The room was small, dank, dark, and the floor was cold, moist, hard-packed dirt. He could feel the small stubble of roots pressing against his hands that were bound behind his back as he lay terrified in this hole again. Questioning the Master was wrong but striking the ass of a son always earned severe punishment with time in the icebox with only breaks for obedience beatings from his Mentor.

He could hear the footsteps growing closer. That scuff of her boot, the way she typically dragged her left heal slightly as she limped from an encounter with a rival dhampir a decade ago. The lantern light, so warm, was as inviting as a knife to his throat or a pistol to his forehead as it slipped into his cell through the tin on top of the roof of this cursed hole. At the moment, that tin felt like the shield a the Archangel Michael, but it was going to be ripped away by Satan herself. He tensed himself when the footsteps stopped outside of his cold refuge. Screams echoed from his lips as the light seared his eyes...

"Sir, it is alright. You are fine."

The hand shook him awake as the red-haired youth sat up slowly, looking around. A flashlight was shining in his face from the hand of a police officer. Heath held up a pale hand to block the light from his eyes as the lady looked at him with concern, vapor puffing with each breath. The night was cold, and frost crackled on his out clothing with each movement.

"I am sorry," he began slowly, "I...I have nightmares from a troubled past."

How was he supposed to explain to an officer his past? He did not feel like hiding for the next century and a half in the psych ward. The officer's face took on an even more concerned tone. Heath swore under his breath. To humans, he looked like a teenage boy, no more than fifteen years of age, when in reality, he was more than twice that. It had already tripped him up twice since he ran away.

"Son, I need to know where you live. We need to contact your guardians at least to let them know you are alright. You don't have to go back if you don't want, but you do have to come with me..." she paused for a moment to give him a chance to comply with her request.

Heath hung his head and let out an audible sigh. He let most of his muscles go lax except for his core, making it look like he was defeated. His shoulders shook, and he sobbed some. It did not take much acting to make the sobbing real. Over the past month, he had lost everything he knew. His past, what he considered his family, however screwed up it was, all his possessions, and all because he dared to challenge his half-brother.

The officer let her guard down and placed a comforting hand on the youth's shoulder. Heath let the spring wound in his core release pivoting his body around the officer with inhuman speed. He might be a sterile half-breed, but it did not come without some perks. He made sure he was gentle with the lady. She was one of the better ones he had met since entering the human world. His hands held just enough pressure to hold her but not enough to hurt, and as he pivoted her to the ground, he relieved her of her sidearms.

"I will leave these and your keys in your car. Believe me, where I am from, who I am running from, you neither want to contact, nor do I want them to know where I am. My nightmare was about them, about some of the atrocities visited upon me by them. I wish it upon no one. Your radio will be on top of the car so you can call for help. Please do not pursue me." Heath whispered reverently into her ear.

"What are you?" She asked in a low, halting voice.

"Something from a world that you do know to exist, and if you are smart, you will forget that you met one of its denison tonight."

And with that, he used what stealth and speed he had to disappear again, cursing because he knew this would not go unnoticed by his two siblings who were tracking him relentlessly. Sleep would not be his friend this day nor for many after.

Karen opened the door to the Willow Springs Police Department. The weather was turning sharply colder, and even in the United States' mid-latitudes, snow was flying before Christmas. She looked at the report that she had obtained about the sightings of Heath a week back here in town. Acting under the pretense of a concerned mother, looking for her runaway child was an easy story to sell. The officers inside were eager to help this poor mother find her only son and get him back home before the Holidays.

Heath was suspected in a string of thefts in the area, sloppy ones of someone who was not used to a society and its rules. Novices such as Heath had not yet been initiated or integrated into the human society yet, never setting foot outside the Vampire Domain until their Mentor deems the ready to withstand the culture that they will be exposed to during their five-year tenure of the grooming stage of their training in which they learn to live within human cities and eventually groom humans to become feeders for the Masters.

During times like this, when they had a dhampir run, one that is uninitiated, it helped in the tracking process. Someone unfamiliar with the world's ways made a mess of things and left a trail that allowed easy and swift capture. At this rate, Karen expected to have her prey back for the pleasure of the Master's own invention by the weeks out. She smiled inwardly as she walked to the hotel where her crispy partner lay sleeping the day away.