I struggle to my feet, the echo of the ocean still pressing into my bones. “Why aren’t you trying to kill me?”

“Because I don’t want to,” he says. “I never wanted to. That was always him.”

I wring out the hem of my dress, still watching Renfield. We don’t belong here. This isn’t an open beach—it’s private land, with a sign painted in colorful letters, faded from years in the sun.

Playland at the Beach. The nearby boardwalk’s empty, but even from here, I can tell what this is. A sort of knockoff Coney Island, a nostalgic getaway with shell games and hot dog stands and ice-cream cones in every flavor. It’s already closed for the night, and by the looks of it, it’ll soon be closed for good, its heyday in the rearview mirror, its future foggy as the bay.

“Why are we here?” I ask.

Renfield shrugs. “This is where I’m living now,” he says, darkness flickering in his eye. “Miss Lucy, there’s something I need to tell you.”

I squint at him, backing away. “And what’s that?”

He purses his mummified lips. “I don’t remember,” he says. “Sometimes I get mixed up. I don’t know which thoughts are mine, and which ones are his.”

He turns toward me, his face still swollen from where Bee clawed him. I should claw him too, I should rip him to pieces for what he’s done, but before I can say another word, before I can even move, a gruff voice cuts through the gloom.

“Who’s there?” A security guard, his flashlight beam dancing across the sand. I stiffen on instinct, and Renfield puts one ancient hand on my arm to steady me, to steady us both. An aching moment before the man passes by, not seeing us in the dark.

“He’ll be back soon,” Renfield whispers, and looks intently at me. “Come on now. Let’s hide.”

In an instant, he’s scurrying across the sand and onto the crumbling thoroughfare, quick as a cockroach.

I watch him go, seawater dripping off my skin. I should run the other way. I certainly shouldn’t follow him. This could be a trap. Everything with Renfield and Dracula is always a trap.

But then there’s another flashlight beam and another grunt of a man I can’t see, and I can’t help myself. I dodge across the sand, following Renfield’s briny footprints into the park.

The boardwalk stinks of last week’s garbage. They’ve got all the usual attractions here. A Ferris wheel and a wooden coaster and a merry-go-round, all the painted ponies frozen in grotesque poses, desperate to break free of their prisons. They want to be real, they want to run, but they’ll never get that wish.