CHAPTER 1.10: Love don't live here anymore

Jonny let himself into the house, he had been busking at the subway all morning and for what? 400 simoleons, hardly enough to feed his family.


The house was quiet.  Dead quiet.


Usually Leila would have the radio on and she'd be singing along as she made their lunch.


He called out, but there was no reply.

He pushed open the bedroom door and there she lay.  His wife, his Leila, covered in blood.


Jonny could see the bite marks on her wrist, he knew a vampire had done this.  Jessica.


He held Leila in his arms, he could feel that the warmth had drained from her.  She was gone.

Two days passed and Leila's ashes were returned home.

Jonny clasped the urn holding Leila to his chest, he could feel her presence surround him. 

He knew he couldn't let the feeling slip or she would be gone from him forever.  

The twins pulled together to look after the younger boys, but they too were heart broken over the death of their mother.

Audra did her best to console Jonny but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't get through to him.

He spent his time mourning Leila at her shrine and when he was exhausted enough he would sleep.


When Audra tried to talk to Jonny about having a funeral for Leila he would just walk away, he refused to be apart from her urn.

A few weeks later and Blake was starting to worry.  It was Caleb and Casper's birthday the next day and nobody had made plans to celebrate.


"We'll just do something at home, just the family" Bobby said.


"It just doesn't feel right without mom here." Blake replied.

Audra tried one last time to get through to her father.


"We're having a party tomorrow for the twins, nothing fancy just the family and some cake." She explained, but Jonny just stared right through her.


"Look i know this is hard for you dad, but you need to realise that its hard for us too." She pleaded. "Caleb and Casper are just kids, you need to be there for them." she begged.


Jonny remained expressionless.


Audra exasperated yelled "Those kids need you!  I need you!  We loved her too."

As Audra ran crying from the room a tear slid down Jonny's face.


He wiped at it angrily, how could this of happened to his Leila?  She was the sweetest person he had ever known and it killed him to not of been there for her when she needed him most.


But now he was in danger of letting his kids down too, he knew he could not let that happen.

The next day when he woke the kids had already gone to school, Audra was at the library studying for her Medical exams.  


He picked up his phone and made the difficult decision to arrange Leila's funeral for following week, then he set about fixing a party for the twins.

When the boys got home from school they found their father waiting for them, the kitchen was filled with balloons and a cake each for Caleb and Casper.


Bobby was overjoyed to see his dad up and about, he ran straight over and hugged him.

When Audra got home the party started!  Caleb was up first....................................

He developed the shy trait.

He was closely followed by Casper who developed the light sleeper trait.

That weekend the Traytor's waited until dusk and then visited the graveyard.  They laid Leila to rest beneath a tree surrounded by pretty pink flowers.


As Jonny grieved alongside his children he felt the weight of his loss more than ever, how could he cope raising them alone?

He pulled Audra to him and held her tightly as she sobbed.


"Thank you." he whispered into her ear.


"For what?" She asked, stifling a sob.


"For reminding me that I'm not alone in this.  I wouldn't have made it this far without you."

Jonny did his best to fill the void that Leila's death had left in their children's lives, but he knew he was a pale imitation of her.

Being in the home they had shared together was at times too painful for him.  There was a memory in every corner.

Their financial situation had become dire, to say the least.  Every letter Jonny opened was a final reminder, but he could not bring himself to pick up his sticks and play.  Music only reminded him of Leila.

A few weeks later Jonny received a rather large envelope in the mail.  This must be a really big bill he thought.

But when he opened it a cheque fell out.  It seems that Leila had been paying into a life insurance policy all these years and Jonny was the beneficiary. 

She hadn't contributed much but the policy paid Jonny 10,000 simoleons.

After paying off the families debts, he set about building another extension to the house, it was time the boys stopped sharing that cramped little room.

He built a third bedroom and bathroom, and decided to give the boys a belated birthday gift.


For Caleb, a keyboard to express his virtuoso trait and for Casper a weight machine to work on his fitness.


Leila's death had hit all the kids hard, but for Caleb and Casper they had, had to deal with becoming teens and starting high school as well.

As Caleb was a shy Sim he found it tough to be around so many people he didn't know, but Bobby introduced him to all of his friends and he soon hit it off with them, especially with Amber Bobby's ex who took quite a shine to Caleb.

Casper took to school life like bread to butter.  Since he was an inappropriate Sim he didn't blend in with any one clique but thanks to his athletic skills on the field all his team mates and the cheerleaders liked him.


But this wasn't quite enough for Casper, he was a deep thinker and loved to philosophise but this did not naturally go hand in hand with being a jock!

Despite being at the peak of fitness, Casper was much smaller than some of the other guys on the football team.  So he spent as much time as possible hitting the weights and training on the track.

As he ran towards the locker rooms to shower he noticed that he had an audience.  He wasn't surprised he knew he looked good, plenty of girls had told him so!

"Like what you see?" He asked cockily.

"Oh sure, coz life's just that easy for you isn't?" The girl replied sarcastically.  "I mean there couldn't possibly be another reason why someone like me would be out here other than to drool over you."

"Hey take it easy, i was just playing around." Casper tried to explain, but the girl cut him off.

"Yeah that's you and your friends all over isn't it, just playing around at someone elses expense!  You all think you're so special don't you?"  she spat.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Casper exclaimed, "You think my life's so easy coz i hang out with the popular crowd?"

"Oh sure it must be so hard to be popular!  Please stop before i cry." she replied.

"Yeah maybe i do have friends here, but maybe that's coz I'm not an uptight bitch." He yelled at her.


Casper regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, OK so this girl had a major chip on her shoulder, but he knew the kids he hung with were pretty mean at times.


"Look I'm sorry i didn't mean that.........." he started to explain himself

But the girl turned and ran away.

Caleb chose to deal with his loss by throwing himself into music, he had picked up the passion from his mother so it seemed right to him that he should follow in her footsteps.

Although he was shy around people he didn't know, whenever he would play his keyboard he was uninhibited.

But when it came to girls he was hopeless. 

Amber was older than him, she would be graduating that year.  But she had been coming on pretty strong, showing up unannounced. 

Calling him every day after school, even though they had just seen each other!  He guessed she wanted him to ask her out.

But he was worried that his brother might be unhappy about the situation, since he had dated Amber last year before he got with Marissa. 

Caleb had seen how Marissa had driven a wedge between Blake and Bobby and he didn't want the same to happen to him.

He knew he had to talk to his brother about it.

"Listen Bob, I ermm......." His shyness kicked in and he couldn't find the right words.

"Is this about Amber, by any chance?" Bobby laughed, "Look it's obvious she's into you, why don't you put her out of her misery and ask her out?" he asked.

"Really?  You don't mind?  Coz if you did mind i wouldn't do anything."  Caleb started, "I don't want a girl to come between us."


"Don't sweat it bro!  I'm not into Amber any more.  You should go for it."  Bobby advised.


Caleb decided he would do just that the next day, if he could overcome his shyness that is.

Meanwhile Audra's problem wasn't shyness, it was her father.  She had hoped that the funeral would help him get back to some semblance of normalcy, but he rarely left the house.


When she invited Tate over for a quiet night in, Jonny didn't seem to get the hint.  He insisted on telling Tate his dad jokes.

And when Audra suggested a romantic film, Jonny decided to join them and chose the worst seat in the house!

When the movie had finished Tate got up to leave.  Audra had been hoping he would spend the night.

As she saw him out she whispered, "You can stay if you like?"


"Maybe another time." Tate answered, "I think maybe your dad needs you right now."


He placed a kiss on the tip of her nose before leaving.


Audra sighed.  She didn't want to confront her father, he had come so far through his grieving but maybe a little push wouldn't hurt?

When she returned to the lounge Jonny had disappeared, but Audra suspected she knew where he had gone.

When Audra arrived at the cemetery she found Jonny wiping a tear from his eye at Leila's grave side.

As he sensed her approach he turned to face her.

"Audra i need to apologise to you about tonight." he started.

"Dad you don't need to....."

"Yes, i do!" he cut in, "I know i need to move on, that's why I'm out here."

"I need to say goodbye." he continued.

"Didn't you do that at the funeral?" Audra asked confused.

"I mean i need to say goodbye to you, to all of you." Jonny replied.

"Dad you're starting to scare me." Audra said her voice pleading.

"Don't be afraid.  I'm going to make us all safe again.  I'm going to stop the vampire who killed Leila before she takes anyone else i care about."

Audra began to cry and Jonny pulled her into his arms and whispered, "It's time i made a decision. It's time i chose an heir."

Chapter1.9

Heir