Guilty is as Guilty Does

Lend didn't take his arm from around my shoulders, hugging me as much as holding me up. Even though I buzzed with nervous, guilty energy, I felt hollowed out, like I could collapse at any moment. Raquel paced back and forth in front of us, her pumps snapping twigs. After David called her she'd wanted to take us to the Center to talk, but Lend refused.

Jack appeared, out of breath. "Told everyone the cops were coming; the cemetery's cleared." Luckily Carlee didn't remember anything from being under the vampire's compulsion; she just felt a little dizzy and suspected someone of spiking her drink. If only. Jack had taken her back to the group, none the wiser.

He looked at Lend and glowered. "I was just about to save her. You didn't need to come."

I glared at him. He hadn't saved me. Lend had. He thought he'd saved me from being drained, but really he'd saved me from draining the vampire. I wondered what he'd think if he knew he'd attacked the wrong monster.

No. I wasn't a monster. Uber-vamp deserved it. And Lend saved me from myself. It was fine.

"Look," I said, "it doesn't make sense. There's no other explanation besides the faeries!"

"But why would a faerie take the vampire from the Center?"

I forced my eyes not to roll. "Umm, to kill me? Because they hate me? They sent Vivian after me before. This is probably just the Dark Queen's new tactic. There've been too many faerie coincidences and weird attacks lately."

"But only the transport faeries even knew about the vampire being in the Center."

"It only takes one, now, doesn't it?" Lend said.

Raquel sighed; I was too tired and edgy to even try and interpret. "I checked our logs, and both transport faeries that handled him were on assignment and accounted for the entire night."

"Then how do you explain his ankle tracker being deactivated?" I asked.

She rubbed her eyes. "I can't. It could have been a data entry error. We couldn't tell if the tracker's locator had ever been properly activated, which shouldn't have been a problem, since he was never supposed to be released from Containment."

"I'm so comforted."

"We've got him in our high-security section now, and I promise there's no way even a faerie can get him out."

I folded my arms. I knew I was being petulant, but it was late, I was tired, and my sugar high had crashed in the worst possible way. I hated tonight. I hated what I'd done. I hated that I didn't hate it, and part of me felt like it was totally justified. There were enough unanswered questions in my life; I didn't like having to wonder whether or not I was a good person.

"Fine. I'm going home. And if I'm tardy for school because I sleep in, I expect you to call and excuse it."

Patting me on the hand, Raquel checked my neck again, then Lend took me home. He came upstairs with me and held me when I burst into tears as soon as we got to my room.

"I'm so sorry, I never should have let you go alone. If I hadn't come back . . . I can't even think about it. Evie, I'm so, so sorry."

I shook my head, burying my face in his chest. He had no idea. "It's not your fault. Thanks for . . . saving me."

He stayed with me until two or three. I wasn't crying anymore, and after checking my neck wound again and making me swear to call him if I needed anything else at all, he headed back to school for his early morning lab.

I lay in bed, fully dressed in my stupid costume, exhausted but unable to stop my mind from spinning in angry circles. Of course it had been a faerie who set Uber-vamp loose on me. Apparently now that I was dangerous, they were sending other paranormals to do their dirty work. Typical faeries-devious and lazy. It was their fault I'd lost control and nearly drained the vampire all the way. Their fault, not mine.

I didn't know I'd fallen asleep until I realized Vivian was sitting next to me on a grassy hill.

"What's wrong this time?"

I startled, looking at her and biting my lip. I hadn't talked with her since the sylph. She was the person most likely to understand what I was going through, how bad I felt about what I'd done, but how justified it was, too.

She was also the last person on the planet I could talk to. Because if I did, then I admitted I was as weak as she was. No. I wasn't like her. I was defending myself!

But then again, it wasn't really her fault, was it? "It's all the faeries' fault. Everything. You shouldn't be here, like this."

She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, then looked down at the grass she was sitting on, pulling some out between her fingers. "I made my choices, Evie. They were the wrong ones."

"But the faeries forced you! They tricked you!" It was their fault everything was wrong, their fault Lish was dead, their fault I couldn't be happy.

She sighed. "Listen. I did what I did. And I can't make it right. No faerie made me kill those paranormals. I liked what I was doing." I opened my mouth to argue with her, but she put her hand over mine. "No. I know you're trying to forgive me, but don't rationalize it. You owe your friends more than that. I didn't kill them because faeries made me-I killed them because I was desperate and alone and I wanted to. I thought I was doing them a favor, but, more than that, I liked the way it made me feel. And that's the worst part. It was always, always about me. And if you hadn't stopped me, I'd probably still be doing it."

Her words hung heavy between us. An ugly darkness, cold and empty, seeped through my own sad little soul. I wanted her to blame the faeries. Why did she have to bring all this stuff up when I wanted to forget it? And why the bleep did her confessions make me feel guilty?

"But the faeries," I said, a whine creeping into my voice. "They ruined your life. They won't stop making mine a mess. Without them, we could have-everything would be different. Easier."

Vivian laughed, her voice hard. "Screw the fey-they can't touch me now. And I can't touch them, more's the pity. I'd kill every single one of them if I could for what they did to us. But I'm pretty sure that without them neither of us would exist. It's probably better I'm stuck here in dreamland so I don't have any more souls on my hands. Literally."

She grinned wickedly and elbowed me. I let out a pained laugh, but really I wanted normal sleep tonight, sleep free from conversations that hurt my head and made me ache.

I closed my eyes and opened them to my dark room. For a minute I thought I was still asleep, that Viv and I had switched locations, until I realized the person sitting on the edge of my bed staring at me wasn't my crazy sister.