Since coming to Puck's Merry Band of Misfits, as the vampires affectionately called the ragtag gang of werewolves and vampires who made this stretch of land their home, Zedace had done his best to avoid the werewolves as much as possible. It had only been a few years since the first vampires moved into the werewolves' territory, forming a tenuous truce with them, and Zedace was the newest of the vampires to call the area near the human prison his home. Puck had given Zedace and the other vampires freedom of a sort within his pack. Armand, as Puck's lover, of course, enjoyed the most freedom. He was allowed to move freely throughout the territory. As a new arrival, Zedace was constantly watched. He didn't mind it so much. In fact, it felt almost like being back with the other vampires, the ones he'd left behind in favor of moving in with a bunch of werewolves.

He kept his head down and did what the wolves told him to. There was no reason to argue with them. What they wanted was never outside the realm of what he was comfortable doing, unlike how his life had been with the vampires. He bore the marks from their punishments, even on his wrists and neck, where they were impossible to hide from others. If he'd been a better vampire, a good little boy capable of following any order without question, then he would have none of the scars. He wasn't sure which was worse—being branded a troublemaker and a traitor by the bite marks, or what he’d done the few times he had followed orders. He had those memories with him always. It was one of the curses of being a vampire. He remembered everything from his human life and his vampire one, decades of old memories he wished he didn't have but that he could do nothing about either.

It was July, the fourth to be exact, and when he'd been human, it had been a day of picnics with fried chicken, getting drunk with friends on cheap beer, and watching the firework shows after the local small town parade had gone rumbling past. But that was all over now. For the past few decades, the fourth of July had been just another day, just one like all the others, right after the next. He'd loved the holiday once upon a time, but now all of that was over.