A strained silence, heavy as the grave. “Gone,” Bee says, not looking at me. “When I woke up, she’d already left.”

So that’s it. Rather than tell Bee the truth, Jane just ran. Took the coward’s way out.

Bee doesn’t know that. “What happened tonight at the drive-in, Lucy?”

I hesitate, everything a jumble inside me. “I caught her,” I whisper, “talking to Rochester.”

A ripple of grief crosses Bee’s face. “So she went back to him,” she says slowly. “I was afraid that might happen.”

I wait for something more, some kind of devastation from her, but that’s it. There’s no rage, no indignance, barely a hint of surprise.

I gape at her. “Aren’t you mad?”

“At him? Sure. But at her?” Bee shakes her head as she drifts across the room, past the rolltop desk. “This is how they are. The back and forth. He’s been doing this to her for decades now.” A long moment passes before she adds, “You know what that’s like.”

My chest tightens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You and Dracula,” she says, and instantly I bristle.

“This is nothing like me and Dracula.”

“Really?” Her gaze turns sharply toward me. “You’re telling me you never talk to him when nobody else is around?”

She lobs the question at me like a grenade. I stare at her, stunned.

“No,” I say finally. “Never.”

“Lucy,” Bee says, something softening in her, a flicker of understanding in her voice. “I’ve heard you. All those one-sided conversations. All those times you honestly hoped he’d answer.”

My cheeks burn with shame. “That’s different,” I say, though I don’t know how.

Bee’s pacing faster now, her eyes wild. “He can’t keep doing this to Jane. He can’t keep hurting her.” Resolve hardens on her face. “I won’t let him, Lucy.”

There it is again, that newfound fire to go after Rochester. All these years we spent tucked away from the world. Bee doesn’t want to hide anymore.

“So what now?” I ask, but then I hear it. Another distant howl like a warning shot. My head snaps toward the sound, the night breeze whispering in through the open windows.

Then something else whispers too, a voice that cuts through the dusty air.

“Hello, Miss Lucy.”

Renfield, back again. I sneer, ready to ignore him, but when I glance at Bee, her eyes are wide, her face gone wan. She hears him too. He isn’t speaking from afar this time.

He’s speaking from the doorway behind me.

five

Bee backs against the far wall, a pile of records splayed at her feet.

“What are you?” she asks, and I turn and see Renfield in the flesh for the first time.