“Not what I’ve done,” he says, and sneering, he sweeps one hand across the top of a grimy table. The decay clings to his fingers. This is all so much messier than he anticipated. Rochester, a blue blood through and through. Now here he is, bringing a vampire back from the dead, and honestly expecting it to be neat and orderly.

“So,” he says, “how’s Jane?”

My body stiffens. “I don’t know,” I say. “I haven’t seen her.”

He gives me that ugly smirk of his. “You know, for a vampire, you’re a terrible liar.”

That’s the nicest thing he’ll ever say to me. I smile back at him. “Thank you.”

I’m still looking for a weapon, anything to stop them. I wish I was stronger. I wish I was like these men. Able to use my bare hands to take whatever I want.

And Rochester can use more than just his hands. Something crawls beneath his skin, down his arms and into his fingertips. The same something that lives inside Bee and Jane.

“Why does it stay inside you like that?” I can barely form the words. “Why won’t it let you die?”

Rochester examines me, one eyebrow twitching up. “Bertha never told you?”

“I never asked.”

He takes a long moment. “It wants me to remember,” he says finally. “Everything I did. Everything my family did.”

And it forces Bee and Jane to remember too.

I stare off at a patch of algae that seems to be creeping closer to us. “Will it ever rest?”

“Maybe when I do,” he says.

My eyes shift to him. “And how exactly can we make that happen?”

“Would you like to find out?” He sways closer to me, his breath like rotten milk. “There’s a bed inside. We can rest all night if you want.”

His hands are on my body now, sliding up along my waist, and I shove him backward. That’s enough to get their attention. His followers, wilted until now, are suddenly on their feet, their eyes set on me. They’re groggy as hell, their pulses weak, but they’re still awake, still angry for no reason.

A knot tightens in my throat. “Aren’t you going to tell them to kill me?”

He shrugs. “Why bother? You already served your purpose.”

My purpose. Bringing Dracula to him.

“You can’t control him,” I say. “No matter how hard you try.”

“Neither can you.”

“We’ll see.”

I slink across the patio, past the ruined pool and the ruined people, and Rochester lets me go, because it proves his point, how meaningless I am. This digs into me like a ragged splinter, the way I’m a flea to him. The way Bee’s a flea too. He uses people up, discarding them like shed skins when he’s done.