Hank and Tye bought all the food the woman had. She shoved the bills Tye handed her into her shirt and dashed down the street with her cart before Hank and Tye finished piling in.

“How much did you give her?”

Tye handed me a bundle of leaves wrapped together. “Six hundred.”

I tugged on the tie holding the leaves together. “That was generous of you.”

Tye shrugged. “Someone like her deserves a day off.”

Or the year, given what he’d tipped her. I smiled softly. “You’re not so bad, you know that?”

Tye answered with that infamous dimple. “Nice to see you’re finally warming up to me.” He motioned to the food on my lap. “I take it you know what that is?”

I pulled open the leaves. “It’s yuca con chicharrón. Yuca is a root, like a potato. The chicharrón is fried pork mixed with a tomato sauce. It’s topped with a sort of coleslaw. My mom used to make it when we were kids. It’s one of the few dishes she made that I remember well.”

The starch from the yuca and its delicious flavor soothed my nausea, so much so I ate my fill. Tye handed me the last package and insisted I eat. I devoured it and finished what remained of my water. “Thank you. I feel better.”

Tye placed his hand on my knee. “I could make you feel better in a lot of ways, Celia.”

I inched my leg away and blinked back at him in surprise. He smiled at me sweetly—too sweetly. I turned to face the front only to spot Hank’s glare in the rearview mirror. “Watch it, beast. She belongs to our master.”

My jaw clenched. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

Hank and Edith responded by grinding their fangs. Michael remained observantly quiet, as usual, making me wonder what he really thought. My attention returned to Tye. “Believe me when I say you don’t want me.”

“Celia, I could help you get over Aric. Just give me a chance.” My eyes brimmed with tears just hearing his name. Tye’s lips parted. “Okay…then again, maybe you need some time.”

I crossed my arms and leaned back against the sticky leather seat. “What I need is to find Misha and leave California.”

Tye furrowed his brows. “You don’t plan on marrying him?”

Why was friendship with a master vampire such a foreign concept? “No. I just want him safe.”

Tye leaned against the door and examined me closely, trying to figure out the Sudoku puzzle with the curly brown hair. “You’re risking your life to rescue him. If he means that much to you, why won’t you marry him?”

“I’ve never had many friends. Those I have I’d do anything for.”

Edith slipped her hand over my other knee and beamed. “I find it so sexy that you’re willing to bleed for us,” she whispered. “Don’t tell the other girls, but you’re my best friend, Celia.”

Sweet heaven, please stop me from killing her. I slapped Edith’s wrist away when her fingertips skimmed up my thigh toward my happy place. “Pull over, Hank. Edith needs to switch seats with Michael.”

Edith angled her chin, confused by my request. Tye and the others coughed in their attempts to hold back their laughter. Michael lost it the moment he sat next to me. The big guy with the deep voice giggled like a Munchkin from The Wizard of Oz.

Thirty miles remained to the border of Guatemala when dread and fear marched from my throat into the pit of my stomach. “They’re in El Salvador.”

“Oh, hell,” Tye said. “Where exactly?”

Michael handed me the map. I stared at the damn thing and searched the surrounding villages. “Misha thinks somewhere outside of Ahuachapán, but he’s not sure.”

Hank punched the dash. “Screw it. We’ll just hit its center and ask around. How far away are we?”

Tye examined the map, our navigation apps were useless here. “Twenty miles, southwest. Take a left at the next highway.”

Michael updated the others via text. Hank floored it, leading the other two vehicles. Even at the speed we raced, it took us almost forty minutes to reach Ahuachapán. Potholes battered the road and we got lost twice. When we finally reached the marketplace the sun had begun to set.

The vamps parked in an alley reeking of urine and littered with waste, but our haste and need to go unnoticed didn’t leave us many options. We scrambled out. There were fifteen of us. We divided into five groups of three. Tye was with me, and yippee-skippy, so was Edith. Both tried to take my hand. Both were denied.

I walked ahead of them, hurrying through the marketplace as shop owners closed down. An elderly woman struggled to secure the rusted lock protecting her stall. Pieces of plastic bags tied her long graying hair and the braids of her little granddaughter. The little girl pointed when she saw us coming and whispered to her grandmother in Spanish. “Look at the pretty Americans.”

I slowed my steps and spoke softly to the woman in Spanish. “Good evening, ma’am.”

Her face carried the wrinkles of a woman who’d lived a harsh life yet she smiled kindly through her missing teeth. “Hello. Would you like to buy some platanos?”

I removed the hair tie Edith had given me and combed through the little girl’s hair with my fingers. “No, thank you. We’re trying to find someone. It’s important, her name is Lucinda.”

The woman shook her head frantically and pulled her granddaughter away just as I finished fastening the hair tie. “No. No, no, no. I can’t help you.”

I pleaded with her with my palms out. “Please, she has my friend.”

Her eyes, deeply veiled with cataracts, welled with tears. “If the witch has him, your friend is already dead.”

Edith didn’t understand a lick of Spanish, but she read the woman’s resistance in her cowering stance. “Would you like me to make her talk?” Her tone sounded innocent except there was nothing innocent about her intentions.

I blocked her path. “Let her be. She’s already frightened enough.”

We abandoned the terrified woman and bolted out of the marketplace and into the street. The sun vanished from the sky. The last few stragglers hurried to their destinations as night descended like a thick cloak. The only signs of life rang from a run-down bar on the corner. Tye took a sniff just as the smell of were and vampire reached my nose. “How about a drink?”