“Look.” Ethan kicks something on the ground toward me, and I look down for the first time. Four stakes lie at our feet.

I eye him. “Why? We’re not vampires.”

Ethan nods over my shoulder. “I’m guessing they are.”

I turn and watch two people rise up from the floor in a cage on a glass platform. It jerks to a stop, and the cage door drops open with a crash that sounds like it shatters the glass floor.

A giant man with a red beard and a bald head jumps out. He looks like he could snap me in two even if he weren’t a vampire. He grins in our direction. His beard is streaked with a darker red that drips through to the ends. The girl hasn’t turned around yet, and she looks slight, but that doesn’t mean anything for a vamp.

Ethan holsters his gun. “Truce?”

“Never,” I say, but I sheath my knives and my desire to kill him. I can pull both back out with little effort.

We reach down and grab the stakes.

“I’ve got dibs on the girl,” Ethan says.

“You’re kidding me,” I say, but then the girl lifts the hair from her face as she jumps out of the cage in sky-high heels and a leather miniskirt. Stacie. Her eyes zero in on me. She seems surprised, but then she breaks into a ridiculously charming smile, like we’ve just happened to bump into each other at the mall.

“Ava,” she calls.

Ethan looks at me. “Looks like you get her after all.”

My body goes cold like I’m the vampire. “Never mind. I want the guy.” He’s still lumbering toward us—each step sounds like a stone falling.

“No way. You’ll be dead in five seconds, and I’ll have to fight two. Good luck with your friend.” He winks and heads for the man, spinning his stakes in his hand like they’re flashy guns in a western. I do not like our odds.

Stacie stalks toward me.

“You killed Adam,” she says casually. “He was an ass, but we’d been together a long time, like a family member you don’t like but can’t shake.” She hesitates, like she’s realized she’s being vulnerable and shouldn’t. “I honestly didn’t think I’d miss him.”

“I didn’t do it myself. I couldn’t,” I admit. I want to step away from her, but I drop into a crouch instead. “He told us everything before he died, though. Who you work for. Why you pretended to be my friend.”

Her eyes soften. “I didn’t pretend. Not at the end.”

Her voice is so sincere that I almost believe her.

“Why do it at all, though?”