The ash swirls in the air, shimmering in the glow of the movie screens, and this is it. He’s becoming whole again. Becoming everything he once was.

I should weep or scream or cower in the dark of the drive-in. I should be afraid like before. But rage boils up in me instead, raw as heartbreak, and all the wolves are looking right at me. Right into my cold and silent heart, and they finally understand. Who I am and what I want. Their heads down, their jaws gaping, they turn to Dracula, and they surround him.

The wolves. At my command instead of his.

The last dust settling on his body, Dracula edges away from them, and I can’t help but smile.

“You told me I’m like you,” I say. “Then maybe it’s time for you to run now.”

And with the wolves at my side, we’re upon him in an instant.

eighteen

Dracula and I fall together into the dirt, our bodies tangled, sliding across gravel toward the projection booth. I’ve got my hands around his neck, and he’s got his hands around mine, and with my hunger and decay unraveling, it feels like we might be evenly matched for the very first time.

“I love it when you touch me like this,” he wheezes, and I tighten my hands a little more.

The wolves are with us too, tearing at his clothes, ripping them off, piece by piece. Grimacing, he lets go of me long enough to strike them openhanded in their slathering muzzles. They fall back a step, and he stumbles to his feet, wilting against the outside of the projection booth, right next to Rowan, still cowering on the ground.

“I want to go home,” she sobs, and Dracula glowers at her, looking ready to break her in two, simply for being a gnat in his way.

But these girls are more than that. They’re powerful, and that’s what Rochester and Dracula never understood. You can only silence someone for so long before they learn how to scream. Before those screams become deafening. The girls are closing in around Rochester, backing him against the projection booth.

“Help me,” he rasps at Dracula, as though there’s a playbook for this.

Bee’s trying to rush at them, so are Jane and Walter, but the throng of girls is stronger than the rest of us, a united front not wavering, not breaking.

Daisy’s gathered among them, still looking dazed. She’s so new to all of this, the thrall barely settled over her, everything about her in a disarray. Rochester senses this, her vulnerability, and with a calloused hand, he yanks her from the horde, gripping her by one arm like a rag doll.