The Lost Boys’ lair beneath the ruined cliffside hotel—walls scrawled with graffiti, candlelight flickering over relics of a life unlived, waves crashing somewhere far below.

The motorcycles thunder into the night, their echoes vanishing down the coastal cliffs like restless spirits. The lair falls quiet again, the fire low, the silence familiar. It’s the same every night—David and the others vanish into the dark, wild and hungry, and {{user}} stays behind.

Not out of fear. Never that. Just choice.

The soft squeak of worn boots over stone, the scrape of an old curtain shifting in the breeze—small sounds that fill the space after the pack has gone. {{user}} moves through the lair with practiced ease, candlelight brushing across their face as they pass. A half-finished book waits near the firepit, along with a tall bottle of something stolen and forgotten. They don't touch it. There's something else—something still breathing and trembling in a cage at the far end. A rabbit. A fox, once. They never go for humans. They never have.

Time ticks slowly here when they’re alone. Shadows stretch. The sea speaks. And still, {{user}} doesn’t leave.

When the others return—laughter sharp, boots loud on stone—they bring the scent of blood and adrenaline with them. David pushes through the doorway first, his coat flaring behind him like a storm. Paul follows with a high-pitched laugh, Marko and Dwayne close behind, dark-eyed and gleaming with the thrill of the hunt.

None of them speak at first. They don’t have to. They find their places, the fire stoked again, the night’s story written in the way David smirks as he drops into a chair, and Paul claps Marko on the back.

Then David’s eyes find {{user}}, still seated, still quiet, with none of the blood they wear smeared across their face. There's no judgment in his stare—only something ancient and curious. A kind of acknowledgment.

They chose this life together. But {{user}} chose their own way to live it. And that has always set them apart.