Daisy stands back, grinning at him. She’s clever, always one step ahead of the rest of us. She must have known they’d come for it. That’s why she’s hidden the urn somewhere else.

“You,” Dracula says, eyeing her up. “Come here.”

Daisy backs away. “Forget it.”

He smiles. “It wasn’t a request.”

I always forget how fast he can move. I don’t even have time to scream before he’s across the attic, his mouth already on her throat. The sounds that follow are so terribly familiar.

The soft tearing of flesh. Her breath catching. His lips sticky against her skin.

Daisy lolls back in his arms, her eyes filmed over but still watching me, silently begging me to help her. I rush forward, my hands on Dracula, nails digging deep into his skin, into his jacket, too, ripping off the collar, the pocket, half the lapel, anything to yank him away from her.

He withdraws from Daisy long enough to grin at me. “I always love it when you tear off my clothes,” he says, before going back for more of her.

Another hand is suddenly on my body. Rochester. His fingers splayed around my throat, his muscles twitching, everything about him so much stronger than I expected.

He closes his hand around my neck, my body lifting off the ground, my feet barely grazing the floor.

“Enough,” Dracula says, his mouth smeared red. “Leave her alone, Edward.”

“Then give me that one.” Rochester nods at Daisy.

A shrug. “Fine.” Dracula passes her limp body over to him, an obscene barter between men. Without hesitating, Rochester shoves me toward the wall, and takes the one he really wants. A new bride, too bloodied and glazed over to fight back.

For a moment, I remember what Daisy said in the car, about what Rochester had done to her before. She never fell under his spell like the others. She was the girl who got away. The girl he wouldn’t let escape for long.

His arms tightening around her body, Rochester smirks again before carrying her off, the other girls on the steps parting like the Red Sea to let them pass. I start toward them, my teeth sharpened, but the stairwell’s too narrow, and the crowd closes behind Rochester like pus filling a wound. They force me back, and I topple to the attic floor next to Michael. By the time I scramble to my feet, Dracula’s vanishing through the door behind them.

He turns back once, gazing at me, with that same injured look from before. As if the only thing I’m good at is disappointing him.

“Goodbye, my Lucy,” he says, and the lock slams shut behind him.

fourteen