Claire had rarely felt so alone. She’d thought coming across the country to MIT was a new start; she’d thought she was here to learn, to grow, to change. But instead, it had been a scam from the start. Anderson had never intended to teach her a thing. She’d just wanted VLAD, and Claire was the means to the end.

Speaking of VLAD, Dr Anderson had been hard at work on it, apparently, and she’d taken it from concept to harsh execution while Claire had been thinking they were going back to basics. All that she’d been doing, she understood now, had just been busy work, so Dr Anderson could perfect what she’d already done.

And test it.

‘Can I see it?’ Claire asked Dr Anderson, who was still holding VLAD; she’d added a much-needed support strap to it, but it was probably starting to feel really, really heavy. ‘I just want to understand what you did. I was thinking of adding a modulator to it, but—’

‘Don’t even think about it,’ Anderson said. She adjusted the heavy weight a little, which meant that she was starting to feel the strain, just as Claire had hoped. ‘And we’re not going to talk about the tech.’

‘But I – I thought you wanted me to help you—’

Anderson gave her a brief, cool, impersonal smile. ‘Don’t try it. You may have given Myrnin up, but that doesn’t mean I trust you with the toys yet, Claire. That, you have to earn. I believe you as far as I can throw your boyfriend right now. And he’s a pretty solid-looking guy.’

She looked tired, Claire thought, and a bit shaky herself. She was watching Professor Davis, who was trying to get some kind of blood sample from Myrnin; he was having a time of it, not because Myrnin was fighting him, but because he couldn’t hold still. Finally, it took three armed men to pin Myrnin down flat, and he made a sound halfway between a wail and a sob that tore Claire right down to her soul. I did this. I did all of this.

She swallowed hard. ‘So what now?’ she asked. Her voice had gone harder, and she couldn’t seem to soften it. ‘You’ve got Myrnin, and Oliver, and Jesse, and Michael. You’ve got Shane and Eve. What else do you want?’

‘I want data,’ Dr Anderson said. ‘You’re a scientist, Claire. You realise what a rare opportunity this is, I hope – we have vampires who can be tested in lab conditions. We can break down the biology, which is something Dr Davis has been looking into for some time. We can win.’

‘I didn’t know we were at war.’