“You forgot one,” I said, wondering if I should just keep my mouth shut. “Family.”

Ivy grabbed the pens out of the cup. Leaning back in her chair to balance on two legs, she started tossing them again. “Doesn’t family come in with love?” she asked.

I watched her from the corner of my sight. Not if they were dead, I thought, my memories turning to my dad. In that case, it might come under revenge.

The kitchen went silent as I sprinkled a thin dusting of Parmesan on the sauce. Only the clacks of Ivy’s pens broke the stillness. Every single one went in, the sporadic rattles getting on my nerves. The pens stopped, and I froze in alarm. Her face was shadowed. I couldn’t see if her eyes were going black. My heartbeat quickened, and I didn’t move, waiting.

“Why don’t you just stake me, Rachel?” she said in exasperation as she flipped her hair aside to show me irate brown eyes. “I’m not going to jump you. I said Friday was an accident.”

Shoulders easing, I rummaged loudly in the drawer for a can opener for the mushrooms. “A pretty freaking scary accident,” I muttered under my breath as I drained them.

“I heard that.” She hesitated. A pen landed in the cup with a rattle. “You, ah, did read the book, right?” she asked.

“Most of it,” I admitted, then went alarmed. “Why, am I doing something wrong?”

“You’re ticking me off, that’s what you’re doing wrong,” she said, her voice raised. “Stop watching me. I’m not an animal. I may be a vampire, but I still have a soul.”

I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t even mouth an answer to that. There was a clatter as she dropped her remaining markers in the pencil cup. The silence grew heavy as she pulled her maps to her. I turned my back on her to prove I trusted her. I didn’t, though. Putting the pepper on the cutting board, I yanked open a drawer and banged noisily about until I found a huge knife. It was too big to cut peppers, but I was feeling vulnerable and that was the knife I was going to use.

“Uh …” Ivy hesitated. “You’re not putting peppers on that, are you?”

My breath slipped from me and I set the knife down. We probably wouldn’t have anything on our pizza but cheese. Silently, I put the pepper back in the refrigerator. “What’s a pizza without peppers?” I whispered under my breath.

“Edible,” was her prompt response, and I grimaced. She wasn’t supposed to hear that.

My eyes traveled over the counter and my assembled goodies. “Mushrooms okay?”

“Can’t have pizza without them.”

I layered slices of slimy brown atop the Parmesan. Ivy rattled her map, and I snuck an unhelped glance at her.

“You never did tell me what you did with Francis,” she said.

“I left him in his open trunk. Someone will douse him in saltwater. I think I broke his car. It doesn’t accelerate anymore, no matter what gear I put it in and how loud I race it.”