“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” My lips pressed together and I straightened. “I never said I would stay in the church, much less Cincinnati. Keeping her together is not my job!”

“You’re right,” he said calmly, “but it happened.”

“But it shouldn’t have. Damn it, Kisten, all I wanted to do was help her!”

“You have,” he said, kissing my forehead. “She’ll be fine. But Ivy making you her lodestone wouldn’t have evolved if you hadn’t let it, and you know it.”

My shoulders slumped. Swell, just what I needed: guilt. The breeze shifted his bangs, and I hesitated, looking at the oak door between Ivy and me. “How bad was it?” I whispered.

Kisten’s face lost all emotion. “Piscary…” He exhaled. “Piscary worked her over so well those first few years that her parents sent her away for her last two years of high school, hoping he would lose interest. She came back even more confused, thanks to Skimmer.” His eyes narrowed in an old anger, still potent. “That woman could have saved Ivy with her love, but she was so driven by the urge for better blood, hotter sex, that she sent Ivy deeper.”

I felt cold, the breeze shifting my curls. I’d known this, but there was obviously more.

Seeing my unease, Kisten frowned. “When she returned, Piscary played on her new vulnerabilities, lapping up her misery when he rewarded her for behavior that went contrary to what she wanted to believe. Eventually she abandoned everything to keep from going insane, turning herself off and letting Piscary make her into whatever he wanted. She started hurting people she loved when they were at their most vulnerable, and when they abandoned her, she started enticing innocents.”

Dropping his eyes, Kisten looked to his bare feet. I knew he was one of the people she had hurt, and I could tell he felt guilty for leaving her. “You couldn’t do anything,” I said, and his head jerked up, anger in his eyes.

“It was bad, Rachel,” he said. “I should have done something. Instead, I turned my back on her and walked away. She won’t tell me, but I think she killed people to satisfy her blood lust. God, I hope it was by accident.”

I swallowed hard, but he wasn’t done yet. “For years she ran rampant,” he said, staring at the van but his eyes unfocused, as if looking into the past. “She was a living vampire functioning as an undead, walking under the sun as beautiful and seductive as death. Piscary made her that way, and her crimes were given amnesty. The favored child.”

He said the last with bitterness, and his gaze dropped to me. “I don’t know what happened, but one day I found her on my kitchen floor, covered in blood and crying. I hadn’t seen her in years, but I took her in. Piscary gave her some peace, and after a while she got better. I think it was so she wouldn’t kill herself too soon for his liking. All I know is she found a way to deal with the blood lust, chaining it somehow by mixing it with love. And then she met you and found the strength to say no to it all.”