The first thing Lucas said was, “Are you sure you’re not pregnant?”

“Positive.” He gave me a worried look, and I shook my head.

“Honestly, Lucas, I already told you that.”

“You cannot tell a guy you’re not pregnant too many times.”

“I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.”

“Thanks.” Lucas put his arm around my shoulders. “So, what do you think it is? Do you know?”

“I don’t know anything for sure, but—” I hesitated. It was hard to put this into words. “I keep remembering something my mother said to me once. The night after I bit you for the first time, actually.”

“What did she say?”

I glanced around to make sure nobody was standing too close to us. There were a few people walking a couple of steps behind, slightly wild in garish clothes and heavy makeup, but they were talking loudly among themselves and wouldn’t overhear. “She said that, once I’d first tasted human blood, I’d turned over the hourglass. That I couldn’t keep going forever as what I was—part human and part vampire. She said the vampire in me would grow stronger and that eventually, I’d have to—” I wasn’t going to say kill out loud in public. “I’d have to complete the transition.”

Lucas said, “And they never told you what would happen if you didn’t?”

I shook my head. “I asked them tons of times, but they just acted like that wasn’t an option. They didn’t say how long I had, either. Now I’m starting to wonder.”

“You think how you’re feeling is your body trying to tell you to kill somebody?”

“Shhhhh.” There was another group of people, maybe a little older but with equally wild appearance, coming near us from a side street. Our paths would intersect soon. “Do you have to say that so loudly?”

Lucas’s steps slowed. “How do you feel right now?”

“This second? I’m fine, I guess, but—”

“Good. Get ready to run.”

“What are you talking about?” But then I saw what Lucas had seen: a third group of people, all dressed in similar rags, were approaching from across the street. This wasn’t random. We were surrounded.

Then I recognized a man in the third group, a guy with an aquiline profile, skin as pale as mine, and long, reddish-brown dreadlocks. Shepherd.

“That guy,” I said. “He hunts for Charity.”

Lucas grabbed my hand and squeezed. “The bus stop. Go.”

We started to run. As soon as we’d taken two steps, the vampires around us gave up any pretense of just hanging out. They swirled around as fast as a flock of birds, right on our heels. And they weren’t laughing any longer.

Lucas sped up, calling on his enhanced speed to propel us forward. I clasped his hand as tightly as I could, once again cursing my stupid sandals, but I couldn’t quite move as fast as Lucas. Before, I usually outran him. Not anymore.

The footsteps behind us pounded closer and louder. I could hear their belts and bracelets jangling. Lucas kept trying to tow me after him. By now we both knew we weren’t going to get back to the bus stop in time, not with me running so slowly. So I wrenched my hand from Lucas’s and took off running to the right. “Bianca!” he shouted, but I didn’t turn back.

I had thought the vampires would split up, half chasing Lucas and half chasing me. Lucas would be able to escape from his pursuers, and as for me—well, maybe I had a chance if I only had to fight half. Instead, from the sound of it, they’d all followed me.

Lucas, please get away, please get out of here! I didn’t dare look back to see if that was what he was doing. They were too close, so close, getting closer—

A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me around. I stumbled and nearly fell, but Shepherd caught me.

“Smile for the people,” he whispered. “They want to think we’re just kids playing around. So you smile and make them think that. Or else we’ll make you scream.”

There were ten of them and one of me. I smiled. Nearby, in the park, I saw a young couple with a stroller shrug and keep going, satisfied that nothing was really wrong.

“Let her go!”

Lucas pushed his way through the vampires, like they were any other crowd of punks. Nobody fought him, but the vampire didn’t let go. Shepherd said, “We’re taking her for a ride, or we’re taking her out, here and now. You know we can do it. It won’t be any trouble to take you out, too.”

We didn’t have stakes or holy water or any other weapons. We’d come out for my birthday, not for a fight. Lucas’s eyes met mine, and I could see him recognizing the hard odds we faced.

Shepherd continued, “So you have two choices, hunter. You can come for a ride with us, or you can turn around and go home like a good boy.”

“Lucas, please,” I pleaded. “They’re only after me.”

But he shook his head. “Where you go, I go.”

They walked us around the corner to a slightly less busy street and pushed us into the back of a truck. I thought for a moment of our escape from Black Cross, but that hope died instantly. We didn’t have Dana to help us this time, and the cab of the truck was completely separate from the metal box we had to stay in. When they slammed the doors shut behind us, blackness fell, save for a few lines of light around the corners of the doors.

Once I’d had nearly perfect night vision. That was starting to fade.

“Hang on, Bianca.” Lucas put his arms around me as the truck rumbled into motion. “We’re gonna have to think fast when they open those doors back up.”

“They’ll still outnumber us,” I said. “And they’re taking us to a place where they’ll be more in control than they were here.”

“I know. But we had zero chance out there. We have to hope the next situation is going to work more to our advantage.”

I didn’t see how that was even possible, but I tried to follow Lucas’s example and think like a fighter.

It seemed to take an incredibly long time before we reached our destination—a large, one-story building that had evidently been abandoned for a long time but had been either a health club or a gymnasium. Several of the windows were broken, and graffiti striped the walls. This building was waiting to be torn down, and apparently some vampires had decided to take advantage of the delay. They tugged us out of the back of the truck—four vampires flanking each of us.

“Let’s head to the pool,” Shepherd said. Lucas and I shared a look; I knew he was telling me to look out for anything we might be able to use for weapons or an escape. I wasn’t sure how we were supposed to take out that many vampires at once, but we had to remain focused.

The pool area looked even more torn up than the rest. As we walked inside, I could see that was where the vampires had chosen to stay. Beer bottles littered the floor and windowsills, and every corner had become a trash heap. It smelled like cigarettes. In the center of the room was the swimming pool itself, long emptied of water; the abandoned high-dive board stood above, lonely, with a cobweb dangling from the end.

At first I thought nobody else was inside. But then a solitary figure in the corner moved. Somebody in rags had been sleeping in a huddle on the floor, and I’d taken her for another trash heap.

She pushed frowsy pale hair back from her face and looked at us steadily. Even from across the room, I recognized her immediately. Ever since our capture, we’d known who we would be taken to—but that didn’t make her any easier to face.

Lucas whispered, “Charity.”

Chapter Seventeen

CHARITY WALKED CLOSER TO US. HER FAIR CURLS hung loose, making her look even younger than usual. She wore a lacy sleeveless cotton dress that probably used to be white instead of bloodstained and gray. Her feet were bare, her red toenail polish badly chipped. I thought of a small child awoken from its nap, confused and cranky.

“You brought them here,” she said to Shepherd. “You brought them to our home.”

“You wanted to find the girl, right? Well, we got her.” Shepherd grinned. He clearly considered this a job well done, and Charity’s displeasure didn’t even register.

She tugged at her hair and frowned. “You brought the boy, too.”

“That’s right,” Lucas said. “Miss me?”

Charity pulled down the front of her dress far enough for us to see the pink, star-shaped scar above her heart left from when Lucas had staked her during the burning of Evernight. Stakings were the only wounds vampires could receive that left permanent marks. She traced the edge of the star with her little finger. “I think of you every day.”

Great, I thought. She’s obsessed with us both. I stepped between them, so that she and I were only a few feet apart. “What do you want, Charity? Balthazar’s probably left New York by now, so it’s not like I can tell you anything.”

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “The best way to find Balthazar is…not to find him. To make him come to me. And how better to do that than by taking something he wants?”

A chill shivered through my body as I realized she was talking about me.

“I don’t want to join your tribe.” I said. My voice sounded clear and didn’t shake—the opposite of how I truly felt.

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” she said.

This was it. There was no way to escape. Lucas and I were outnumbered and surrounded. Charity would turn me into a vampire. Tonight, I would die.

I tried to tell myself it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. I’d spent most of my life expecting to become a vampire someday. Maybe I’d feel some weird bond to Charity. That often took place between a new vampire and the older one who had brought her over. But I’d still be me. Lucas had already accepted what I was, so we would still love each other. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

But I had wanted to choose. I had wanted to have some say in what I would become, what existence I would lead. I’d wanted to be free—and now I never would be.

“Fine,” I said. I blinked quickly, hoping she wouldn’t see my tears. “I can’t stop you. Just let Lucas go.”

“Bianca,” Lucas pleaded. I couldn’t turn to look at him.

Instead I remained focused on Charity, whose dark eyes widened with disappointment. It was like she wanted me to be happy about becoming a vampire. How could she expect me to feel any other way? How could she not know that I hated her?

“You want to force me to do this? That’ll make you feel strong, convince you that you took something away from Balthazar? Then do it.”

“She isn’t Balthazar’s girl,” Lucas said loudly. “She’s mine.”

That was the worst possible thing he could’ve said.

“Yours?” Charity clasped her hands together. A jelly cord with only a few beads left dangled from one wrist, the cheap, ruined reflection of the coral bracelet I wore. “Bianca is yours. That makes you hers.”

I got even closer to her, so she would stop looking at him. “Leave Lucas out of this.”

“How can I leave him out of it, when you belong to each other? What I do to you affects him. And—what I do to him affects you.”

She flicked her hand. Shepherd and another vampire grabbed Lucas and began dragging him backward. Lucas struggled, elbowing Shepherd so hard in the ribs that he doubled over, and for a moment Lucas pulled free. I saw his hand go to his waist, where he had for so many years worn a stake—a useless reflex, a remnant of the life he’d abandoned.

Shepherd recovered himself, and a third vampire joined in. Lucas fought against them with all his strength, but he was outnumbered.

“What are you doing?” I cried, struggling against the hands that held me fast. “Leave him alone!”