“I can’t even begin to understand the method in his madness, my love. But, right now, we can’t think about that. There are more pressing matters.”

“How long?” I looked up, wiping my watery eyes. “When will we know if she’ll change?”

“Shortly.” He nodded. “Her heart’s giving out, but she’s too weak, Ara.” He squeezed me tight. “I need you to know that there’s little hope she’ll—”

“No.” I covered my ears. “Please don’t say it. Just don’t.”

“Okay.” He kissed the top of my head.

“I don’t want this, David. Any of this.”

We sat back against the couch with the orange and red autumn sun setting the room on fire around us, and a fierce, stormy wind battering the windowpane. It came on so fast—the storm, Emily, Mike’s love for her. Everything just happened so fast. I felt weightless, out of control, like sitting in a dinghy in the middle of a wild ocean.

The world is so unjust. I’m here, safe in the arms of the only thing in this world that really matters, while Mike is alone, crying for the first girl who ever loved him the way he deserved. He’ll never find that again. Like the way I feel for David, if he loses Em, he loses everything. He’ll die inside, and it’s my fault.

David’s grip tightened around me. “Ara. Stop thinking, my love. You need stop thinking.”

“Why?”

“Because, I don’t like where your thoughts are going.”

“Then don’t listen.”

“Fine—have it your way.” He stroked his fingertips over my hairline, so gently that a tingle of numbness blanketed me with a deep calm.

“I’m tired, David.”

“I know.” He rested his palm over my forehead, forcing my face against his silent heart. “Just sleep, my love.”

“You’re doing that to me, aren’t you—you’re making me sleepy?”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t…want…to…sle—”

It wasn’t the dark that woke me, but the sudden stillness, the taught limbs of my vampire; his back straight, his ears pricked, obviously listening. I felt groggy, overslept. I wiped my eyes, swallowing night breath with saliva. “David, what is it?”

“Shh,” he said in short.

I shushed, trying to hear what had him so captivated.

His shoulders sunk, his body becoming loose again. “Stay here.”

“Wh—” I started, but fell into empty space where David evaporated again. Although I had no intention of staying put, for some reason, I couldn’t move either. I knew there could be only one of two things he’d be running to, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know which one had come to pass. Either way, I’d lose a friend today, but right now, while I had no verdict, I could imagine everything would be okay—that Em would recover like I did, and we could all get on with our lives—normal lives.

But nothing stays the same, and a soft, shadowy cloud settled cold around my shoulders when I heard the tight sobs of the man I was once going to marry. I stood so slowly, my limbs almost empty, no weight to hold me down, and practically floated to Emily’s room, crying already for what I knew I’d find there.

“Mike.” David touched his shoulder, standing in the way enough that I couldn’t see. “Let her go—she’s gone.”

“No!” I gasped; David spun around to look at me, his body clearing the path for me to see. He tried to stop me, but I darted past him, falling to my knees in front of Mike, who had Emily wrapped so tightly in his arms I couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. “She’s not gone. Tell me she’s not gone.”

“I’m sorry, my love.”

“No. Em, oh, Em, I’m so sorry.” I touched my lips, my cheeks, my lips again, unsure what to do, what to say, think, touch. I wanted to touch her, bring her back, make it better, but Mike, the way he held her, the way he guarded her, imprisoned her, told me I had no right. Her best friend, and I had no right to touch her.

Mike took a raspy breath and rolled Emily out from his body, tracing her eyes with his own, as if she might open them, as if she might come back to him. “I can’t lose her. I just can’t go through this again.”

David edged closer. “She’s already gone, brother. You need to let me take her.”

“Emily, please,” Mike whispered into her hair. “Please don’t be gone. Please, my beautiful girl, you know how much I need you—”

My tears stung, frozen behind my lashes as I watched on, helpless, an outsider. Heartache, in the form of loss and jealously, spread like cement through my bones, making me heavy and stiff all over.

She’s his girl?

He adopted her love more than he ever did mine, and in the moment of her death, I felt only jealousy for that. But she was my friend too, I loved her, and now I’d lost her, like I’d lose everyone else. David had a week left, Mike would never speak to me again, and Emily—I reached for her, my fingertips floating slowly through the space between her and I—she would be buried vertically under a tree, where no one would ever find her; another missing persons’ case, and I would be alone.

I drew my hand back, not wanting to feel the bitter cold of death, real death, and sunk back on my shins. The morning lit the room pale blue, the light dancing under her floral print curtains, reflecting off the photo frame, the one that held the only photo we displayed of the masquerade—one without me in it. Her room felt alive with her spirit, so full of everything Emily that it was hard to believe she was a corpse in Mike’s arms.

I wondered how long he’d held her, how long she’d been gone. My heart fought to survive the pain of a tortured conscience, knowing I did this to her, knowing that because of me and my meddling with vampires, she lost the only thing she could never get back.

“What do we...what do we do with her now?” Mike asked, looking to David for help.

“We bury her.” The Council member, the vampire, the ruthless man who gets things done emerged, leaving all traces of emotion out of that sentence. I cringed, imagining that would be me one day—handed over to the undertaker who is all business, no emotion.

Mike’s eyes flooded with confusion, then realisation. He looked back at Emily. “Oh, God. No. Oh, Em. Wake up, please don’t let his be real.”