“You can feel me, can’t you?” Jude asks next, his eyes riveted on mine, drinking me in. I don’t even have to ask what he means, because of course I feel him: that scratchy, restless sensation creeping up my spine … it’s him, his presence, activating something inside me. I don’t know why I didn’t feel it when he first showed up; whatever it is, it’s not consistent. “I lied, August. I did sneak up on you when I got here, because I wanted to see if you would sense me. You didn’t at first, but now…”

“What—” The words get stuck, dread bottlenecking my throat. “W-what did you do to me?”

He opens his mouth. “It isn’t—”

“Auggie?” A familiar voice interrupts the tense moment like a car coming through a plate-glass window. “I can’t believe it, you’re, like, the third person I know that I’ve run into tonight!” Mentally, I will her to stay away, to turn around and leave, but instead she marches right over to us. “Someone I was supposed to tutor canceled on me at the last second, or I wouldn’t even be out here. What are the odds?”

“Daphne,” I manage to respond, my voice like a dirty rag caught in a very delicate bit of machinery. “I, I’m…”

Her eyes move from me to Jude and back to me again, and her eyebrows do a strange little dance. “Sorry, but am I interrupting? Are you … on a date?”

“No!” I exclaim.

“Yes,” Jude answers simultaneously, his smile uninviting.

Daphne eyes him, and her lips press into a smile like a paper cut. “Excuse us, but I need to talk to Auggie about something—alone.” I don’t fight her when she pulls me away from the table, dragging me under one of the hidden speakers, some cheerful pop song beating down on us from above.

“Daphne,” I begin, but she stops me.

“You do know that boy is a vampire, right?” she demands, half under her breath and still somehow loud enough for the entire Chicagoland area to hear her. When I don’t answer right away, she grips my shoulders. “Come on, Auggie! He’s pretty, but … come on!”

“It’s not what you’re thinking.” My reply sounds feeble, because I don’t know what she’s thinking—and I don’t know what’s going on, either.

“Did he mesmerize you? Are you mesmerized right now?” She actually pries one of my eyelids farther open, and I bat her hand away.

“He didn’t mesmerize me, we’re just talking!”

“Yeah, sure—now.” She snorts. “Why is he here, anyway? What did he tell you?”

“It’s a long story.” I adjust my glasses, the situation spiraling out of my control. “Just … I’m not in any trouble, okay? I promise. He says he’s not going to hurt me.”