Shimmied against a wall covered with old ripped theatre posters in an alleyway, taking that ample moment to leisure his lungs with a breath of air; if only to gather enough of his wits to himself first before he is to resume with his quest of running for his life again. 

As he leaned the back of his head against same wall of momentary shelter; looking up, blue eyes landed at the vision of a star-lit sky above him. 

It was such a bedazzling spectacle at the sky above his head; it was momentarily tempting to just give-in and spend the night just looking at it. And yet even such a tempting visual was not enough to pull the boy out altogether out of the surrounding bleakness of the reality of his current predicament. 

How the exact opposite of what was beautiful above and below it, the backdrop of a smog and dreary weather under it, is always something of a wonder to most people living in a mundane, eventless place like the Mallvern District.

 ***********

‘Fugitive boy’ is now using the adjacent wall across the street for cover; having successfully removed himself from his earlier location, he successfully maneuvered himself onto an altogether different hiding spot, hassle-free. Not without much labored breathing, 

Nicholas Vlahos could barely control his emotions of fear, excitement and exhaustion hitting him all at once. Barely escaping with his sanity just moments earlier; he successfully pulled off robbing a jewelry store a few blocks in the very same vicinity of the street where his small apartment, a minute place he has been calling his home for what could be summed up roughly as the whole duration of his teenaged life was located; and at the break of dawn no less. 

The boy all of 17, could only hope against all hopes now, that whoever was supposedly chasing him wasn’t going to catch him. Aware of the fact that that will very well be his undoing should it happen. 

All the running; all the shimmying; all the dodging; eventually led him to what may turn out to be his silver steed of escape; an escape from his nightmare life Downtown, and the whole of Mallvern altogether. Right in front of him, across the street, a silver 4-door thing of beauty was seemingly calling at him; tempting him even. 

A couple of seconds was all it took, and he yields to the temptation of the Ferrari Lebanon sitting there. As it may well have been one of those rides that are rightly loaded with high-tech security mechanisms to keep it from being jacked even by the most high-ended of criminal elements; but as fate may have it, this silver ride just happen to not to be one of them. 

All it took for the boy to do was lift the door handle and voila…he is behind the wheel in no time. The keys itself being right there in the ignition came as added bonus somehow. 

************* 

Veering around corners, yet careful enough not to beat red lights and call more attention towards himself, coming from the authorities this time; Nicholas was able to make it out of downtown as he had hoped; away from whoever could be chasing him, both authority and non authority-related. He has already been driving around for what seemed like ages and a day; the car headlights being his only guiding sensor in his course amidst a darkened rough road. 

After he had made sure that nobody was after him at that moment, and after he almost ran himself off the road to nowhere when he dozed off behind the wheel, that was when he decided against himself to take a break, a nap; right under a big tree; it was a lonesome one, sitting in the middle of a field to the side of a rough narrow road he was able to make out earlier in his drive along. 

“What have you gotten yourself into this time, Nick?” he scolds himself after having just pulled over, staring into nothingness for quite sometime. “They’re going to kill you. You realize that, don’t you? Because you’re not normally an id*ot!” he resolutely added to his conversation with himself. 

A big sigh escapes him, and then he goes about to resigning his body to sleep. As he was just about to drift altogether, a phone ringing from out of nowhere pulls him right back into his bleary reality. He sits up. Startled. It startles him even more since he didn’t have a phone. 

Looking around with his eyes; around the vehicle where the sound was most potent, he found the thing mounted in its cradle; to his right peripheral side of the car. 

His labored breathing returned to him and so did the fear and exhaustion of earlier after realization figuratively just slapped him of what he had done on top of the store heist. 

“Oh my god! I jacked a car! I actually jacked a friggin’ car…and now that’s…it’s him…he’s looking for me…and he’s---he’s found me…” referring to the owner of both said car and ringing phone; in the car. 

Nicholas was about to pick the phone up with his shaking hand to toss the thing outside, when movement in the backseat startled him even more than the ringing gadget. 

And then a voice came along with the ruckus even before he could see what and who made it. “Aren’t you gon’na get that?” came the just-rousing-from-sleep-voice of what could only be of a teenaged boy; much like Nicholas himself. It did not take long for then said person who the voice belongs to; to actually come visible from behind the seat next. 

Yawning and stretching his kinks on his back; having slept at the back seat of a car for apparently a long period of time; after his eyes landed on Nicholas, turned around in the driver’s seat towards his direction in the backseat, with the first boy expecting to get attacked or mauled by him; what happened next was rather unusual. 

“You’re not my brother?” came the other boy’s introduction to Nicholas. 

“Nope.” Replies Nicholas. “What are you---“ he stammers, “---have you been there all this time?” With squinting and rubbing of his one eye with the ball of one hand, 

“Uh---generally, yes.” the other boy replies to the question. “I was hiding from Victor last night---I probably fell asleep waiting for him to find me.” 

“Victor?” 

“My brother.” trying to shake himself of sleepiness altogether, “Where is he by the way? He already found out what I did? He sent you to get me, didn’t he?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, alright.” Nicholas dismisses. 

“By the way, you are?” asks the car owner’s brother.  

“Does it matter?” Nicholas snaps, “I’ve been driving around this whole time and you’ve been sleeping back there the entire way?” The other boy looks down at himself and then looks at Nicholas again as he manages a response,

 “Uh-huh.” He says, “Wait---drive around?” he strains his eyes against the scenery outside the close dark tinted window at the backseat where he is in, “We’re in---“ he turns to Nicholas, “---where are we? Did you borrow my brother’s car?” 

“More like steal it.” Came the terse reply after a sound of a gun cock resounded. “Get out.” The boy in the backseat sits up slowly, putting his hands up in a calm resignation at the sight of the gun at his direction.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

 “Easy…I’m not going to be any trouble.” 

“I don’t believe you.” Nicholas says again. “Out…now!” his voice is a bit authoritative this time. “Right now!”

 “Can’t.”

 “Can’t? Or won’t?” 

“Both.” 

“I won’t be telling you the third time, kid. Out now, or you’re wearing a bullet hole in the chest.” 

“Like I said, I can’t. Won’t. I am not going out there.” He juts his head towards the direction of the outside, “The sun’s up.” 

At the mention of that, the first boy himself looks to his side of the window through the dark glass, 

‘Did I fall asleep?’ he asks himself, ‘It was still dark out when I pulled up earlier…’ he looks at his watch, ‘…7 am?’ he tried going back to what he did just moments ago, ‘Did I fall asleep? I don’t remem—‘ and then he recalls he was not alone. He looks up at the boy in the backseat, “You are not wasting my time any longer, you get out now…” he got on one knee on the driver’s seat, reaches over to the back, and with his free hand he grabs the other boy by the shirt front and barked his order of opening the door, “…or I shoot you in the head if you don’t!” Nicholas could see the defiance in the other boy’s face; who judging by it looks just about the same age as him, he was even bracing himself just then should backseat boy try and do anything offensive to him in retaliation to the manhandling, but he doesn’t. 

He didn’t. 

The other boy opens the door as he was ordered and with his eyes shut tight, he started to dismount the vehicle.

 Only upon baring barely just his foot out the door ---that was when Nicholas, horrified, started to see the boy’s hand that was peeping out of the sleeves of the dark coat he was wearing, and the side of his face facing the sun rays, beginning to glow bright reddish yellow. 

“What the---“

 And then backseat boy started to drop to the ground out of the car, cringing in stoic pain. 

‘That’s it…I’m dead…’ says the boy to himself as he started to sink into the feeling of falling into a deep dark bottomless hole. 

The pain of the sun burning him from the outside in was proving itself to be too much for him to bear anymore. He felt his face land with a hard thud onto the scorching hot ground and then it was nothingness. Slowly he lets his hand feel its way around his side, it was in pain; but then so are the rest of him. 

But since his side is the one more accessible to him at the moment, and he only has one free hand, he decided to at least nurse that part of him for the moment; his other hand still reeling from too much pain due to the sun-burning it sustained----and his one side of the face. 

When his auburn colored eyes started peering from under dark long lashes, expecting to see his great great, great ancient in front of him; he was instead in for a grander surprise when he was met with Nicholas instead; sitting a seat away from him at the back seat, looking at him; wearing a worried face. 

“You sure have a serious aversion to the sun.” came the intro from him. The backseat boy started to sit up painstakingly at the strike of conversation, when Nicholas started to act like helping him, the boy holds a hand up, “

Don’t.” he says. Nicholas pulls his hand away. 

“I’m...I’m good.” Says the other boy warily. Every now and then trying to meet Nicholas’s eyes, “But ---but thank you.” He added.

 “You feeling alright?” The second boy nods to the concern asked. They sat there in silence for what felt like hours after, only it wasn’t really. In reality it had only been minutes; with neither boy knowing what to do with themselves. Through the corner of his eye, he could see Nicholas gun in hand, holding onto to it in his own lap, 

“You plan on shooting me anytime soon?” he asks. The first boy looks at him, 

“No, of course not.” Nicholas replies rather quietly to the boy with the injuries; without taking his eyes away from the gun in his hand. “I’m sorry."

“For what? Making me go outside and almost ending me?”

 “Yeah, for that.” This time Nicholas looks at him apologetically. Their gazes meet. He looks away first after he caught the injured boy still nursing his side; even flinching every now and then whilst trying to make himself comfy in his seat. It made him guilty even more. 

“Fuggedaboutit.” The backseat boy manages to mutter. 

“So what do you have anyway?” Nicholas asks.

 “I’m not sure with your question—what I have?”came the response.

 “That seemed pretty intense what happened to you—what with the sun burning you crazy like that. That wasn’t anything I’ve seen before.”

 “I doubt it would be like anything anyone has ever seen before.” A sigh came out from him and then he follows it up with, “I’m a vampire.” 

A beat and then, “Right.” Nicholas scoffs, which was met by brows furrowing on the forehead of the second boy.

 “Excuse me?” he quips, surprised at the unusual reaction pulled out of Nicholas of his confession, “Wan’na see my fangs?” he dared him next, and then he does give him a view of his chompers. He’d have thought that that had been the end of his need to convince his hostage-taker of his being anything but human, only he couldn’t be more wrong.

 “I’ve seen bigger ones on kids in my neighborhood. It’s apparently an ‘in’ thing. Go figure. They think it makes them look cool, mo*ons. Try again.” Nicholas dismisses him just like that; fangs and all. 

“I’m not a mor*n because of my chompers!” the boy defended of himself. “I really am a vampire. And these are real.” He says of his fangs. 

“Sure.” Nicholas added patronizingly. “Maybe you’re albino.” he further remarks aspergishly more to himself, like the other boy had not been talking to him just then. 

“Yeah, that’s it! You solved the mystery! I AM albino. Cause albinos normally just combust under the sun that’s why you seldom see us without umbrellas whenever we go out----” He remarks sarcastically. "---I’m telling you. I’m a vampire!” 

“I’m ready to believe you anytime now.” Nicholas says, “I have a gun remember? Start making sense to me or I am changing my mind and I actually shoot you.” 

“Well, what can I tell you, that’s my only argument right now!” 

“Why would you even choose to say something like that anyway?” Nicholas mutters incredulously. “That’s just st*pid!” 

“Says the guy who jacks a car with a vampire in the backseat!” the boy scoffs at him, “Right, cause THAT’s genius right there!” 

“Hey, I didn’t know you were back here, okay? And stop referring to yourself as that cause you’re not!” Nicholas turns to him, “If I had known you’d be back here, I’d have taken the bus rather than having to put up with you!” 

“Well, excuse me for salting your game, Mr. Joe Runaway! And you can’t tell me what not to be----cause it’s what I am!” he scowls right back. 

“Shut up!” Nicholas yells at him, pointing the gun at the boy.

 “Make me!” the boy dares, pushing the gun away from his direction uninhibitedly. Three beats later, 

“What did you do by the way? Rob a bank? Why’d you have a gun?” the vampire sits back in his seat, he says, suddenly a bit calmer, cradling his head in both hands interlaced behind his head.

 “A jewelry store.” Nicholas tells him, fiddling with the gun in his hand. 

“Did you really?” remarks the second boy, all wide-eyed astonished.“Wow, that’s so grown up!” What originally had been intended to have been genuine amazement coming from the other boy had unfortunately rubbed Nicholas the wrong way. 

“Shut up!” The other boy sits up in his seat. 

“What?” he asks, genuinely puzzled at the reaction drawn from Nicholas by what he said. The next thing was, Nicholas finds himself; gun drawn at the other boy, 

“You’ve no right to be judging me!” he angrily screams. Even dotting the gun onto the boy’s chest. “You don’t know me! YOU DON’T!” For a moment there, he was even tempted to actually pull the trigger on the kid. Only the face he was looking at, at the moment had not been the boy’s but someone else’s. It was the person he was running away from back in Mallvern. His mind was playing tricks on him. 

“Take it easy…“ came the wary defense from the backseat boy. “…I wasn’t saying anything like that…I wasn’t. I really thought it was pretty grown-up…what you did. Not judging. Honest.” 

Nicholas pulls his gun away from the boy’s chest and then he goes about to getting out of the backseat altogether and relocating himself back to the driver’s seat after slamming the door to the backseat in getting out; the boy following Nicholas’s every move with his eyes. 

“I’m calling your family.” Nicholas begins to say, putting the gun onto the seat next to him, “They can pick you up some place else where there’s no sun to burn you---“ only that was when the boy reaches over from the back and snatches the phone entirely away from Nicholas. Next thing the kid did was smash it onto the side of the car interior. Destroying it. 

“What the he** is the matter with you???!!!” Nicholas barks, surprised. But mostly feeling under-minded, he grabs the boy by the collar and shook him. He then picks his gun up from the shotgun seat and roughly shoves the gun barrel at the boy’s face. “I was trying to cut you a break you st*pid kid!”

“And I’m trying to save your life!” the boy says right back defiantly, “All it takes is one whiff of your st*pid scent through that phone and my brothers will have been on you in two minutes! So I think you rather owe me a thank you here, clueless.” He tells Nicholas off, and then he shoves him off him as he sat back in his seat; both boys glaring at each other head on. “I am a vampire whether you want to believe it or not! My brothers would have been here in minutes and were ripping your head off of you before you could even have realized what was happening---all for jacking this car and taking me hostage, had you picked up that phone and called them!” the boy says. 

“Wake up, brain dead we’re a long way from Mallvern!” Nicholas scoffs in response. “3 minutes tops then.” The boy bats right back. 

“What—your family got a superfast jet plane or something?” Scowls Nicholas. “No, vampires. We’re engineered to be super fast.”

 " And I say you’re just a sick kid pretending to be a vampire for kicks.” Nicholas tells him off. “Doesn’t matter how much you keep telling yourself otherwise, man...sitting in the car with you is a hundred % vamp.” Says the other boy, pointing at himself. 

“Stop it!” “No, you stop, you little child!” 

“You’re just a spoiled little rich brat on medication or something for your sun allergy and what-not…cause there is NO SUCH THING AS VAMPIRES, YOU HEAR ME? Grow up!” Nicholas yells. 

“Alright, fine…don’t believe me.” The other boy says resolutely, and then in a blink of an eye, he manages to swiftly take the gun away from Nicholas altogether and point the barrel at his own chest, next to his heart; leaving the Vlahos boy jaw-dropping throughout the swift duration of it all.

 “What are you doing?” he horrifyingly questions this before a gun shot resounding had him cowering in his own seat. Like a frightened little kid, he was reduced to a ball in the driver’s seat. Afraid to even move an inch; afraid to see the effectual horrors of what had just happened to the other boy in the car with him after he just watched him pull the trigger on himself. He could hear his heart drumming in his head. He was frightened. 

A couple of beats later and a just as frightened big scream coming from a teenaged boy echoed the confines of the 4-door Lebanon; it was right after a smiling ‘I-told-you-so-face’ peers at Nicholas from over the seats separating the front and back parts of the car. 

“Not dead.” The boy from the backseat says. “Could only mean that I’m not human. Cause I’m not. I’m a vam-pire.” He says of himself for the umpteenth time to Nicholas. 

That right there would have quickly sent the boy with the gun dashing out of there on foot, at the realization hitting him; but sadly that could just not be the case. 

A fairly strong grip on his wrist prevented him entirely from fleeting. That, and a gentle “Stay…” from the other boy that had been close to a beg it was heartbreaking. And so…for the life of him, Nicholas doesn’t leave. He could have chosen to take off, but he stays. 

Somehow.