It makes even more sense now why he chose to become a vampire. He was choosing a better life—a bloody one, but one where the blood was bought or given, not stolen.

“Where did they get all these people?” I can’t even tell from here how deep the garden goes. “Never mind, I don’t need to know.” I straighten and back away, rocks cascading around my feet.

“Wait.”

I don’t stop.

“You can’t go home.”

His words slap me. Of course I can’t go to a place that doesn’t exist for me, but I can get the hell off this island. Roman doesn’t follow as I scramble away from the garden of death.

“It needs more than just any old blood,” he calls after me. “These are the failed apprentices.”

CHAPTER 30

My steps stop at the same time my heart does.

“No.” I turn slowly back around, search his face for a lie, and find only truth. I race back toward the thorns, smashing my toes on rocks, slipping on the blood coating them as I race around the edges of this death trap. My knees hit the ground enough times for the blood to soak through my pants and warm my skin. I fight the urge to gag until I finally find what I’m looking for.

She’s bent backward at the waist as if frozen in some sadistic game of limbo. Vines enter through her spine and erupt in blooms that run down her chest like buttons, holding her in her constant dip.

When I reach her, I grasp her long blond hair in my hands, pulling it off the ground where it had been soaking up blood, the ends tinted in a morbid dye job. Willow wouldn’t want her hair dirty.

I drape it around her neck and shoulders and then yank out a knife.

They will not keep her.

I strike through the vine, and it yields easily. I brace myself to pull it though her flesh, trying not to think about the thorns and where they grow.

Roman’s hand closes around my fist.

I rip myself free of him and spin, my knife slashing through the front of his shirt as he jumps back. Surprise crosses his face. He holds up his hands, but he doesn’t draw his own knife.

“You did this,” I snarl.

He shakes his head faintly, confused.

“You told me not to clap for her.” My voice cracks. “You didn’t clap for her.”