More people drift in, and more after that, until all the girls from the party, all the ones Dracula hasn’t tasted yet, are gathered around the impromptu deathbed. A few of them are whispering, and one or two have even started to cry big snotty tears.

“Call a doctor,” someone’s hollering. “Call anybody.”

“It won’t help.” Dracula’s in the doorway now. “Not anymore.”

All their faces go gray, and these girls are finally starting to believe me. I touch Bellflower’s hand, and I brush Vervain’s stringy hair behind her ear, running my fingers along the scar on her jaw, as if I can heal it, as if it’s not far too late for that.

I remember this. What it’s like to fade away into nothing. Into an oblivion that won’t last. We circle around them, silent, watching. Only for a moment, only until it’s over. A final murmur from the bed, so small, so pitiful, and then no more sound at all. Not a breath, not a whisper.

“Are they—” someone asks.

“Yes,” I say, and then it all breaks loose. The kids rushing back and forth in the room, panicked, hysterical. They charge through the door and down the hall, pushing past Dracula like he’s a ghost, like he’s not the whole cause of this. More sobs, and the front door slams, cars revving to life in the driveway, girls hollering at each other, cramming into back seats where they don’t quite fit, until all at once, everything outside goes still as a tomb.

Dracula shakes his head. “I remember when you were the life of the party, Lucy. Now you’re just the death of it.”

The patio door crashes open, and Rochester materializes, moonlight limning his body. “What was that? Where is everyone?”

With a languid sigh, Dracula motions to me. “Dear Lucy sent them away.”

A long, ugly moment. “And you let her?”

“We can always get more,” Dracula says, utterly bored at this whole evening. He looks ready to retreat onto the patio and have another drink, but Rochester’s suddenly across the room, looming over me.

“But she had no right,” he says, and I can’t even get to my feet before he closes in. “They were mine.”

“No, they weren’t,” I say, and he’s reaching out for me now, his hands yearning to break me in half.

Dracula stirs in the doorway. “Leave her alone, Edward.”

“Why?” Rochester asks, his fury nearly choking him. “We both already know what you’d like to do to her.”

“Yes, but that’s me.” Dracula draws closer to him. “You don’t touch her.”

How romantic. The two of them fighting over who gets to murder me.