“It’s the same as before, Ava. You need to draw the magic to the wound and call back the magic spilling out. The longer you wait, the harder it is to heal. Do it now, Ava.”

He keeps saying my name like that will ground me somehow. It doesn’t. The memories of every time someone has used my name to get me to do something—usually after wounding me in some way—come rushing back to me, blending with the pain in my hand until all the wounds become almost indecipherable.

“Damn it, Ava, come on.”

“Shut up,” I grind out.

He does, holding me there with his hand and his eyes.

I throw a wild grasp at the power, rushing it to my hand so fast that my skin down my arm tingles to the point of pain.

The flesh on my palm knits together as tears run down my face. Roman doesn’t flinch as they hit his hand.

Then, just as fast as I drew the power to me, it’s gone. I gasp, empty and shivering in the ocean breeze. Roman and I both look down at my hand, healed on one side and not the other.

“Bring it back.”

I try, reaching for the magic. I’m not empty; I feel it there, dancing just out of reach. But I can’t access it.

I shake my head, and Roman drags his finger across my hand, through the blood, healing it almost instantly.

The pain lingers like a phantom, even though the visible cause is gone. I roll over onto my side in the sand as Roman stays kneeling.

I want to curse at him—to call him every crude name I ever learned.

“Why are you really helping me?” The question I’ve been asking myself since the night on the wharf. It feels like his reasoning goes beyond what he’s admitted to.

Roman’s quiet for so long that I wonder if he heard me over the tide battering the rocks.

The sand scratches my face, rubbing it raw as I lie there.

“I don’t know,” he whispers.

I don’t believe him. People are cruel for no reason, but rarely kind.

“We need to go,” he says. “Rest up for tomorrow.”

“What’s tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow I take you hunting,” he says. “As promised.”

CHAPTER 16

We park down a side street in front of some unassuming houses. My hands are even sweatier than they were performing. I’m such a weird mixture of emotions that I can barely focus: anticipation of finally doing something I’ve wanted forever and some fear, of course, but there’s also a tiny bit of excitement to walk the boardwalk instead of staring at it from a distance. It seems like such an odd location to hunt vampires, but Roman claims the place is teeming with them after dark. Unaccompanied teens make easy targets for a quick sip and run, apparently.