“I thought—I thought we were getting over all that.”

“Easy for you. You ended up getting exactly what you wanted. Freedom. A hottie boyfriend who has full vamp status. Oh, and even though you said you were never a fang-banger, you’ve got a bandage on your neck the size of Nebraska. Guess you’re coming to terms with a lot of things these days.” He lifted a pan full of silver-coated shot and dumped it into a tub half full of water; the shot sizzled and cooled, and he scooped it out with a strainer as he readied another empty cartridge casing.

As he did, his shirt collar moved a little, and I saw red bite marks on his neck, over his jugular.

Just like before, when he was little. When he hadn’t had a choice.

I took an involuntary step forward, eyes fixed on the bite. “Jason,” I said. “Jase. Who did that to you?”

He twitched the collar of his shirt back into place and kept working without a reply.

“Jason!”

“Why the hell do you care?” he asked sullenly, and pressed a cartridge closed. “Thought you were all into the recreational biting now. You want to hear all about my sex life? Kinky, sis.”

“You’re letting someone bite you,” I said. “God, Jase, why would you do that?” Because I knew what he’d been through in his childhood. My parents had known and hadn’t stopped it—hadn’t even tried.

I had, once. Just once. But I was scared out of my mind, and I failed him. And I still, always, owed him for that.

“I’m not stupid.” He glanced up then, and the shine of his eyes was bitter-bright. “I’m not going to be on the wrong side of the fang for long,” he said. “And when I’m one of them, you better believe that I’m going to be taking my fair share. Money, sex, blood. Whatever I want.”

Jason and Shane were two sides of the same coin. Both had come from abuse, both had felt vulnerable and frightened and alone, abandoned by everybody who was supposed to protect and care for them. But Shane had come out of it forged into something strong, something that wanted to fight to protect others.

My brother was just a carbon copy of his own abuser, ready to pay his pain forward. And I couldn’t stop him, couldn’t help him. Couldn’t do anything except what I’d done for him my whole life.

Walk away.

“Who is it?” I asked him. “Who’s biting you?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know.”

“She’s really pretty,” he said. “Blond. I think you already know her. I’ve seen her with you.”

Not Amelie, obviously; the whole idea she’d stoop to this was … just no. “What’s her name?”

He bared his teeth. “Why should I tell you? What are you going to do, report it? That’d be a first for you.”

“Jason, you never wanted to be a vampire. Neither of us did.”

“Why not? You think I’m not worthy or something?”