As Bennett turned back to grab the knife from the man whose face was rapidly turning blue, she sensed movement to her right. The one Petey had called Drew had left his place beside the coffee table and joined the brawl, a brawl that ended in a flash when Bennett let go of Petey long enough to smash the heel of her hand into Drew’s face. His nose flattened in an instant, and howling, he dropped to his knees as blood flowed from what now looked like a piece of red cauliflower.

Bennett spun back to Petey in time to be on the receiving end of the hunting knife he was brandishing. It sliced through her coat and bicep as if they were butter, and even though Bennett winced at the sting, it did not slow her attack. She grabbed his wrist and squeezed as tightly as she could, and every bone under his skin broke as if they were toothpicks, caving in on themselves like a falling house of cards. The knife clattered to the floor, and Petey’s shrieks of agony filled the house, but undeterred by the man’s anguish, Bennett pushed Petey backward into the wall. She wrapped her hand around his throat again and ever so slowly lifted him until he was standing on the tiptoes of his worn, steel-toed work boots.

“I believe we were speaking about luck,” Bennett said, looking Petey in the eye. “And I can’t help but think yours just ran out.”

“That’s what you think, you fucking bitch.”

It was at that moment when Bennett realized she’d made a mistake. She could hear it in her breathing and feel it in her bones, a weakness born from her own moral compass. Bennett hadn’t truly fed in weeks, choosing instead to sustain herself on the bags of blood in her refrigerator rather than on the pure, warm sustenance that flowed through veins. Her strength and speed were still above and beyond those of mortals, but she had entered the home with the attitude of invincibility, and that assumption would be her demise. An assumption she never would have made if only she had fed.

The one with the sword, the one Bennett thought weak and incompetent, was swinging the blade toward her head, and there was no way to avoid the slash. She would end here, her torso falling at the feet of Petey while her head would roll across the floor, and after their elation had ended and after their high-fives had stopped, the ones she had tried to save…would die, too.

The world slowed to a crawl, and spellbound by the blade nearing her neck, Bennett’s grip on Petey’s throat loosened, for there was no reason to hold him any longer. She pulled in a breath, believing it would be her last, and then something silver flashed in front of Bennett’s eyes.