Kelvin huddled under the tarp as the sun started to poke its head over the buildings opposite him. He was ruffled that Dustin chose to so kindly leave him alone, on a roof, in the pouring rain. Especially when he was the one person out of the pack who the blue eyes seemingly had an interest in. He could now see it was obvious. Since his blood type had been broadcast (although by mistake) to the wrong people, now Kelvin had been thrust into the spotlight, and he understood how it must’ve felt for Noelle. He felt like an outsider on the very fringe of a group of outsiders. A lonely place to be.

A noise behind the roof startled him. He picked up a tube from the scaffolding and stepped behind the tarp. He held the tube behind his head, just like a police officer would carry his baton. Fingers pushed through the tarp and started to pull sideways. Kelvin's arm quivered as he tensed himself, now ready to swing. A hood began to appear as the head poked inside.

Kelvin yelled as he swung the tube toward the “thing’s” head. "Kelvin," Gabriel muttered. "You in here?"

Gabriel raised his hand. The tube grazed his forearm as Kelvin's swing reached full-force. "FUCK-Kelvin, its Gab," he screamed, lunging himself under the tarp.

Kelvin dropped the tube, he looked scared as he stared into Gabriel's eyes. "Sorry man. I thought it was someone else," he replied.

"Who the hell were you expecting at this time of morning? It’s barely six."

"We spotted someone over the street early this morning, they were watching the Towers for almost thirty minutes until it started to rain."

"They won't look now because it's too light, or at least it will be, very soon," he replied. "You want to get inside and get warm?"

"In a while, I'm nice and relaxed out here. It gives me space to think," Kelvin commented as he sat back on the sack of concrete that now molded to the shape of his body.

"What have you been thinking of?"

"You know, life and all that crap. Where I come from, what's happening, and where I'm gonna end up."

"Wow! That’s some deep shit right there, Kelvin. You’re too young for all that."

"I bet you have lots of these thoughts, don't you?"

Gabriel sat where Dustin was previously perched and started to explain how he was when he was younger. Gabriel was turned around the same age as Kelvin, however, he’d come from a wealthy family, hence the significant policy he recently cashed in. The one he’d used to fund Edmund's experiments.

"How did you handle it when you were younger?" Kelvin asked.

"I didn’t have any worries about money, or anything like that. It was all handed to me on a silver plate." Gabriel chuckled. "How fuckin’ ironic, a silver plate. Anyway, I was the rebellious type and drove my parents wild with frustration."

"What about when you knew you were a wolf?"

Gabriel tilted his head back and laughed. "I loved it. All those women who were drooling over me. I used to be a skinny kid. Never bullied, though. Once I found myself and embraced my wolf, my body changed, and now look at me," he replied.

"Yeah! I dig that, however, I was bullied. I was a real runt and always called a momma's boy," Kelvin said as his fingers fumbled in circles. He remembered the pain he carried deep inside him and that he’d hidden from his mom.

Gabriel put his hand on Kelvin’s shoulder. He rubbed and squeezed it in a supportive manner. "Well Kelvin, those days are long gone. You're a fine specimen of a wolf, and I'm a bit jealous, actually."

"What the hell have you got to be jealous about?" he asked, confused.

"For one, I'm human; don't forget. I really miss being a wolf, and I totally get the frustration that Declan went through. I feel like I'm floating rather than doing something."

"You have any idea how you can get it back, your wolf?"

"I heard I have to find a shaman, an old dude. An Indian told me that in the biker bar," Gabriel explained. "I have no idea where to start looking. I can't exactly go heading off into the mountains looking for an old, Red Indian shaman, now can I?"

"New Orleans."

"What?"

Kelvin lifted his head and shoved his fingers under his legs. He picked at the skin around his nails which had drawn blood. It was a longstanding habit, and ever since he was a kid, he had picked when he’d become nervous.

"New Orleans. There are loads there who believe in all that voodoo hullabaloo. You’re bound to find someone there who knows of one, or who can point you in the right direction. And, not only that, but my mo—" Kelvin started saying, before he paused.

"What were you going to say?"

"My mom came from New Orleans. She moved up this way when she was expecting me. Maybe she thought it’d be a bad influence on me."

"Do you have any family down there?" Gabriel asked. "That could save a lot of time."

Kelvin shook his head. "I was always told we had no family. There was only mom, dad, and then just me."

Gabriel hunched forward as he thought. It could be a better place to start than heading off aimlessly into the mountains. New Orleans was well known for people of that ilk. Throwing bones and reading fortunes might be a tourist thing, still, there must be an elder who practiced the dark arts.

"Enough of the past. What do you think of your present?"

Kelvin thought for a moment before he decided on an answer. It wouldn’t be much of a response because all he’d planned had been turned upside down. "To be honest, at the moment, I'm going with the flow."

"Okay then, your future, where do you want to be when all this is over?"

"Alpha somewhere, that's my goal." Kelvin brought a smile back to his face at the thought of having a pack look up to him as their leader. "Where it will be? Well, that’s anyone's guess, but it won't be around this place."

"Don't you like it here in the Creek?"

"It's okay. It isn't overly-exciting though, is it? Apart from a battle with some hunters and all the blood being stolen, and the possibility someone’s out to create vampire-werewolves. Everything else is pretty damned quiet."

Gabriel agreed it wasn’t the most prominent place in the world, and it hadn’t been out of choice that the pack had ended up in the Creek. Declan had found the Towers by mistake and thought the Creek was one of the safest places to hide the pack from humans, or to try and blend in. That ideology had lasted a couple of years until the hunters found out there were wolves in the area. Before that, they hunted further away from the main forest. But, soon enough, they turned their attention back to town and the nature reserve where they hunted. All that was history now.

"Yup, I don't even think it’s the safest place in the world now. It’s too easy to be found out. The population’s too small for a start off, and then everyone knows what everyone else is doing," Gabriel explained. "Then, if you add in the fact that all the pack look like magazine models, how many photogenic people can you have in one place?" He rested back against the scaffolding and the cold of the aluminum pushed through his shirt. "Even Dustin’s still good looking. Not too shabby for an old dude, is he?"

Kelvin huffed and giggled. He pulled his fingers from under his legs, and the bleeding stopped. Just as always, the skin returned to its previous, pristine form. "Don't let him hear that, he gets a little touchy when you mention his age," he remarked. "He's cool though, even though he’s a little grumpy at times. I love winding him up. He's like a really old, big brother."

"My sentiments exactly. We didn't even know they existed until Declan found them. Then they got wiped out and ended up here, or Maria did. Dustin was left for dead."

"I bet it was sheer carnage on that day. At least we showed some remorse and never killed anyone."

"How true. Ever since that day with Noelle and that bitch who tried to kill her. I forget her name. Everything changed, and now it's gone back a few steps. We are in a state of flux so to speak," Gabriel explained.

"What does a state of flux mean?" Kelvin asked. He was pretty smart, but Gabriel had slipped in a word he had never heard of, apart from a welder saying, “Pass me the flux.”

Gabriel started to stand and offered his hand to Kelvin. He pulled him up to his feet. "It basically means, we don't have a fucking clue what’s happening!"

* * *

The pack filtered into the rear yard. Maria stood with Tanya, Gabriel, and Dustin. Kelvin sauntered to the far wall to check on the traveling sunlight. It would happen in the next five minutes, as the sun poked its head over the top of the Towers to unwittingly bathe the pack in all its glory. Any vampire-werewolves, now known as "vlads," (as they had started to call them), would not survive. In fact, they would either frizzle, or at least be very uncomfortable once the sun hit them fully. They had surmised that no "daywalkers" had been created yet, so their enemy was purely the vlads. But none of them really knew for sure if that was what the problem was.

Tanya ticked off all the pack members as they exited the rear door one by one. She muttered to Maria that two were missing. Sonya and Abel were not there.

Tanya turned her head as a voice called her from the door. "I can't come out. I'll burn," Abel said.

Tanya stood at the foot of the steps and looked up at Abel. "Are you admitting you’re a vlad?"

Maria smiled at Tanya. "It’s okay, Tanya. I forgot about Abel. If it wasn't strange enough being a wolf, he is rarer than rare. He’s an albino. He means his skin burns easy in sunlight," she explained. "Abel, go and stand with Kelvin in the shadow. You'll be safe there." Abel pulled his shades over his eyes and dashed along the wall to where Kelvin stood.

"There’s only Sonya left. You think she has bowed out, and done a runner?" Tanya asked. Maria shrugged her shoulders as Dustin walked over and said he'd go and check her room. He entered the building to try to find Sonya.

Maria walked back to the side of the crate. The pack waited impatiently for someone to speak. She had never considered this would be a duty done by her, as well as taking care of the Towers. "They are waiting for you," Tanya said.

"I'm no alpha’s mate," Maria said. Her tone was filled with nervous crackles.

"Geez Maria! If there was anyone who could be alpha-mate material, it's you. Apart from me, that is. Of course."

"Do you wanna speak then?" Maria added with a nervous laugh.

Tanya shook her head and nudged Maria forward. She had dressed the part, so as not to appear too casual and similar. Thigh length boots with a four-inch heel accentuated the length of her already, very-long legs. Her leather bodice hugged her curves and pushed her breasts together, and it easily caught the attention of many male members of the pack. Kelvin would’ve drooled as he always did, however, now he had a new crush. His heart had fluttered the moment he had laid eyes on Kat.

Maria stood on the large crate and raised her hand. She glanced at the door waiting for Dustin to appear. "Listen up everyone. Hush now. It has been a while, and we’ve regained a sense of regular living habits that have now fallen back over the members who live in the Towers," she said as the pack nodded and muttered in agreement. "Gabriel and Tanya were granted permission to return home, as were the other members of the pack." The number of boos that had once chimed from the members of the pack had diminished, nearly completely. Gabriel posed no authoritarian hold over the pack anymore, yet a handful still hated him. The old him. But most of them were able to realize it was a jealous, weird, egotistical phase. He had been forgiven.

The door swung in the wind and Dustin appeared, followed by a freshly-showered Sonya. Her hair was still wet as she stood at the top of the steps wrapped in a pink, fluffy towel. "Sorry, I overslept. I only finished work at four," she said, with an apologetic tone.

Dustin nudged Sonya down the steps into the area where the sun would hit in the next few minutes. Sonya stood at the front as a few of the pack giggled.

Maria clapped her hands to silence the members. "As I was saying, we’ve had no threat against us for a while. BUT, now we have a new enemy. One who’s unknown to us at this moment in time. You all know about the blood that has been stolen. We have it on good authority it was Noelle's blood that they were seeking."

"Why, and what does it have to do with us?" a voice yelled from the middle of the pack. Maria watched as the sun crept over the building. The rear members of the pack were hit by the first beams of sunlight. It slowly, but surely, moved over the pack.

"Since Noelle had a rough time giving birth to Drake, her blood donations had been used. All the robberies have been in vain. Yet now, we know Kelvin might be at risk." Maria pointed to the back of the yard as Kelvin raised his arms and took a bow. "He has a blood type which is not as rare as Noelle’s, but it might be enough for our unknown enemy to create daywalkers."

The voice that boomed from the yard now, was the same as the one that had previously belted over the heads of the pack members. "What the hell are daywalkers?"

Maria sighed as she thought of the most straightforward way of explaining it to the pack. "These are vampire-werewolves that are almost invincible, and they can walk in the day, unlike a regular vampire who cannot be touched by sunlight," she explained. Automatically, gasps of real shock fell into the yard.

"You’ve brought us outside to see if we burn in the sun, was that your plan?" another male voice yelled.

Maria grinned as she retorted without any malice. "It was easier than asking each of you, one by one. At least we can see you’re all safe."

"You said these daywalkers could walk in the sun, we might be daywalkers now and you wouldn't even know."

"We think no daywalkers are in existence. What would be among us are called vlads. This is our created name for a vampire-werewolf we can kill. Until this is all over, the Towers are on full lockdown."

"So, we have to quit work again?" Maria heard chants from the pack say.

"No, as the majority of you work in the daytime, we’ll just have to be careful. We’ve started posting lookouts while the scaffolding is still in place at the front of the building. And, anyone who works nights…" Maria looked down at Sonya who tugged on her towel. It had started to open. "…So, anyone who works nights has to get a cab back home or wait until sunrise before returning home."

"I could do with the overtime!" a voice yelled sarcastically as the pack laughed.

Maria raised her hand to silence the pack. "I know I’m not your alpha, but this position has been handed to me."

"You're better to look at than Declan," a male voice yelled, followed by wolf whistles. Maria blushed slightly and had half-expected it.

"That's all for now. And everyone, please be vigilant and keep an eye on Kelvin, he’s the one they might be after.

"Let the vlads have him. He's a pain in the ass."

The pack howled with laughter as Kelvin pushed his back against the edges of the worn brick.

The guy who yelled turned to Kelvin. "Only joking, you’re a great asset to the pack."

Kelvin smiled and pulled his hand from behind his back. His middle finger extended as he flipped the guy the bird. "You’d better be joking."

“Meetings can be between people, as well as minds.”