She sits back and lets go of my chin and shoulder but stays straddling my waist. My neck burns like I’ve pulled a muscle in it when I turn my head to look up at her. She stares down at me like she doesn’t even see me.

“I had a younger brother once. He’s forty-two now, and I watch him sometimes. He thinks I died a long time ago. Maybe I did.” She laughs, and it sounds like my friend cracking jokes while we eat pretzels at the mall.

She reaches behind her, grabs the stake I dropped, and tosses it on my chest. “They’re going to kill me one way or another, and it’ll be less pretty than this. You should do it.”

The stake is heavy on my chest. “I can’t.”

“You’ll never see your brother again if you don’t.”

“You’ll never see yours again if I do.” I can’t stop picturing a sad girl outside the window of a house full of family—stuck forever as a teenager with nobody at all. The image pulls at me. I don’t want to have something in common with her, but I can’t stop myself from relating.

“Like I said, I’m already dead.”

I shake my head.

“Do it!” she screams. She grabs my hands and forces them around the stake. “Do you know how many people I’ve killed?”

My fingers clench around the stake.

Her lips twist into a smile. “Do it or you’re dead.”

And then she lunges. My hands move on instinct, and I can feel the moment I break her skin—the grotesque pressure of it—and I keep pushing and watch something like relief flicker across her face, and then she’s turning to dust on top of me. I close my eyes so I don’t have to watch.

Her power slips into me like a song I don’t want to hear.

When the weight of her disappears, I sit up, and the ash clings to me like regret. I climb to my feet and stare at Ethan, smiling over a body that’s slowly crumbling.

He glances at me. “I thought you were a goner.” He sounds disappointed.

“What’s next?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer me, but the arena does. Water flows down the glass, distorting the already gruesome faces of our audience.

The freezing water is at my ankles in seconds, stirring the ashes of the vampires into a sick cloud around my legs. I try not to look down. I can’t think about it.

I slosh toward the wall, slapping a hand against the glass. It must be about a foot thick.