“I use to be a human, Kayla.” He walks the room, with his hands tucked behind him. “Honestly, I had no idea what’d they done to me until I was tossed out here and Dominic started trying to resurface my memories.” He pauses, his pale eyes pained. “It was awful, all the blood spilled, all the needles, and the more I saw the more I wanted to forget it again. And I did, for a while, but then I started to change and it all caught up with me.” He holds up his hands. “Eventually I turned into this and I was locked up in a room lined with silver.”

“But I thought they said that silver made vampires weak?” I say. “Not Highers.”

He presses a smile. “Aren’t they almost one and the same?” He’s right in front of me, the tip of my knife grazing against his chest.  “You know, I can feel my humanity slipping away from me every day, even though I fight it. Soon, I know I’ll be just like them. And I don’t want it—not at all. But I never really had a choice, did I? None of us do.”

And that’s when I break through on what it is he fears the most. He fears losing himself, fears becoming one of them completely.

His face is close to mine, so close I can see the remaining specks of blue deep beneath the pale in his eyes—the last of his humanity. “You’re not what they think,” he whispers, looking into my eyes like he can see my thoughts. “And one day, you’re going to save everyone. Too bad I won’t be here to see it.” He clutches my hand and with his alarming strength forces me to plunge the knife deep into his chest. He lets out a painful scream and then thrusts me through the window. Glass splinters rip at my skin as I fall back and slam against the floor. I jump to my feet, seeking the knife. I find it a few feet away, the blade soaked with blood.

My boots crunch against broken pieces of glass as I walk to the broken window. The Higher lays on the floor, eyes open, no life, no breath, no fear. A Higher can’t be killed, only by the hand of another Higher. And it was my hand that killed him.

“What did you do?” Aiden’s voice rises over my shoulder.

“I didn’t do it,” I lie. “He did it to himself.” I turn, the knife clutched in my hand. “He stabbed himself.”

He eyes the knife in my hand. “We have to get out of here, now.” Without warning, he snatches my hand and he fears he’ll lose me. He pulls me for the back and I start to go with him, but stop.