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changed.   More and more she was feeling resentful to those who would try to control her, both human and vampire alike.   More and more she wanted to lash out and teach these people a lesson.  
     
    Twig fished out his smokes and lit one up.   He took a long drag and it lit up his worried face.   He leaned his head back on the seat and blew the smoke out of the corner of his mouth.
     
    “Not Damon,” he said softly.   “A man…he had different eyes.   We were chasing him in a canyon.”
     
    “Different eyes?”   Zara asked with a tinge of alarm in her voice.
     
    “Yeah.   One blue and one red.   We were trying to kill him…”
     
    Zara sighed and touched her hair.   It surprised her when she remembered that Twig had cut it.   She looked in the side mirror and was startled by her visage.   She was starting to look like a stranger.   “We should go,” she said flatly.   She didn’t want to worry Twig.   She didn’t see much of a point to telling him that she had dreamt of the strange man too.   Only she was in a forest, running with the strange man from an army.   She was the hunted, not the hunter.   She wondered if those were the only two roles left to play.  
     
    Twig started the truck and let it idle for a moment while he played with the radio.   He finally found a station that wasn’t playing country.   The chorus of Live and Let Die was being crooned by Axl Rose.   Twig laughed and gave the radio a puzzled look.   He mumbled something about some things not dying on their own.  
     
    Back on the highway, they rode in silence until they turned onto an off-ramp and were soon on a dirt road.   The road was rough, the ride was jarring and it seemed to Zara to go on forever.   Twig stopped the truck where the road finally forked.   He hopped out and ran around the front of the truck towards a sign that read Lost Valley with an arrow pointing towards the other road.  
     
    “What are you doing?” Zara asked through the window.   She couldn’t help but laugh a bit at Twig as he grew frustrated and started bouncing against the thing.   She could have got out and helped him—a light push from her would probably send the thing flying—but she didn’t want to emasculate him.   She knew he was having a tough time dealing with everything, and she could sense that he was having trouble reconciling with the fact that he hadn’t been able to stop Damon or Micah, or even Vivian.  
     
    The sign finally broke free from its base and fell over, taking Twig with it.   He cursed as he fell over and disappeared in the grass.   He got up and pulled several thorns out of his jacket and then returned to the truck.   “That should make it a little harder to find us,” he said proudly.
     
    Zara looked worried and he added: “If they are even looking for us, that is.”   Twig nodded and turned the wheel, towards Lost Valley.  
     
    The main thoroughfare of Lost Valley was dusty and deserted.   Twig drove slowly through the old town, looking out into the night with tired eyes.
     
    “Wow,” he said looking at the old western buildings.   “Wooden sidewalks and everything.   I bet this place was pretty happening about a hundred years ago.”
     
    Zara lazily gazed out at the dark structures—a gift shop with horseshoes puzzles and wooden toy rifles displayed in the window; a little restaurant named the Silver Star; a barbershop.   Everything was closed and dark accept an old saloon where a few cars were parked out front.   A soft and lonely western tune drifted out from the place.  
     
    “I hear one banjo and I’m gunning it,” Twig said, giving the bar a suspicious look.
     
    They drove to the end of the strip and found a three-story Victorian hotel with a row of blue pillars holding up an awning over a sizable porch.   The hotel was painted twenty different bright colors and the sign outside was purple with elegant golden letters spelling out “The Alistair.”   Under