We clasped hands, me squeezing as hard as I could and Reg being deliberately delicate, as the final remains of night lifted. The thin gray light of dawn was bloodless, nothing like the splendor of sunset, and while I had chosen a life in the sun, I might hate daybreak forever after this.

“Time to go,” Adante called.

My heart pounded, panic setting in as the clock ran out.

“Reg,” I said, tearful. “If you’re a Drake, and I’m a Smith . . . are we still family?”

He pulled me into a hug so tight it nearly pressed all of the air from my lungs.

“We will always be family,” he promised.

His cold embrace lasted longer than it should have, with the sun on approach, but still not long enough. Because all at once I was standing alone, bathed in sunlight, with my arms folded only around myself.

I collapsed to the ground, gravel biting into my knees, and sobbed.

This is it.

My hands clutched my chest as if I could reach right through it and hold my own beating heart, its thump thump now so intimately familiar.

This.

Is the absolute worst part of being human.

Forty

The Cold Light of Day

It was more than a week before I could crawl out of bed and another week before I was willing to eat or speak. Sal made every recipe in his arsenal, but most days I just sipped at the coffee Lina brought by—as much to visit with Sal as to check on me, I think.

The slayer, through forgery or bribery or some other trick, convinced the school I had contracted something contagious and needed to learn from home indefinitely. The twins came by after school a lot, talking constantly about the events on Halloween and then clamming up when the conversation veered too close to Reg. Dexter was over more than the twins, but he knew better than to chat me up. He just held my hand and let me cry. Though Sal said no crying and handholding in the bedroom, so we had to take my pity party out to the hill behind the cottage, which only led to more sobbing, because it was the exact spot where Reg had shared all his excitement over being human. The sound of his voice still echoed in my brain like a ghost gliding over the hillside.

It’s almost enough to make you want to stay, isn’t it?

By the third week, a deep winter chill forced me to make a trip to the mall to shop for a winter coat and boots. That first outing became two, then three, and in late November, I found myself at All Hours one night, crammed in with my fellow humans around our favorite oak barrel table. The coffee shop was decked out for Christmas, and Lina had spiked my coffee with a shot of peppermint. It was difficult to mope under such festive circumstances.