called a true-seeing? Dreams were slippery, best not to put any weight on them. What you wanted

could turn into what you saw, not what actually was.

But I’d been dreaming more and more lately, about things I found out were true. Like Dad in a long

concrete corridor, walking toward his death. Like my mother hiding me in a closet and going out to

fight Sergej.

I grabbed a longer flannel and wrapped it around myself, buttoned up. “Where’s all my pants?”

“Check the dresser. Your other room was torn apart. Someone betrayed its location. You should be

safer here.”

Gooseflesh rose hard and chill on my legs as I slid them gingerly out of bed. I was all over bruises,

some yellow-green and some red-blue, and my palms were raw. There were also rough red patches

like carpet burn wherever the vampire blood had splashed. It doesn’t eat through skin, but it is caustic. The muscles alongside my spine twitched and sent little we’re not happy messages all up and

down.

After boys hit the drift, they heal up from just about anything in a matter of hours. I was using the

aspect, but I wasn’t healing like they do. Sucks being a girl sometimes.

I shuffled over to the dresser, found out someone had just tossed my undies and bras in higgledypiggledy in the top drawer on the left-hand side, and was relieved. Whoever had put them there

hadn’t, well, lingered over them.

It’s the little things you end up being grateful for, Gran had always said.

I found a pair of jeans, too. About half my stuff was here. The other half, who knew? Bled on by

vampires? Burned? Just left where it was?

And where were Graves’s clothes? I grabbed the edge of the drawer, my knuckles turning white.

My voice surprised me. “I hate this.”

Christophe didn’t turn around. “What?”

“Vampire attacks. I get used to something, and they come riding in and destroy everything. Then I

have to get used to something else all over again. It’s . . . Jesus. It’s lame.” I couldn’t come up with

a better word, for once, and felt completely inadequate, standing there with jeans and a fistful of

blue bikini briefs.

“I’m sorry.” He sounded sorry, too. “It will be better now. I promise.”

Graves wouldn’t have said that. He’d have made an ironic little comment and I’d’ve laughed and

felt better. My heart dropped another few inches. “There’s no making it better, Christophe. This is

going to keep going until they kill me, or until—”

“They’re not going to kill you.” Hard and fast. His shoulders came up as if I’d hit him. “Not while

I’m here.”

“But that’s just the point.” It was nasty of me, I know. It was also true. “You’re going to disappear