Nathan turned around, his expression dark. “Fine. I’ll make sausage instead.”

I clenched my good fist. “You know what I’m talking about.”

He opened the fridge and pulled out eggs and milk, pointedly turning the side of the carton labeled Z away from himself. “I do. And I told you before, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, I do!” I stamped my foot.

Nathan poured the milk and the pancake mix into the bowl without measuring, the way a mother would after years of preparing breakfast for her family. Except I’d never seen a mother with such a murderous scowl. Nathan suddenly threw down the wooden spoon in his hand. It bounced off the rim of the glass bowl and splattered half-mixed batter everywhere. “Just because I don’t want to stand here and have a Hallmark moment with you doesn’t mean I didn’t love Ziggy. I cared about him more than somebody like you could ever understand!”

“Somebody like me?” I hated the shrillness of my voice when I was mad. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “You tell me. What exactly did you have to do to keep him safe, Carrie? And so I can appreciate how indebted to you I should be, how much did you enjoy it?”

His remark twisted like a knife in my heart, just as he’d intended. Rage set my limbs trembling. I lashed out. “I did what I had to do! Unlike some people in this room!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Why didn’t you give Ziggy your blood? You could have saved him. All it would have taken was a little of your blood! Why didn’t you do it?”

The question had hung between us since the moment we left the mansion. It had been the cause for the tension we’d felt all morning.

Nathan looked at me, his eyes filled with confusion. “You think I let him die?”

The pain in his voice stole my will to fight. “Do you think you let him die?”

With a growl of fury, he shoved all the dishes and utensils off the counter. The glass bowl shattered at his feet, and the clang of metal nearly deafened me as the pans collided with linoleum. Nathan stalked forward, and I took a step back out of reflex more than fear. He wouldn’t hurt me. No matter how tough he tried to appear, he wasn’t the type to abuse someone weaker than himself.

“I would rather have him dead than be one of us!” he shouted, so close to my face that his cold breath stirred my hair. “You only know your change. You got to stay the same person you were before. Not everyone is so lucky. The blood has different effects on people. It does something to you, it makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do.”

I looked down, all too aware that I could have just as easily saved Ziggy with my own blood.