“I said your new abilities are nothing to worry about,” Ximena clarifies as she produces a small plastic envelope from one of her pockets, tucking my hair safely inside. “But you’ve got a vampire taking a special interest in you, and it’s better to be safe than sorry. Now eat! I spent way too much time on this food for you to let it get cold.”

With that, she turns back to her plate, steering the conversation to lighter topics; but even though I make a good performance of smiling and eating my delicious cheese-stuffed peppers, a sense of cold uneasiness gradually washes over me. I liked everything Ximena said, of course—it was exactly what I wanted to hear. She didn’t even blink when she dismissed my fears … and maybe the reason I’m beginning to question her assurances is simply because they seem too good to be true.

Or maybe it’s because she had that plastic envelope in her pocket when we first sat down to dinner—long before she knew anything about Jude and his “special interest” in me. Like she’d been planning to take some of my hair all along.

I never thought the day would come that I didn’t trust an explanation from Ximena Rosales, but as I watch her from the corner of my eye, I sink deeper under the waves of doubt. There’s something she’s not telling me, I’m sure of it, and unfortunately I can think of only one way to find out what that is. It’s a terrible idea … and yet it’s the best one I’ve got.

This whole thing started with Jude, and I need him to tell me how the world ends.

7

When my alarm goes off the next morning, I want to fling both the clock and my body out my bedroom window. I might have slept for three hours—a hundred and eighty minutes of sweaty, harrowing night terrors that clung to me like spiderwebs each time I jolted awake.

My dreams were even more gruesome than last week’s, a montage of horrific elements: ropes binding me to a pillar of rough wood, flames blistering my skin, smoke burning my lungs and strangling my cries. When I woke up, terrified and gasping, I sobbed with relief when I realized none of it was real. But then I drifted back off, and the dreams resumed, just as graphic: an angry mob, a blade cleaving my neck, and then a weightless fall—my brain still conscious for several precious seconds, racked by unimaginable pain.

My hands are shaking when I fumble out the burner phone that Jude tossed me after school last Wednesday, the list of contacts showing a single number. Before I can second-guess myself, I send him a text: I’m ready for answers.