“Almost every year,” Xander adds, reading the disappointment on my face. “Hunting is dangerous. Vampire bodies use blood magic without them even having to think about it. They heal faster than us and move faster than us because their entire body is a spell in action. Our powers take more focus and don’t always work. But that’s why we collaborate, and that’s why we hold the competition. We’re not going to let you hunt without making sure you’re the best.”

My stomach sinks. “But I can’t do what you do.”

“Don’t worry,” Xander adds a little too eagerly. “We have time to train you.”

His reassurance is too quick. “What happens if I lose?”

“You go back to your old life—stripped of your memory of this.”

But what am I going back to? Sometimes I feel like there are a million different lives behind me. I don’t want to go back. The only time of my life I’ve ever wanted to go back to isn’t even possible. You can’t go back to the dead. Some horrible part of me wishes that vampire had drained my mom completely, so at least a version of her existed, but that thought makes my stomach squeeze.

I’ll just be back to wandering the streets at night searching for something that might kill me if I find it, all while trying not to think about the fact that my brother has a home that I’m only a fixture in.

I shake my head. I can’t be consumed with what I have to lose. People who only think of what they might lose never win anything, and I want this more than ever.

I feel like I’m walking forward into a dark night, but I have people with me for the first time. Hell, I even have a girl who can light the way with fire, even if she might singe me once or twice.

And they want me. Mom talked so much about the big troupe she used to travel with that they felt like distant relatives to me. Her face would light up with stories about Edgar, who swallowed fire; Angela, who could contort herself into impossible spaces; Samuel, who did daring, dangerous acts; and my personal favorite, Julia, who made whole lions disappear with just a wink. The way Mom talked about them… they sounded like family. Even as a kid, I had a craving for that—for a big family that went beyond our small trailer, but instead, what little I had was taken from me.