Waking up was worse than sleeping through the horde of nightmares. Jet and I got Kobra settled in his bed, Revolver swearing he’d be fine in the morning. However I woke up in an empty bed clutched to Party’s bandanna, dried tears leaving their mark on my dirty face. This wasn’t the first time Party had been captured by the enemy. Korse had done it multiple times before. Party was a big boy; he could take care of himself, hold his own for a few days. He always did. Even said the beatings and insults were worth the wait. Sweet revenge anyways. We always got them back, fourfold.

I had missed breakfast, but right now I wasn’t really that hungry. I was curious again. As much as I knew Party could take care of himself, I couldn’t help but think about what they had said about this Zephyr guy. He did things “old-fashioned”. That his tortures and drugs were worse than anything Korse and Better Living had put us through. I wanted to know what they are capable of doing. Even though they said Hallow didn’t like talking about what they did to him, maybe he could just tell me some things that they do, or could do. Not directly what they did to him though.

As I walked out of the hotel I found Kobra sitting outside on a barrel, arm out stretched with the vampire girl from last night. She was holding his hand, talking to him, while tracing shapes in his palm. They were talking, laughing actually, which was a bit of a shock because last night she had seemed like a cold hearted bitch, and Kobra usually has some form of tough guy/poker face thing going on with people he doesn’t really know. “

Hey Kobra, how you feeling today?”

“I’m alright, weird ass dreams, but as Amber here was explaining, its just one of the symptoms for, whatever the meds were….How are you?” Kobra seemed fine. a bit hyper, and overly happy, but fine nonetheless. I was a bit confused on the meds part, but went against asking. I shrugged a response, not really knowing what to say. I caught a look from Amber though. She was mouthing something out, but didn’t get to finish before Kobra turned back to her. “Amber, this is Fun Ghoul. Ghoul, Amber is a Millennium Vampire.”

“Yeah, we met last night, didn’t really get a proper interdiction though. Figured you were someone important though, seeing as Saw was interested in you.” Amber dropped Kobra’s hand before standing to shake mine. Her eyes were dark, and her skin was pale; she had her fangs tucked away today though. Her hair was black then turned to a bleach blonde at the ends. She had her right ear fully pierced, including an industrial that started a chain leading down her ear. Her left ear was less pierced but still had a number of piercing. I had to admit though, her gauges were pretty cool. They looked like a small coin, but the ring around them was like a red milted wax, dripping down. She had her left eyebrow pierced twice, and a small stud on the right side of her nose. If I didn’t already know she was a vampire, I would have had a hard time believing it. She looked human, her skin wasn’t cold, and I swear I could feel a pulse in her palm.

“Well it’s nice to actually meet you. Not to seem rude or anything, but have you seen Dawn? I wanted to talk to him about stuff…” I dragged out my sentence hoping she wouldn’t ask what ‘stuff’ I was going to ask him about.

She looked at the ground, like she was digging through her memory of where he was. “Yeah, he’s down by the Werevamons. Think he was feeding Widow. Not sure, but he should be down there.” She looked up, smiling nicely to me before taking her seat in front of Kobra.

“Cool, well I’ll see you guys later then.”

“Wait! Ghoul! Have you seen Party? I think he’d be interested in Amber, well in the vampire thing…” I wanted to punch Kobra for asking such a stupid question. How could he have forgotten that his brother was being held captive by the enemy?

I went to latch out, to yell at Kobra for being a retard, but Amber spoke up before I could get the words out. “He’s probably out with Zed; I mean he is your guys’ leader. Zed probably wants to catch him up on what’s going on. We’ll see him later Kobra, it’s alright.” She looked at me seeing the confusion on my face as Kobra just nodded, playing with a rock Amber had handed him. “Here, I’ll take Ghoul over to the Hybrids, and you can shuffle the cards again. Do another reading for ya.”

With that, she stood handing a pile of cards to Kobra and roughly grabbing my arm, yanking me in the direction of the stables. There was that vampire power seeping out of her through an iron grip that I swear was breaking my arm. “Why’d you lie to him?” I finally muttered when she let go of me.

“He doesn’t remember. Zed wants it that way. We can’t get Party until tomorrow night the earliest, and he doesn’t want an over active Kobra Kid up his ass on rescuing his brother. I’m just keeping him amused and out of everyone’s way until Ӓllur comes back with him. Once that happens, Zed will unlock the rest of his memory and everything will be fine.” She walked a step ahead of me as she explained Kobra’s current position. “What do you mean ‘Zed will unlock the rest of his memories’? What did he do to him? And I’m gonna take a wild guess here, and say that Zed is Shepherd.”

“Yes, Zed is Shepherd. It’s his real name…well the abbreviation of his real name. Your friend was basically dead last night. Zed has this ability to call amongst the dead to capture souls, and prison your free-will. He’s done it multiple times, but never unless he has a reason. When Kobra fainted, he saw Death. He was sentenced to a night in Hell, from there; Zed can choose what he will remember, and what his freedoms are amongst Death. He chose to take the whole memory of Party being taken prisoner. He was no limitations, but if he finds out that Party isn’t here, he’ll be dragged by the riders…Just keep quiet about Party unless he brings it up.”

“How can he do that?”

“You know what an Ouija Board is?” I nodded slowly, not sure as to where she was going with this. “Zed is a walking Ouija Board basically. He was sculpted from The Black, birthed by Satan, and breaths amongst Death. He cannot be stopped; he has no fear, no sorrow, no emotion period. He’s a Shepherd guiding his heard to the end.” She stopped walking looking over at the stables. “You’ll find Dawn in there; I have to get back to Mikey before he starts roaming. Don’t worry about telling Ray though, got to him before Mikey woke up.” With that she gave me a quick hug whispering ‘sorry’ in my ear then headed back off towards Kobra.

I stood there dumbfounded for a while, letting everything Amber had just told me sink in. She seemed to be the only one who wasn’t afraid to say what exactly was going on. Maybe last night she wasn’t being as cold hearted as I thought; just stating what needed to be known. I turned heading into the stable where the Hybrids were kept. Amber was right, with Dawn being in there working on them. “Need some help?” Figured I’d be nice to the guy.

“Nah, it’s more of a one person job anyways.” He looked up catching who I was before he went back to work on the Hybrid’s back leg. “She pulled a muscle real bad, been limping all day.”

“This thing is a she?” Dawn laughed at my reaction to the giant animal standing mere inches away.

“Well, you don’t see a dick on her do ya? Anyways, how can I help you? Don’t think you actually came in here to help me, seeing as you barely know a thing about them.” He stood up, wiping the dirt off his knees, before unhooking the Hybrid letting it limp back to its stall.

“Well, I do know that they are a perfect mixture of werewolf and vampire blood, all formed into a purebred mustang.” I said holding my head high trying to impress. “I know that they don’t have eyes but their sense of smell and taste is all they need to form a perfect picture of their surroundings. I also know that their weird thing on their chest is connected to their lungs so they can clean them out, along with the gills on their neck is another way to breath, or see.”

“Alright smarty pants; who’s Widow?”

“Widow…? She’s Zed’s Hybrid…isn’t she?” I was a bit confused now, I never knew the names of any of them, didn’t know what made her special.

“I’ll give you credit for at least knowing she belongs to Shepherd. How can I help you though?” Dawn seemed like a cool guy, the night we first met, he was probably just tired, but now he seemed livelier.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, I’m okay with it, but I’m really wondering now. What exactly can they do to you in New Vegas, to their captives? I know you don’t like talking about what they did to you, but they have my best friend. I need to know.” Dawn only picked up his equipment to put it away. “Hallow please…”

“You love him.” His words came as more of statement than a question. “They don’t do pretty things in there, Ghoul. I’ve seen them rip men apart, limb by aching limb. They’ve done terrible things in there. Blood curtailing torture, Ghoul. Don’t ask what they can do, be thankful for what they didn’t.” Hallow was obviously still going through whatever they had done to him.

“Hallow…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you or anything. I really didn’t.” I didn’t know what else to say. He stood there, leaned up against the wall, doing his best to hold back tears, and by now he looked like a pro doing so. “It’s alright, gotta get over all of it eventually. You love Party, don’t let him down Ghoul. When he snaps at you, when he pushes you away, be there. Never leave his side…you’ll love again, you’ll laugh again, you’ll cry again, and you’ll dance again…” Dawn looked me straight in the eyes, as he spoke that last sentence. Squeezing my shoulder as he walked past. “Don’t go wrong where I did Ghoul…if you love him, you’ll never abandon him.”

Standing in the stable all alone, Sun burning up the worn desert; the bang and crackle of guns being fired. The shadows of New Vegas darkening everyone’s hope for this all to end. Party was out there, and I wasn’t going to abandon him, I wasn’t going to leave him after this.

“Never again and never again…They gave us two shots to the back of the head…And we’re all, dead, now…” We gave it all up, the concerts, the fame, everything…even our families after a while…but we didn’t give up each other, and I hell sure wasn’t going to give up Party now.

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