"What did you say?"
The words caught in Sam's throat and she had to hold her breath.
"Star? Who's Star?" Mike repeated. "What kind of hippy name is that? It's almost as bad as Moonbeam...or Moonchild." He scratched his head and looked at Sam like she had grown a second head. "You know what I mean."
Michael had finally lost it.
"You don't...you don't remember her?"
Again, Sammy was floored. This was a terrible trick.
"I'm pretty sure I would remember if I had a girlfriend-"
"But you don't!" She cut him off quickly. "You don't remember. What do you remember?
He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but closed it like a fish. He couldn't remember. It was all blurry. That was strange. His eyebrows furrowed together and he brought his hand to the back of his neck. Why couldn't he remember?
Mike's hand raked over the back of his head and neck and he stopped when he felt cold metal. It was on his ear. It was in his ear. His eyes went wide as he looked back over to Sam.
"When did I get an earring?" He croaked, surprised at his discovery. Mike never did like earrings. Why would he have one now?
"Your girlfriend probably gave it to you." Sam quipped quietly, looking back towards Lucy's door to make sure that they were alone.
Girlfriend. There it was again, that terrible and confusing word and Mike didn't like it at all. Before he had time to ask about it Sam grabbed his arm and dragged him to their shared bathroom before turning on the sink and lowering her voice. She needed to make sure Lucy didn't accidentally overhear them.
"We're in big trouble here, Mikey. And if you can't remember what's going on around here, what's going on with you, then I'll have to show you."
Sam rubbed her eyes at Mike's confusion and dragged him over to sit on the side of the tub, scratching at her sweater uncomfortably.
"We got into a fight. You started a fight." She corrected herself, pointing in his direction and pacing across the tile. Michael looked down and shook his head. He didn't remember them getting into a fight. "You were having mood swings, and wouldn't eat, and you started floating Mike. Floating, Mike. I thought that Star had something to do with it, I still do, but you turned into a completely different person. You were stronger and angrier than I've ever seen, and you were defending her." Sam was going off, trying to knock some sense into him.
His baffled expression didn't help. She would need to do something more drastic.
"You did this to me."
Sam was desperate, and she pulled her shirt to the side and pointed at where she knew the bruises lingered. He needed to know just how bad things were getting.
Mike blinked, but didn't react.
"What am I supposed to be looking at?"
Sam was going to pull her hair out.
"Real funny, Mike." She grumbled.
Sam walked over to the sink and looked in the mirror, stopping when she could get a clear view of the exposed skin. She pulled the material of the shirt back further, not trusting her own eyes.
There was no way. It was impossible. She scrambled, looking at her other shoulder to see if she was wrong. But she wasn't wrong.
The marks were gone.
With a shudder Sam practically ran out the door to her room, not stopping when Mike called after her. She needed help.
Shuffling around, she knocked over her alarm clock and wallet before reaching out to the Vampires Everywhere comic. Sam needed to bring in the infantry. She needed to call the Frog Brothers.
"Frog Comics doesn't open until-"
"Edgar!" Sam cut him off with a quick breath of relief that he answered. She couldn't get the words out fast enough. "Edgar, something happened."
Sam's tone managed to catch his attention before he hung up the other line, and even through the phone she could tell that he just woke up.
"I'm listening." He croaked, holding back a yawn.
"I - I don't know what happened but Mike's memory has been wiped. He doesn't remember anything, Edgar. He doesn't remember anything about the vampires, or that he's turning into a bloodhound. Hell, he doesn't even remember that he has a girlfriend." She watched the door like a hawk, waiting for Mike or even Lucy to storm in at any moment.
"Sam, what do you mean?""
"He doesn't remember anything!"
There was a silence on the other line but Sam could hear Alan shuffle over and after a moment of muffled words she heard a loud curse.
"Guys, come on," She groaned impatiently. "what are you guys talking about? I could use some help over -"
"This means the bloodsuckers are on to us, Sam." Alan jumped in quickly.
"They know we know." Edgar clarified.
Sam opened her mouth, but words wouldn't come out. Her throat went dry and the words died on her tongue.
"We better lay low for a little bit. We know a lot, but shit, what if they wipe our memories too? Then we'll be sitting ducks."
The Frogs were probably right, but it didn't change the rage and frustration that bubbled up inside Sam.
The vampire made it personal. Star made it personal. She twisted and played with Michael's mind, making him fall for her and then what? She threw him away. She was playing games with his head and his heart, and Sam was going to put a stop to it.
She could hear the Frogs trying to talk to her, but she wouldn't hear it. Sam was beyond reason. She hung up the phone without looking at it and changed out of her sandy clothes. In her head she was mentally gearing up for a fight.
At some point Sam made her way downstairs with a pulsing headache, her head and body fighting the whole way. Even with the excitement of the morning something felt off. She plopped down at the table slowly, keeping her head up by cradling it in one of her hands. All track of time was lost to her. She couldn't tell if it was still morning or if the afternoon had crept up on them. She was still sluggish and tired. It seemed she wasn't the only one.
Michael came down for breakfast none the wiser, showered and ready for the day but his eyes were only half open. Lucy was dragging her feet with her steps, wiping away the sleep from her eyes.
The only one who seemed chipper as ever was their grandpa. He must have been in his workshop but popped his head out to refill his coffee. He was humming an older tune, something by Johnny Cash, and was waltzing back to the coffee pot. As he approached he reached out and spun Lucy around in a clumsy circle as he reached for the milk in the refrigerator.
His eyebrows perked up and he pushed his glasses down his nose to look around.
"What's the matter with you three?"
Neither Sam or Mike replied, but they shrugged.
"We're just a little sleepy today, dad." Lucy scolded, grabbing to the counter to center her balance. She was not ready to be jolted around the kitchen.
"That so?" He mumbled, but Sam could tell he wasn't really listening.
Sam watched her mom as she rolled her eyes and it made her grin into her hand.
Her grandpa retreated back to the safety of his workshop without fuss. She should have been used to his cryptic behavior by now, but Sam couldn't shake off a strange feeling that washed over her.
She kept thinking back to Star.
What if she put a spell over the house? What if she was the reason why everyone was moving in a daze? If she was capable of doing that, Sam didn't want to know what else she was capable of. She didn't dare to think about it.
Her head was full of terrible and wild ideas, but Sam couldn't afford to not try and put a stop to their vampire problem. There was too much at stake for them to just give in. Mike, even though he said he was hungry, barely touched his food. It wasn't agreeing with his stomach. In fact, Sam didn't even think he took a bite of the cereal he poured.
Lucy sat down at the table next to Sam and offered a small grin, holding her coffee cup with a gentle grip. Even the coffee wasn't helping. Every couple of minutes Sam would look over to see her mom's eyes glazed over. None of them could seem to get through the haze.
It was a quiet day at the Emerson house.
Sam tried to jump start herself with a shower, colder than she would like on any other day. The cold sting on her skin reminded her that she needed to stay awake. She still couldn't believe that the bruises that Mike had given her vanished into thin air. It was like magic.
The sand that clung to her washed away, and so did the sleep that lingered in the back of her head. She thought about Marko, and was worried that she might have scared him away. She could hardly remember the night before. She remembered the motorcycle ride and sitting by the bonfire, but she couldn't remember the fine details.
Sam remembered the way that it made her feel to be so close to him. It made her blush. She really hoped that she didn't royally screw things up.
She really didn't know how she was going to approach Star. She thought about the Frogs and how cautious they were on the phone.
Brushing it off, Sam needed to think practically. This would be the time to strike - in the middle of the day when vampires are most vulnerable. It was going to be a lot harder with Mike's memory situation...Wait. Maybe Mike could help her.
He didn't remember Star, so he couldn't remember about how head over heels he was. If he could just see that she was the monster, maybe he would be on her side. She changed quickly and rushed over to his room. The door was open a crack, and pushing it open the room was empty.
Mike's bed was made and his clothes were put away, and there was no trace of him. Even the leather jacket he had bought was out of sight. The earring that he was wearing was on the nightstand.
She knew that she couldn't just openly tell him that they were going vampire hunting. He would think that she was even crazier than she seemed when she dragged him to the bathroom earlier.
Sam heard humming from the kitchen, and as she searched the house she popped her head in to see Lucy seeming much more refreshed. Maybe there was a reset button and they were all feeling better.
"Mom?" She asked when she noticed no one else in the room. "Have you seen Mike?"
Lucy turned and wiped her hands off on one of the towels with a small smile.
"I think that he went out to the old garage to help your grandfather. He still has the old car out there. It's like Mike's back to his old self." Lucy did look refreshed, and she went back to getting spices out of the cabinet. "I really shouldn't say this Sam, but I'm glad he's turned things around. I don't know what I would have done if he kept staying out late. It's no wonder why he was so grumpy."
Sam nodded, a sour scowl coming over her.
"I think you're right. We weren't made to be nocturnal."
Her mom nodded in agreement quickly and went back to humming. Sam could tell she was at the end of their heart to heart and turned on her heel to the front of the house.
If there was something that Sam would never get used to was the amount of yard statues and stuffed animals and eclectic decorations that her grandpa kept. There were totem poles and stuffed owls on the buildings and in the trees that made her shiver. Rusted metal parts littered the ground and there were wooden poles in a pile by the house. Maybe he was replacing a fence.
As she rounded the house and passed by one of the other out buildings she heard a crash and her eyes darted to the garage. She heard a groan and broke into a run, kicking up dirt behind her.
Mike was dangling up on one of the rafters in the garage, swinging his arms to try and keep his grip. The ladder he must have climbed up had fallen over, only a foot away from the covered convertible.
"Oh shit, Mike. You okay?" Sam called, reaching for the ladder. His eyes were squeezed shut and his breathing was shallow. He was definitely not okay.
Steadying the ladder she helped him down and he brushed his hands off on his pants before taking a step back.
"Mike?" She asked again, giving him his space.
"Yeah, I'm good. I just got a little dizzy up there." He scratched the back of his neck with his hand, but his hands were shaking. He got dizzy up there?
"Hey, are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, I'm good." He dismissed, but he didn't sound so sure. "It was the strangest thing. One moment, I was climbing up there for an extra bag of fertilizer, and when I looked down -" His words caught in his throat and he shuddered without realizing it.
"Mike?" Sam cocked her head to the side.
"I..I saw something." He didn't have the heart to tell her, but Mike was looking down into a nightmare.
When he was hanging from the rafters he saw a cascade of fog with no end in sight. Mike heard laughing. He could have sworn that he saw yellow eyes watching him.
He felt terrified.
When he jutted his eyes up and away from the fog he wasn't hanging onto garage rafters at all. It was like he was hanging on to the metal piping under...railroad tracks. It sounded insane. He would never do something so reckless, but for a split second it felt real. He didn't remember seeing any railroad tracks in Santa Carla.
There was no way that he was going to tell Sam any of that. He would sound insane. She'd never believe it.
He had to think fast. So instead he gave her an embarrassed grin and shook his head.
"Do you think grandpa stuffs mice and sticks them all over the place for the fun of it? Or do you think that there's actually a rat motel in this place?"
Sam suddenly jumped a foot in the air and backtracked out of the garage. The look on her face was priceless.
"I know you're joking Mike, but it's a terrible joke." She scowled, her eyes frantically looking for any rodents to scurry by. "The answer is probably both."
Mike played it off better than he hoped. He reached back over for the bag of fertilizer and slung it over his shoulder, closing the garage door behind them.
"Help me out with the plants around the house, will ya?" He asked and Sam gave him the side eye before humming to agree. She turned her back to him and walked ahead, searching for gardening gloves.
Mike's steps faltered for a moment.
He could still see the glowing eyes in the back of his head and it sent a shiver down his spine. He couldn't explain it. Mike looked up and the sun was overcast, but he could swear that his body was on fire from the heat of it. He felt flushed. Maybe it was all in his head, but for now he'd stay quiet about it.