TBD (Trip & Rocket) - Chapter 1 (Pre-Release Draft)

Rocket – The Neighborhood Bar, Tucson

The neon sign outside The Neighborhood Bar flickered between red and nothing, casting intermittent shadows across cracked asphalt that reminded Rocket of dried blood. She’d been walking for over an hour, letting her feet carry her away from the suffocating weight of well-meaning family love and the ash-scented grief that clung to every surface of the Waverly Street house.

About three miles, an hour’s walk at a normal pace. That’s how far she’d needed to move before the tightness in her chest began to loosen, before the phantom sound of Cactusflower’s voice stopped echoing in her head. Sometimes motion was the only medicine that worked, the only thing that could outrun the voices telling her she should have seen it coming, should have done something, should have been better at saving people who didn’t want to be saved.

The bar’s interior wrapped around her like an old leather jacket—worn, comfortable, and slightly rank with decades of absorbed disappointment. Perfect. She needed somewhere that already smelled like failure so she wouldn’t have to explain her own.

That’s when she saw him.

A man sat alone at the far end of the bar, shoulders hunched over an untouched glass of amber liquid, breathing in the scent like it contained memories worth drowning in. His suit was expensive but wrinkled, his tie loosened just enough to suggest surrender, and his hands trembled slightly as they gripped the bar’s edge. He looked like every corporate middle manager who’d ever discovered that success was just another word for a gilded cage.

More importantly, he looked like someone who understood what it meant to be completely fucked by circumstances beyond your control.

Rocket claimed a corner table where she could watch the room without being easily approached—old habits from months of survival—and ordered the carne asada street tacos she couldn’t taste but could smell. The spicy, meaty aroma reminded her of better times, of being human enough to eat food instead of other people’s blood. These days, she subsisted on fear and desire and the complex cocktail of shame that seasoned every interaction in places like this, but sometimes she missed the simplicity of just wanting a taco at night.

She was considering whether to approach the broken man when the decision was made for her.

The door burst open with enough force to rattle the windows, and a woman stormed in with the focused intensity of someone who’d been rehearsing an argument for weeks. Early thirties, professional attire that had been pressed this morning but now looked like she’d been living in it, eyes bright with the kind of fury that came from being lied to by someone you’d trusted.

She scanned the room, spotted her target, and marched toward the bar like a guided missile locked onto coordinates.

“Where the hell have you been?”

The man—Trip, apparently—looked up from his whiskey like a deer caught in headlights, and Rocket saw his face properly for the first time. Corporate middle management, yes, but with the haunted expression of someone carrying guilt that weighed more than his salary could justify. Deep circles under his eyes, a nervous tic in his jaw, and the particular brand of exhaustion that came from trying to maintain normal appearances while your life disintegrated in ways you couldn’t explain to anyone.

Rocket recognized the look. She’d seen it in mirrors during her first weeks as a vampire, back when she was still trying to pretend she could go home for Sunday dinner and act like nothing had changed.

“Sophia, I—” Trip began, but she cut him off with a gesture that could have severed arteries.

“Dad had to fire you for abandonment while the whole office was talking about you and Eliza. Do you know what that’s been like for me?”

Eliza. Rocket filed the name away automatically, her predatory instincts cataloging information even while she watched the human drama unfold. Office affair gone wrong, by the sound of it. Classic middle-aged male crisis material, except something about Trip’s reaction suggested complications beyond the usual mid-life breakdown.

“I can’t—it’s not what you think—” Trip stammered, his voice carrying the desperate quality of someone trying to explain the unexplainable. “There are circumstances… obligations I can’t discuss…”

Sophia’s laugh was sharp enough to cut glass. “Circumstances? What circumstances could possibly justify disappearing for weeks without a word? What obligations matter more than your job, your family, your—” She gestured at him with disgust. “Whatever this is?”

From her corner table, Rocket watched Trip’s face cycle through expressions: panic, guilt, terror, and something deeper—the particular anguish of someone who wanted desperately to tell the truth but couldn’t without destroying everything. She’d worn that exact expression herself, back when she was still trying to maintain contact with her old life, still pretending she could be both vampire and daughter, predator and human being.

“Everyone’s been whispering for weeks about you getting Eliza pregnant and disappearing,” Sophia continued, her voice rising with each word. “I’ve been defending you while looking like an idiot. ‘He’s going through a rough patch,’ I told them. ‘He’s not the kind of man who abandons his responsibilities.’ But here you are, sitting in a bar, hiding from everything like a coward.”

Pregnant. Rocket’s enhanced hearing caught the slight hitch in Trip’s breathing, the way his knuckles went white around his glass. This was news to him. He hadn’t known.

“Sophia, please, just let me—”

“And now I’m pregnant too.”

The words hit the room like a physical blow. Rocket felt the impact from across the bar, watched Trip’s face go through a complete emotional collapse in slow motion. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, his eyes wide with the kind of shock that came from having your entire world shifted without warning. He looked like a man who’d just been told he was dying, which, given the circumstances Rocket was beginning to piece together, might not be far from the truth.

Two pregnancies. Two children on the way, and from his reaction, he’d known about neither of them. What kind of obligations could keep a man so isolated from his own life that he missed something this fundamental?

The answer, Rocket realized, was the same kind that kept teenage girls from calling home even when they were dying of loneliness. The supernatural kind. The kind that came with fangs and bloodlust and the absolute certainty that the people you loved could never, ever understand what you’d become.

Trip was staring at Sophia with the expression of someone watching a train wreck in slow motion, powerless to prevent the destruction but unable to look away. His throat worked soundlessly, and Rocket could smell his terror from across the room—not the clean fear of physical danger, but the complex bouquet of a man drowning in guilt and circumstances he couldn’t control.

“What happened to you?” Sophia’s voice broke on the question, professional anger giving way to something rawer, more personal. “Who are you anymore? Because from where I’m sitting, you look like exactly what everyone says you are.”

The silence that followed was brutal in its completeness. Trip opened his mouth several times, each attempt at explanation dying before it could form words. How could he tell her? How could anyone in their situation explain that they’d been pulled into a world where normal human concerns became luxuries they couldn’t afford, where family obligations were measured against supernatural threats, where loving someone meant staying away from them for their own protection?

Sophia waited, her chest rising and falling with the effort of controlling her emotions. When Trip offered nothing but continued silence, she reached into her purse, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, and slammed it on the bar hard enough to make the glasses jump.

“Figure out what you want,” she said, her voice steady but hollowed out by disappointment. “Because I can’t do this alone.”

She turned and walked toward the exit, each step deliberate and final.

“Paige, wait…”

Sophia turned in a rage. “What did you call me?” She paused. “Paige? You called me by HER name…”

“Sophia, I’m sorry, it just slipped…”

“I am not your goddamned ex-wife, Trip. And I sure as hell better not be your sloppy thirds.” She turned again and stormed toward the exit.

“When you decide whether you want to be a father to my child or just another deadbeat who couldn’t handle responsibility, you know where to find me.”

The door closed behind her with the soft click of something ending permanently.

Trip sat motionless for long moments, staring at his reflection in the untouched whiskey. His breathing was shallow, uneven, and Rocket could practically taste the self-loathing radiating from him in waves. Here was a man who’d just learned he was going to be a father twice over while being unable to explain why he couldn’t be present for any of it. A man trapped between worlds, belonging fully to neither, slowly being destroyed by the weight of secrets he couldn’t share.

Rocket recognized every line of that particular torture.

She stood up, left her untouched food on the corner table, and walked to the bar. Trip didn’t look up as she slid onto the adjacent stool, didn’t seem to notice her presence until she spoke.

“Rough night?”

He glanced at her then, taking in her appearance with the automatic assessment of someone who’d learned to be careful around strangers. Young woman, probably college-aged based on her makeup choices, wearing clothes that suggested she had money but not necessarily from legal sources. The kind of person a respectable corporate manager should probably avoid, especially when he was already drowning in complications he couldn’t explain.

But his eyes lingered on her expression, and Rocket saw the moment when he recognized something familiar in her face. The particular exhaustion of someone trying to hold impossible things together. The specific quality of isolation that came from carrying secrets too heavy for normal human shoulders.

“You seem to have a gift for understatement,” he replied, his voice hoarse with the effort of maintaining composure. He gestured vaguely at his glass. “You just saw the show. Turns out I’m going to be a father. Twice. As of about five minutes ago.” He paused. “I’m not sure ‘rough night’ covers it.”

“Congratulations,” Rocket said, her tone carefully neutral. “But you don’t look happy about it.”

Trip let out a laugh that contained no humor whatsoever. “Happy. Right. Kind of hard to be happy about bringing children into the world when you can’t even...” He trailed off, seeming to realize he was confessing to a stranger.

“When you can’t even what?”

He studied her face for a long moment, as if trying to decide how much truth he could afford to share. Rocket waited patiently, recognizing the internal calculation. She’d made similar assessments herself, back when she was still learning the boundaries between what could be said and what had to remain hidden.

“When you can’t even protect the child you already have,” Trip said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “When you’ve become the monster he needs protection from.”

There it was. The real wound, the source of the guilt that was eating him alive. Rocket felt something click into place, a recognition that went deeper than surface sympathy. Here was someone else trying to lead when they felt fundamentally unqualified, someone else drowning in responsibility they’d never asked for, someone else watching helplessly as their attempts to protect the people they loved only seemed to make everything worse.

“What happened to him?” she asked softly.

Trip’s hands clenched around his glass, knuckles going white. “I can’t... there are people involved, obligations... I made choices that seemed right at the time, and now...” He took a shuddering breath. “Now my son is paying the price for my failures, and I can’t even begin explain why I can’t fix it.”

The pieces were falling into place now, forming a picture Rocket understood all too well. Supernatural obligations that couldn’t be shared with normal humans. Choices made under pressure that seemed logical in the moment but revealed their horror over time. Children used as leverage to ensure compliance with demands that violated everything you’d once believed about right and wrong.

“How old?” she asked.

“Four.” Trip’s voice cracked on the word. “He’s four years old, and he’s... he’s somewhere I can’t reach him, with people who...” He stopped, shaking his head. “I can’t even think about what they might be doing to him. What they might have already done. What he’s already seen because of me.”

Rocket felt something cold and familiar settle in her chest. She thought of Cactusflower, sixteen and broken, choosing sunrise over the possibility of healing. She thought of her own family, still searching for a daughter who could never come home. She thought of all the children caught in the crossfire of adult decisions, paying prices they’d never agreed to for sins they’d never committed.

“You’re trying to get him back,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

Trip nodded, not trusting his voice.

“And the people holding him... they want something from you in return.”

Another nod, this one accompanied by a grimace that suggested the price was higher than he’d originally calculated.

Rocket considered her next words carefully. There were protocols to follow, boundaries to maintain. She couldn’t reveal the supernatural world to an uninitiated mortal, couldn’t risk exposure by being too direct in her questions. But there were ways to test, subtle probes that could determine whether Trip was already part of their world or just another human caught in its gravitational pull.

“These people,” she said slowly, “they operate at night, don’t they?”

Trip’s head snapped toward her, eyes suddenly sharp with suspicion and hope in equal measure. “How did you—” He stopped, studying her face with new intensity. “Who are you?”

Rocket met his gaze steadily, letting him see the weight behind her eyes, the particular kind of knowledge that came from living in shadows and feeding on darkness. She didn’t say anything directly—couldn’t risk it if she was wrong about him—but she let him draw his own conclusions.

Recognition dawned in his expression, followed immediately by relief so profound it was almost painful to witness.

“You’re one of them,” he breathed. “You’re like... like the people who have my son.”

“Not like them,” Rocket corrected, her voice carrying a hard edge. “But I know the world you’re talking about. The one where normal rules don’t apply and children get used as playing pieces in games they don’t understand.”

Trip’s shoulders sagged as if a physical weight had been lifted from them. For the first time since she’d been watching him, he looked something other than completely alone.

“How do you stand it?” he asked. “How do you live with knowing what’s out there, what they’re capable of, and still pretend everything is normal?”

The question hit closer to home than Rocket cared to admit. How did any of them stand it? How did you go on functioning when every interaction with normal humans reminded you of everything you’d lost, everything you could never have again?

“You don’t pretend,” she said simply. “You just... compartmentalize. You do what needs to be done to protect the people who matter, even when they hate you for it. Even when you hate yourself for it.”

Trip was quiet for a long moment, processing this. When he spoke again, his voice was steadier, as if having someone who understood made the impossible slightly more bearable.

“I lead a team,” he said. “People who depend on me to make the right calls, to keep them safe while we try to... to do something about the children who’ve been taken. But every decision I make seems to put someone else at risk, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m going to get them all killed because I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Rocket felt a chill of recognition. “How many?”

“Four. Four people trusting me to lead them into situations where I’m learning the rules as we go. Where one mistake could...” He shuddered. “One of them is barely older than you. She shouldn’t even be there, shouldn’t be risking her life because of my failures, but she’s the smartest one on the team and we need her expertise. How fucked up is that?”

“Pretty fucked up,” Rocket agreed. “But you know what’s more fucked up? Having a team of people who trust you and doing nothing while more kids disappear because you’re too scared to act.”

Trip looked at her sharply. “Is that what you tell yourself?”

“Every day.” Rocket’s smile was bitter. “I’m part of a… well I guess you’d call it a family. Five girls, all of us abandoned, all who survived shit that would break most adults, and I try to help keep all of us safe, to make the right calls when things get complicated. But every day I wake up knowing that we’re going to fail eventually, and that my fuckups are going to cost all of us everything we’ve managed to build.”

She thought of Cactusflower’s goodbye letter, of the ash on the front porch, of the family gathering around King’s urn with tears they couldn’t shed and grief too heavy for teenage hearts to carry.

“We lost a hermana two days ago,” she continued, her voice steady despite the pain beneath it. “She was just sixteen years old, sweet as candy, but too damaged to accept the love we were trying to give her. She chose sitting on our poach, watching the sunrise over staying with us, and I keep thinking maybe if I’d been better at this, maybe if I’d found the right words or made different choices...”

“It’s not your fault,” Trip said automatically.

Rocket’s laugh was harsh. “Isn’t it? I’m one who found her, brought her home. I was supposed to help her navigate this world, figure out how to stay safe from threats when she couldn’t even see coming. If I can’t do that, if I can’t protect the people who trust me, then what the fuck good am I?” Rocket paused, then: “I guess the threat we didn’t see coming was herself.”

They sat in silence for a moment, two failed guardians sharing the weight of impossible responsibility. The bar around them continued its nightly rhythm—glasses clinking, conversations murmuring, the soft electronic sounds of video poker machines—but their corner felt isolated from the normal world, a bubble of shared understanding in an ocean of people who couldn’t comprehend the choices they faced.

“The thing that gets to me,” Trip said eventually, “is that they deserve better. My team, your girls... they deserve leaders who know what they’re doing, who don’t have to figure it out as they go while lives hang in the balance.”

“Maybe,” Rocket replied. “But maybe that’s not how it works. Maybe the only people willing to take on the responsibility are the ones smart enough to know they’re not qualified for it. Maybe the ones who think they know what they’re doing are the ones you really need to worry about.”

Trip considered this, rolling his untouched whiskey between his palms. The scent of aged bourbon and regret hung in the air between them, a mixture of everything they couldn’t have and everything they couldn’t change.

“Do you really believe that?” he asked.

Rocket thought about Babydoll’s quiet authority, about the way the other girls instinctively looked to her when things got complicated. About Marigold’s gentle strength and Copal’s fierce loyalty and Blondie’s protective instincts. About King, who’d had to give up everything to keep them safe because of Babydoll’s blood-bond. She thought about Warren’s quiet competence and commanding presence.

“Some days,” she said honestly. “Some days I think maybe love is more important than competence. Maybe caring enough to try, even when you’re scared you’ll fuck it up, is better than letting perfect be the enemy of good.”

“And other days?”

“Other days I think we’re all just children playing with loaded guns, and sooner or later someone’s going to get hurt because we were too arrogant to admit we were in over our heads.”

Trip nodded, understanding. “Yeah. That’s... that’s exactly how it feels. Most times, adulting is just falling from one disaster to the next, and doing the best you can to mitigate the damage on the way down.”

They lapsed into companionable silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Around them, the bar continued its nightly dance of temporary connections and permanent regrets, people seeking solace in alcohol and strangers, trying to forget whatever had driven them from the safety of their homes into the uncertain comfort of public spaces.

Finally, Trip spoke again.

“What’s your name?”

“Rocket.” She didn’t offer her real name, the one from before, the one that belonged to a girl who’d died months ago in a shallow grave. That person was gone, and Rocket was what remained—harder, sharper, forged in fire and blood and the absolute necessity of survival.

“Trip,” he replied. “Though I’m guessing you already figured that out from the dramatic entrance.”

“Your girlfriend seems... intense.”

“Ex-coworker. Her father’s assistant. Dear old Dad was my boss. And now...” He gestured helplessly. “Now the mother of my child, apparently… along with other on the way with Eliza. And the dead ex-wife who was the mother of my son Asher… who is god knows where.”

Rocket whistled low. “That’s a lot of complications.”

“Tell me about it.” Trip finally picked up his glass, inhaling deeply before setting it down untouched again. “I used to be good at this stuff. Project management, stakeholder communication, keeping all the moving pieces coordinated. But this world... your world... our new world, it doesn’t follow the same rules, and I keep trying to apply normal solutions to supernatural problems.”

“What kind of solutions?”

Trip’s expression darkened. “The kind where you eliminate threats before they can hurt anyone else. The kind where you make hard choices about acceptable losses and operational security. The kind where...” He stopped, seeming to realize how that sounded.

Rocket felt something cold settle in her stomach. “The kind where you kill people,” she whispered.

It wasn’t a question, and Trip didn’t try to deny it. He just nodded, looking older than his years.

“Children,” he said very quietly. “Rabid vampire children who’ve been turned into weapons, used by monsters to hurt innocent people. We find them, we... we put them down, turn them to ash. Clean, professional, no unnecessary suffering. But they’re still children, and I’m still the one giving the orders that end their lives.”

The pieces clicked into place with horrible clarity. Rocket thought about Warren talking about a group that was eliminating vampires like herself, Claudias’, of the mission to eliminate newly-turned vampires before they could cause widespread destruction. Trip was one of them, their leader.

“I froze up tonight,” Trip said. “I saw my son’s face on his face and I froze.”

“That’s why your team doesn’t trust you,” she said. “You hesitate when it matters.”

Trip’s laugh was bitter. “Wouldn’t you? They’re children. Doesn’t matter what they’ve been turned into, what they’re capable of... some part of them is still innocent, still deserving of protection. And I’m ordering their execution because someone somewhere thinks it’s tactically necessary.”

“And your son?”

“Is being held by the woman who gives me those orders. Insurance, to make sure I don’t let personal feelings interfere with operational requirements.” Trip’s voice was hollow. “She has my child, so I kill other people’s children. Perfect symmetry.”

Rocket understood now why he looked so broken, why Sophia’s news had hit him like a physical blow. Two more children entering his world, two more lives that could be used against him, two more reasons for him to compromise his principles in service of impossible choices.

“It doesn’t get easier,” she said softly.

“No?”

“The guilt. The weight of responsibility. The knowledge that your decisions affect people who trust you to make the right choices.” She thought of Cactusflower again, of the goodbye letter and the ash on the front porch. “It just gets more familiar. You learn to carry it better, but it never stops being heavy.”

Trip nodded, understanding. They sat in silence for several minutes, both lost in contemplation of futures that offered no easy answers, no clean solutions, no way to emerge from their responsibilities without blood on their hands.

“For what it’s worth,” Rocket said eventually, “your team’s still alive. Whatever you’re doing, however you’re leading them... they’re still breathing, still fighting. That has to count for something.”

“Does it? When the cost is my soul and possibly my sanity?”

“Sometimes that’s all we have to offer,” Rocket replied. “Sometimes the only choice is between losing yourself and letting other people get hurt. And sometimes... sometimes that’s enough.”

Trip looked at her with something that might have been hope, if hope could coexist with despair.

“You really believe that?”

“I have to,” she said simply. “Because the alternative is giving up, and there are people counting on me not to do that. Don’t give up, it sounds like Asher is counting on you.”

Trip was quiet for a long moment, processing this. When he spoke again, his voice was steadier than it had been all evening.

“Thank you,” he said. “For listening. For understanding. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about... about any of this.”

“Isolation’s part of the job,” Rocket replied. “Goes with the territory when you’re dealing with things normal people can’t handle. But it doesn’t mean you have to carry it all alone.”

She stood up, pulling a twenty from her pocket and leaving it on the bar next to her food. “I should get back. My family worries when I’m gone too long.”

“Will I see you again?” Trip asked, and there was something in his voice that made Rocket pause.

She looked at him carefully, taking in the broken lines of his face, the weight he carried in his shoulders, the particular brand of desperation that came from being responsible for lives while feeling fundamentally unfit for the task. She recognized the hunger there, the need for connection with someone who understood the impossible choices and moral compromises their world demanded.

It would be easy to walk away, to return to her family and her own problems and let Trip figure out his own path through the darkness. Safe. Sensible. The right choice for someone trying to protect the people she loved from additional complications.

But there was something about the way he looked at her, something that reminded her of herself in those first desperate weeks after her transformation, when she would have given anything for someone who understood what she was going through, someone who could offer guidance without judgment.

“Maybe,” she said finally. “This place seems to attract people like us. People trying to figure out how to live with impossible responsibilities.”

“People trying to figure out how to be human while doing inhuman things,” Trip added.

“Yeah. That too.”

She turned toward the exit, then paused at the door, looking back at him one last time.

“For what it’s worth,” she said, “your son’s lucky to have a father who cares enough to hate himself for the choices he’s making. Most of the monsters in our world stopped feeling guilty about the damage they cause a long time ago.”

With that, she pushed through the door and back into the desert night, leaving Trip alone with his whiskey and his ghosts and the first conversation he’d had in months with someone who understood the weight of leadership in a world that offered no clean choices.

Behind her, The Neighborhood Bar continued its nightly rhythm, a refuge for lost souls and broken hearts, a place where people could sit with their regrets and their impossible circumstances and maybe, if they were lucky, find someone else who understood the particular hell of trying to do right in a world that rewarded only survival.

The neon sign flickered overhead, casting red light across the parking lot like spilled blood, and Rocket began the long walk home to a family that would worry about her absence but understand her need for motion, for distance, for the peculiar comfort that came from recognizing shared damage in a stranger’s eyes.

Some meetings were accidental. Others were inevitable.

This had been both.