"Son?"

"Yeah." I turned my head slightly in the direction of the small, cracked voice pulsing from the dark of my new room. The sheets twisted beside me, and in the dim light I saw the glean of pale hair and a set of eyes blink as the infantile body curled further into mine. I rubbed his back soothingly, looking back up at the unfamiliar ceiling, observing the shadows created by the raised paint. "What's up, buddy?"

He was silent for a few minutes, but I knew he hadn't fallen asleep. I knew he was calculating in his little brain what to say to me and how to say it. Finally, "Tell me a story about where you're going."

My eyes shut as I began thinking of what new fantasy adventure to describe to him. He was referring to next week, when we planned to leave for the long trek to Georgia. They were all very eager to get started, and I didn't have much going on that I couldn't skip for one week. Garret also encouraged me to go, probably because he wanted me to get involved in things I couldn't when I had to constantly take care of things at home.

That wasn't a problem anymore.

"We're going... on a very long roadtrip. To a very boring state." My whispers were swallowed by the silence, so it felt like I hadn't even said them. "On an important mission. To make things brighter. If we don't... I think that boring state will become a very dark boring state. Not just at night, either. Imagine the whole day is as dark as it is now. Eventually they would go insane, and no one would live in that boring state anymore."

Not my best story, but it's two in the morning and I haven't slept yet. Joel was tired enough to let it pass unnoticed, so it served its purpose.

Small scratching at the door had me slowly slipping out of the bed and grabbing my shoes. "Bapi needs a walk," I whispered to him after I'd slid my sneakers on. I pulled the blanket up to his chin and ran a hand through his hair before opening the door quietly, to be greeted by a large and thin-haired Rottweiler smiling up at me.

"Hey, Bapi," I whispered, rubbing her head affectionately. She's the first live-in female we've had with us in years. Since my mother. I clicked her leash on and walked her patiently down the stairs, giving her old bones ample time to adjust. Joel said he wanted the oldest dog at the shelter who had been there the longest, because he wanted it to feel loved and have a great home. So he got Bapi. Who else his age is this thoughtful, especially of a dog?

Bapi waited patiently as I slipped into a jacket and locked the door behind us. I had no idea where we were going, but she seemed to be fine with strolling in a random direction. The darkness and the chill and the silence and the singularity of it all were strangely comforting to me as we walked beneath the foggy streetlamps, past a small playground that looked rarely used and sat at the side of an open field that probably used to be farmland. Bapi led me into it casually, as though her destination were whatever seemed nice at the moment.

We were halfway into the field when she stopped and began to growl. I glanced around us uneasily, feeling for the knife Milo gave me that now always had a place about my person. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

"Another new friend, I see."

Behind us, hidden in the shadows of the playground, Quintenn leaned against one of the beams. Tonight he wore a thin, oversized t-shirt and jeans, as if to laugh at the cold. And at me being cold. His skin looked even paler now against the night, his smirk more sinister, his eyes more soul-piercing. "I am very hungry." His face swiftly changed from taunting to desperate, pleading for sustenance. "Following you around is difficult, and the sun takes a lot from me."

I rubbed Bapi's head to calm her growling and walked over to him, ignoring his disgusted grimace towards the dog. My heartbeat slowed to its normal pace and my hand fell from my pocket where the knife was concealed. "I understand." I was going to walk past him, back to the edge of the field, but he tugged at my arm when I reached him, staring at my neck longingly. His eyes unsettled me as they shined like mini flashlights, reflective as a cat's. "Shouldn't we wait until we're somewhere less exposed?" I asked, turning to look across the field. Nothing stirred.

"H-hey!" I tried to push the now very intimately close and freezing body away from mine, but to no avail. The teeth were already in my neck, and to move now would just be really painful. I tensed involuntarily at the sharp, stinging pain and the lightheadedness as Quintenn gulped at my blood. The sound was really quite nauseating, which is why I never wanted to have him do this to me while I stood up, or so close to my ears where I could hear everything... "We agreed not on the neck unless you asked me," I managed to mumble out through my clenched teeth, trying to separate myself from his frequent swallowing sounds. Clutch the leash. Stare at that star. Just stare at it. Nothing else matters.

He didn't reply. His long hair slithered against my throat and into my jacket. The light sensation caused me to shiver and goosebumps to rise on the back of my neck. Only his breath was warm, at a close proximity such as this, and it pumped as fast against my skin as my blood did out of my body.

He finally stopped and just rested his head against my collarbone, breathing quickly to steady himself. I could feel a trickle of blood make its way down my neck. Ick. He licked it up slowly, humming with appreciation and holding me steady by my arms. "Sorry," he whispered, finally pulling away from me. His smiling lips were literally blood red, and a sickeningly metallic smell filled the air. "I'll help you home. You're obviously too unstable to get there safely."

"Whose fault is that?" I mumbled accusingly, but all the same leaned into the arm wrapped around me, trying my best to forget the repulsive feeling of blood forcefully leaving my body.

Quintenn led me up the stairs, standing in the doorway watching as I untied my shoes and threw my jacket on the floor to worry about later. Joel was asleep, unaware of the prominence of his foreign presence. He does this sometimes. Physically stays with me for longer than he needs to. I don't know why yet. But the feeling of his cold body pressed against mine as I lay beside Joel was one that, although not frequent, I had by now become well accustomed to. Arms wrapped solidly around me and a nose nuzzled against my neck, blowing comfortable warmth in soothing breaths. And to my surprise, these were the only things that usually got me to fall asleep.

Five hours later, when my eyes next opened, he was gone. Joel stared sleepily at me, a smile on his face that captured my immediate attention. I smiled back, searching his eyes for what made him happy so early in the morning. "What is it?" I asked.

He giggled and lifted a pudgy little hand to my chin. "You look happy when you sleep."

I kissed his forehead and sat up in bed, pulling him with me. "Well thank you. How about we go get waffles and then hang out at the park and then come home and watch Wizard of Oz, huh? Sound like a pretty good day?"

We had travelled out of the bed, me holding him upside-down and him giggling like crazy and Bapi panting with excitement as I stepped carefully down the stairs, quietly and uselessly shushing them both as we passed Garret's bedroom, giving goodbye kisses to Bapi and struggling to put on tiny little shoes and fitting tiny little arms into tiny little sleeves before jumping out the door into the dreary and grey atmosphere and hopping down steps and racing to the car and finding an amused Nico standing beside the passenger door, and no one asks questions, I just smile and he just opens the door and gets in and I start the car and we're moving. And I play the Gin Blossoms CD that Joel likes to sing to, and we're both singing and Nico is laughing at us, and this feels like the most normal thing in the world, which makes it the best thing in the world.

We reached the first red light marking the beginning of downtown, right after the highway. "Found Out About You" just came on. Joel is giggling with delight, because it's one of his favourites, although he has absolutely no idea what it means. We both begin singing, and my gaze is drawn to my left hand mirror, in which I see a guy dressed in badly torn jeans- possibly bought that way- and a loose jacket, hood up and face shadowed, just standing in the sidewalk as people pushed past him. We made eye contact.

I saw my worst nightmare. The one thing that would end my point in existing. It twisted my heart and left me speechless. Instead of a bustling downtown city, I saw Joel's dismembered and profusely bleeding, lifeless body lying in a puddle of red I identified clearly as blood.

Eye contact broke. I barely heard Nico ask me what was wrong, let alone answered him. Joel was still in the car, singing and giggling and full of life compared to what I had just envisioned. There was no way that could happen.

In the mirror, I watched as the guy turned to his left, lifted a car above his head like it was a pillow, and chuck it in our direction. There was no time to drive. There was no time to do anything but shout Quintenn's name and try to cover as much of Nico as I possibly could.

Window's smash. Cars crash. The ceiling is pushing me into Nico. I have a massive headache. Joel is screaming. For five wretchedly long seconds I am the most afraid I have ever been, that Quintenn did not make it to Joel in time. In those five seconds I see his dead body again, then in a coffin and then in the ground covered with flowers and I can't breathe. But when I finally work myself out from between Nico and the broken dashboard and activated airbag, I see that Joel is completely unharmed, at least physically.

"Oh gods," Nico is whispering. Over and over and over. I just feel sick at the sight of Joel's red and damp face as he stares at me, and he's holding his head saying "Ouch, ouch,". I think he's hurt, but when I unbuckle and reach back to get him, he sobs harder and points to my head.

"I'm ok," I whisper, hugging him close to me under the crushed roof. "You're ok. Nico, are you ok?"

Nico's face is shocked as he stares at my forehead, and that's all I have time to comprehend before I pass out.