“Victorija with feelings, will wonders never cease? Come with me.” The Reaper led her out of the shack and down to the edge of the pier where his boat was moored. “I’ve had to ferry many more vampire victims to the afterlife recently.”

Torija let out a sigh. “I know. My vampires have been out of control since I have been dealing with this blood bond.”

The Reaper laughed. “They weren’t much better when you were in control, Torija, or will it be Victorija?”

“I’m having night terrors. All my victims haunt me. It’s the first time I’ve had to look my victims in the face. Do you know about them?”

“Of course I do. The dead are my customers.”

“What do they want?” Torija asked.

“Do you remember the last time we met?”

Torija looked down and closed her eyes. She saw the image of herself, dried blood covering her lips and chin and hands.

Just to taunt the Reaper, she brought five bodies to the door of his shack and shouted, “I thought I’d save you the trip.”

The Reaper came running out the door, shouting, “Victorija Dred! One day your crimes will catch up with you, and you will lose something you love.”

Victorija turned around laughing, then thumped her chest. “Impossible. I don’t have a heart.”

“Yes, I do. I said I don’t have a heart.”

“And all this time, you did. If you didn’t, as your young lady said, she would be dead by now.”

“Can you help me? I want to free Daisy from this bond.”

“If you want to do a selfless act for the first time in your life and release Daisy from this burden, I think deep, down inside, you know what you have to do.”

Death. That was the feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Torija nodded.

Death wasn’t something that she had contemplated in…she couldn’t remember how long. She looked back to the shack where Daisy was frozen in time. Was that the answer? She was being put in danger because of her blood bond with Torija, and her greatest fear was using her, the way she had every other human or vampire she had come across.

The Reaper continued, “But the question is, can you fight the Victorija inside who will lose herself in Daisy’s blood?”

That was Torija’s biggest fear. As she grew stronger from Daisy’s blood, would this small window of clarity that Daisy had given her, this nudge to remember that she wasn’t always this feared vampire, dissipate, until all she saw when she looked at Daisy was blood?

“I had a nightmare about that last night. I saw myself as my father, using Daisy like he did my mother. What should I do?” Torija said.