But once again, I’m caught between a rock and a much bigger rock, and if I can control this mind-reading thing, it’s an advantage I can’t afford not to cultivate. So I breathe out, look my best friend in the eye, and reach down deep. I remember what it was like in the club, surfing through the consciousness of an entire crowd without even having to think about it … and a moment later I’m tumbling into Adriana’s thoughts.

We’re hurtling backward, skipping from our fraught moments in the kitchen to her collapse just inside the door—and then her memory thickens, time growing fogged and slippery as I relive her night with her in reverse. An eon passing on the front porch, the air getting colder, golden eyes floating in the distant dark; a long, purposeful walk, every step a relief, because there’s a message for Auggie; sneaking out the back door, must be quiet, can’t get caught, there’s a message for Auggie; standing motionless behind a closed door, waiting for the coast to be clear.

Then. Two eyes, bright as searchlights—pulling in and swallowing up, inescapable.

A message for Auggie.

My heart thuds, and I manage to hold steady in Adriana’s memory at the moment she looked Rasputin in the eye. She was at the Verdugos’ back gate, the moon fighting through a grease-stained sky, when he created a channel between their minds. I wish I knew what I was doing, because I want to shove my fist through that channel until I punch his fucking brain out.

“Your parents don’t know where you are,” I report when I let go, stepping out of her thoughts and back into my empty home. Then, shutting ourselves in my bedroom, we set an alarm for sunrise and climb into my bed with our clothes on.

I try to keep Daphne’s death from playing on a constant loop in my thoughts, but I fail. Grief is a freight train, flattening me, forcing the air from my lungs—and even after everything, even knowing what I know about why she lied to me, my sorrow is still muddied with resentment. She could have warned me all of this was coming. Maybe she couldn’t have saved me, but at least I would’ve had some time to get ready.

No matter how hurt I am, though, I can’t help but think of all the times she took my side when my parents were annoyed with me, how she’d casually get me off the hook; I think about how she liked to tease me, but in a way that made me laugh rather than feel bad; and I think about how she would still be alive if I hadn’t expected her to be my lifeline when I stupidly went to a vampire rave because I was scared and desperate for answers.