Lost in the Shadows

Heidi woke up in her own little apartment. She was unsure of how she got there but that was not the first thing she thought about. She felt more tired than she had ever felt. She got up out of bed and wondered what had happened the night before. It seemed unlikely that she climbed down a cliff and slept with the guy that she wanted to.

None of that was something she would do if she was not under the influence. Not even David or his clan could make her do anything so crazy.

What happened?

Heidi took her clothes off and walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. When she got in, she took her soap and cleaned herself off completely. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her stomach as the water climbed down her soft pink skin.

If she did sleep with Marco, she hoped he was the best decision that she could have chosen. He seemed like a good guy but her choice in guys had not been in her best interest in the past.

To instill that she always chose bad guy was back in senior year when she was supposed to be studying for finals but the bad boy drug dealer had caught her eye and he took her on right then and there in the library.

Boys always ended up breaking her heart but while the guys were jackasses, she felt she was mostly to blame as it was her who went after these overly confident types. It was the kind of guy a girl would not be able to bring home for dinner. Marco just had to be different though. He was a boys’ boy who loved to ride his bike and always made sure she was ok.

When she got out of the shower, she looked at her reflection only to find it was translucent. A moment later she realized that it was just that the mirror got foggy.

After getting dressed, she went out the door to be blinded by the light. It seemed to be the brightest day in Santa Carla. She quickly went back inside and put on a pair of sunglasses.
Heidi was terrified of going back out in the sunlight. She was sure that she would lose her vision for good even with her sunglasses on. The doorbell rang and she answered it to see the two boys who she saw as little brothers.

“Edgar, Allan! What are you doing here?”

Edgar walked in and looked around. “We just wanted to make sure you were ok.” He poked around her items and she dashed after him.

“You can’t just go through my stuff, Edgar!”

Allan came up beside her and pointed at her neck. “Don’t tell me you’re one of them.” He kept his eyes on her and was shocked by whatever was there.

Heidi touched her neck and was shocked by the two little bites there. She knew she had a good time but she was unaware of just how much fun the two of them had. “Grown up stuff.” Her hand quickly rose to shelter it from the boys’ questions.

Edgar went over to her and looked at it as best as he could. “Those are vampire marks. They are everywhere in the books. That’s what it looks like.”

This was her nightmare and she sat down, taking off her glasses. “Boys, you’re going into high school in a year or two and you’re going to find a girl who is more than a friend. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” That was all that she was willing to tell them.

“Look.” Allan took out a comic book and showed her all the pages with the vampire bite marks. “That’s exactly what yours looks like. You’re wearing sunglasses in your room. It’s weird.”

“If I was one of ‘them’ I wouldn’t be able to walk out in the sunlight.”

The boys looked at each other and nodded. “Ok.” Edgar sighed and sat beside her. “But those are bites. Maybe it takes a long time to become a vampire. Who bit you?”

“Edgar!” She stood up and yelled. “I thought what I said was self-explanatory. Just stop talking about goddamn vampires. I’m getting tired of it!”

Allan bit his lip. “We won’t be mad if you had sex with a vampire. We just need to know who it was and where they’ll be tonight.”

Heidi shook her head. “Guys, please just get out of my room. I’m busy. We can talk later but for now, you need to listen to me, for once.”

Allan looked up at her sadly. “We’ll stop talking about vampires. We promise. Right, Edgar?”

Edgar nodded and folded his arms. “That’s the truth, justice, and the American way.” That was his favorite phrase now. The red head used the expression daily to the point where everyone he encountered would lose their minds.

“Thank you.” She felt relieved that they promised to stop talking about vampires. “I haven’t eaten yet. Do you guys want to go get some tacos or something?”

The boys agreed to getting some food and followed her to the little California taco shop beside the pier. They got their tacos but Heidi never took off her glasses. “You guys sure have bad pizza but at least you make mean tacos.” She took another bite of hers once they sat down in the restaurant.

Edgar frowned. “What are you talking about? We have amazing pizza here.”

The comment made Heidi laugh. “You guys have clearly never been to the East coast. It’s a completely different world there. You get up at the break of morning to go to work, then you head home in traffic, and you find out what the family is having for dinner. Everyone is busy but they still make time for each other. It’s different here. It’s like there’s not much of a family dynamic. Everyone goes about their day. No wonder kids go missing.” She took a bite.

Allan was about to stand up but Edgar stopped him. “Our sister. She went missing last year. The last time we saw her was when she was going out at night with some of her friends. None of them were ever found again. There was no trace of where they could be. They simply disappeared into the night. Now we know that she could still be out there.”
Edgar looked down at his food and put it back on the plate. “Damn it, Allan. I thought we swore we wouldn’t talk about Raven.”

There were no words that were proper for Heidi to say to them. “I’m sorry, guys. I had no idea you lost your sister.” It was a relief that she had her sunglasses on or else all her guilt would have poured out of her and they would have seen right through it. They were smart boys who could pick up on anything and everything. They were unafraid to say what other people wanted to say or believe and they just believed because they had faith.

Edgar folded his arms, annoyed. “We’ll find her. She’s still alive and we will find her.” They were words he truly believed.

“What’s she like?” She leaned on the table.

Allan pushed his hair back. “She has black hair and brown eyes. She is adventurous and is brave enough to do what we can’t. She goes out with people she had just met and she made friends incredibly easy. She’s a bit like you.”

Heidi looked away from them at a painting on the wall. Hearing him talk about their sister in a light that made them see Heidi in that way was heartbreaking. They wanted their sister back but there was something in her that they recognized as a prime resemblance to her.

Edgar picked up his taco again and began eating it. “What if we changed our business into hunting for the lost boys and girls of Santa Carla. We could rack them up by the thousands and we could be viewed as heroes!”

“If you want to do some good in the area, I suggest you boys become policemen in the future. Detectives do a lot of hard work. If you believe in what you’re fighting for, you’ll do a lot of good in this place. You guys have big hearts.”

Allan pushed his taco to the side. “Having big hearts and waiting to become officers or detectives doesn’t do anything right now. We need to start now. Don’t we, Edgar?”

Edgar nodded as he finished off his fourth taco. “Right. We can do this thing now.”

Heidi rolled her eyes but once again, was happy the boys couldn’t see her do it. It would crush them if they believed that one more person disbelieved that they could make the world a better place using their own tactics. She pushed her sunglasses up a little more.

“Just, be safe and stay on the boardwalk, guys. It would break my heart if something happened to you. Batman didn’t become a superhero over-night.”

Edgar leaned over the table. “Batman was a billionaire playboy who became Batman through his fear of Bats. We aren’t scared of bats and we sure as hell don’t have a trillion dollars to spend on costumes.”

Allan took a deep breath. “Maybe we can become like Spiderman. Find a bionic spider, have it bite us and whenever we see someone kidnap, we just spin out web and trip them.”

The conversation was so out of Heidi’s league. She had never liked the idea of superheroes. She had never seen the movies and she had never read the comics for them. The boys kept on talking and talking but what she wanted to do was go back to sleep for the rest of her life. It was unlike her to do so but the night had left her drained of sleep.