“I lied, okay? That damned thing bit me. If it wasn’t for Chris, we’d be dead, period.”

Bean looked to Stiles. “So this is where you come in?”

Del leaped to his defense. “You bet. Danner knocked Bart out and had me by the throat when Chris came in and blasted him. Ba-ba-ba-ba-bam! Danner’s face just blew up, I swear.” Some of the horror came back to him then, and the excitement drained from his voice. He edged away from his mother and closer to Stiles’s seat and kept looking to the hallway that led to the back door. “Danner kinda stumbled away and we lost him in the woods. I wanted to go back and kill him for sure but Chris said that he was the expert and knew how to handle it.”

Bean’s eyebrows arched. “Expert?”

“Sure,” the boy nodded. “He’s fought all kinds of monsters, vampires too, I don’t know how many times. Right, Chris?”

The deputy smirked. “Is that right, Chris? And how many of the big bad vampires have you fought?”

The stranger’s eyes furrowed as he stood, and Bean stepped back, thinking he’d just screwed up and pushed the psycho a bit too far. But Stiles pointed only a finger at him. “You stick your sarcasm up your ass, buddy. I’m trying to help you here, not the other way around. This town and you people are in danger. The boys who were with Del and Bart the other night? They came back later, after we were gone. They tried to get to the house but, once they were in the woods, they came across Danner first.” He looked at the boys sympathetically. “I found their bodies yesterday afternoon.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Bart whispered. Del started to cry again, and Billie held out her arms to both of them.

“Charlie?” she asked. “Is it true?”

“He didn’t see the bodies,” Stiles admitted before the deputy could answer. “I’d been staking them out since last night but because of Charlie’s interference, they got away.”

Del shivered. “Got away? They’re vampires too?”

Chris nodded. “That was probably them in the backyard. One was on the porch, another just to the side. I found the prints. The third was playing on that tire swing by the fence.”

“Why didn’t they just break in?” Bart started, then answered himself by remembering, “They have to be invited in, don’t they?”

Stiles nodded.

Billie kept her eyes on Bean. “Is it true?” she repeated.

“I never saw any bodies.”

She met Stiles’s gaze. Even in the brief instant of contact he found in her eyes not what he wanted—belief, faith, a modicum of trust. Instead he found only what he’d come to expect over the years. Skepticism. Anger. Mostly fear.

“At least believe your children,” he begged her. “For their sake.”

“Chris . . . Mr. Stiles . . . I think you’d better go.”

“Billie, I . . .”