"Dress casual, ok?"

"Will do," she said with a smile wondering where he would take her. "Where are we going?"

"Never mind about that."

"How casual?"

"Just...everyday stuff. Don't wear heels."

"Thank god."

He chuckled. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Wait! You don't know my address," She said before he hung up.

"Oh, yeah, that would help wouldn't it?"

"Yeah."

" I guess, I'm just excited about seeing you."

"I'm excited too."

"Glad to hear that. Ok, what's your address? I even have pen and a paper now."

She told it to him and she heard him scribbling it down.

"Goodnight, Sarah."

"Night, Trey."

"Blessings upon you this night you sleep. Bad fortune unknown in your space, your spirit, your body, your mind. Darkness made weak. This night you sleep, the night is light, light is goodness. May your spirit take the light and fight the darkness. Vanquish the evil that lurks in darkness."

Sarah chuckled nervously. "Um...what?!"

"Sweet dreams."

"What was that you said?"

"Sweet dreams," he repeated.

"I meant before that. Something about the night and light and darkness of evil?"

"It's...an old saying ...a longer way to say sweet dreams. Night, Sarah," he said hanging up before she could say anything else.

She looked at the phone puzzled and hung up when she finally heard a dial tone. She laid back in the bed. She made herself comfortable flipping over to one side. It was strange what he said. But nice, she decided with a slight smile. She closed her eyes.

"What did you do to me?" she finally thought when she woke up the next morning. She had the best sleep she had in...well, ever. Not one nightmare of her so-called real parents abandoning her. No nightmares of her adopted parents' car wreck. No nightmares of finding the adoption papers and her real birth certificate after her parents' funeral. No nightmares of a sister, a twin sister, she may never find or who may not want to be found by her.

She smiled and stretched her arms. It was Saturday and she didn't have work. And she not only finally had a date in this new town, but she had a date with a really hot and really nice guy. And one with powers? She got out of bed shaking her head. No, that wasn't possible. Whatever silly thing he said to her the night before wasn't any type of spell. Or was it? She didn't know a lot about the subject but she was trying to. Discreetly. God forbid, her new friend, Donna, ever found out she was interested in the paranormal. She wondered over to her bookshelf looking at the spines of her fake covers. She had covered up any of the paranormal books she purchased with covers from other "normal" books. She didn't want anyone seeing them. Ever.

She knew something was seriously wrong with her but she didn't know what. She was trying to find herself and she was hoping that she could somehow find it in a book. She really liked one book that a Brian Airheart wrote called Parapsychology and You: You are Not Alone. It explained all sorts of different paranormal things that "normal" people experienced. He even hinted at the possibility that there were things like ghosts, witches and vampires that walked the earth. The thought gave her the chills and not necessarily in a bad way.

That's why she had moved to California. She had seen his biography on the back of the book which stated that he taught at the University of California at Bayview. She decided that her major would be parapsychology so she would learn why when she pointed her finger at something she could make it fall over; or how sometimes she thought she could hear someone or something else's thoughts. And besides all that, his name was on her birth certificate as her father! She wanted some normal answers as well as paranormal ones. That is if this was her Brian Airheart. There could be more that one in the world. However, the hospital that her birth certificate had said she had been born in was not far from the University. So it had to be him! Plus, he taught and wrote a book on the subject that was just recently becoming an obsession to her.

Like now, Trey was looking up at her with his sad honey brown eyes, ironically very similar to the sexy Demetrio's brown eyes, and she knew he wanted to go outside. No, not wanted, she corrected herself with a frown. He needed to. She moved to the kitchen to get his leash. She bent down and snapped the leash onto his collar. Degrading, she thought. She looked at Trey thoughtfully.

"Will you run away if I take it off?" She asked him.

Trey's ears perked up and looked at her thoughtfully.

"Don't be silly, Sarah. You can't read his mind," she muttered and took him by the leash and headed out the door.