I used to love the silence. It was once my refuge. That small corner of our school library was perhaps the only thing I missed about our school. It was my retreat. That afternoon, however, the silence only gave way to the voices that belonged to the dreams haunting me on a nightly basis.

The curve that formed on my lips was bitter and spiteful. What a joke. Darkness can’t possibly come to The Shade. The Shade is darkness. The idea shook me. I had no idea what the nightmares meant or whom or what the darkness was headed for. I didn’t want to know. I just wanted to forget.

Of course, that was impossible, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t pretend.

“I knew I’d find you here.” Ben pulled a up a seat next to me. He flipped it so that its backrest was leaning on the edge of the table before he straddled it and flashed me a smile.

I tried to smile back, but it seemed I failed miserably at it, because I heard concern in his voice when he asked, “What’s wrong? You alright?”

“Yeah. What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at football practice?”

“I’ll catch up. I just wanted to tell you that Patrick confirmed that we can resume our martial arts lessons on Friday afternoons next week, so we’re headed for the gym then. Don’t make any plans.”

“Okay … Tanya coming?”

Rumors were that Ben was back together with Tanya, the gorgeous blonde cheerleader.

“No. I just broke it off with her.”

I searched myself for a reaction. Glee perhaps? Nothing. “How did she take that?”

“She’ll survive.”

I stared at the book in front of me. Orwell’s 1984. I felt a lot like the characters in the book… following a routine set out by someone else. It’d been several weeks since Ben and I returned to high school. We were beginning to fall back into old patterns of normalcy. He was once again the school quarterback, the amazing golden boy, popular and beloved. I was once again his best friend for reasons no one but Ben understood.

However, I could tell that something shifted in the dynamic of our relationship. I used to be so dependent on Ben, it was borderline pathetic. I was practically his shadow. I loved being around him and I resented seeing him with other girls – Tanya Wilson included. Now, hearing about his forays into high school flings and relationships, it just made me feel disconnected.

If there was one thing that I was certain The Shade changed about me; it made me independent of Ben. I loved him. He was still my best friend after all, but I no longer needed him, no longer pined for him. I could actually imagine a life without him. I found the realization both fearful and empowering.

“What are those?” Ben pointed at several pieces of paper I had scattered over the library table. He didn’t wait for a response and grabbed one of the papers. “College application forms? Harvard?”

I shrugged. “I was thinking of becoming a lawyer. You know that.”

“So you’re actually considering going to college?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Why wouldn’t I? What else would I do? That’s what we’re doing here, aren’t we? Trying to return to normal? That’s where all this leads, Ben. We graduate. We go to college.”

My statements were received with silence.

“You won’t get that football scholarship if you don’t go to practice.” I grabbed my bag, which I left on the floor beside me and took out a pen. I pulled one of the college application forms and began filling it out. Take a hint, Ben. Go away.

Ben grabbed the form I was writing on, crumpled it and tossed it on the table. “Eliza gave me a name and a number… She was the girl…”

“I know who she is,” I interrupted. Just the mention of the name made me feel guilty. I knew it escaped reason, but I felt like an accessory to a crime that Derek committed. “What name? What number?”

“The hunters. It’s a contact person… His name’s Reuben. I think he’s my… our… ticket in.”

I sat up straight, threw the pen I was holding over the table and slammed my book shut. “You can’t be serious, Ben. You’re saying you’re going to join them?”

“No. I’m saying we’re going to join them. How else will I exact revenge on The Shade, Sofia? It’s not like I can crawl back to the police and change our story.”

“Where is this coming from, Ben? We’d barely spoken about the island…”

“Not speaking about it doesn’t mean neither of us is thinking about it. We get nightmares every single night, Sofia… Don’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about that place.”

“Of course I have, but I thought…”

“…but you thought what? We’d just move on? Come on, Sofia… High school? College? I think we’ve been so good at pretending to be normal that you got yourself convinced that we’re actually normal. The Shade stole that from us and they’ve stolen it from countless others. They have to pay.”

I shut my eyes, hoping that if I did, everything else would shut down right along with it. “Ben, believe me when I say that I’d thought about exposing the island so many times while I was there, but…”

“But what?”

The last time we talked about exacting revenge on The Shade was that first night we got back from Mexico. I thought about it from time to time, but I couldn’t swallow the idea of being a hunter, of living a life devoted to vengeance.

“I don’t think I can live that way, Ben.”

“So what? We’re just going to keep this up? Pretend that nothing happened? Go on with life as usual? What about the people you left at The Shade? Ashley, Paige, Rosa… What about Gwen, Sofia?”

At that, I stood up. My knuckles were white from the way I was clutching the edges of the table. “Don’t go there, Ben. Not a day has gone by since we left that they haven’t crossed my mind.”

“Well, maybe it’s time to stop thinking about them and actually start doing something about it. How can you not see that this is the only way?”

“I can’t bring myself to accept that it’s the only way. I do not want to spend my life killing vampires. There’s got to be a better way… one that doesn’t involve as much bloodshed…”

His shoulders straightened as he held his head high. His blue eyes showed his disappointment in me, his disapproval. “How can you be so naïve?”

At his question, a slew of memories began to flood my mind. Derek and Vivienne embracing after centuries of being apart… Derek playing fascinating harmonies on his grand piano... His decision to allow us to escape… His laughter, his embrace, his patience trying to train us girls in combat… the delight in his eyes when I showed him the Sun Room… how much he seemed to crave light…

Perhaps it was just me clinging to this hope that I wasn’t wrong about him. I wanted to believe that I saw goodness in Derek Novak, and if the prince and savior of The Shade could still be capable of goodness, then perhaps there was still hope yet… for him and the other vampires…

Or perhaps Ben was right. How could I be so naïve?

CHAPTER 16: BEN

I couldn’t understand the way her mind worked. I sat across her, waiting for her to explain her own naïveté, but she remained silent as she sat back in her chair, a pensive expression on her green eyes as she brushed a stray strand of hair away from her face.

I caught my breath at how beautiful she looked. My best friend’s appearance was something that I was never oblivious to. She was Rose Red come to life. The auburn hair, the pale white, pinkish complexion, the hourglass figure, those legs that went on for days… I’d have to be blind not to see how lovely she was. I knew she’d grow up to become a stunner from the moment I first laid eyes on her. That was the day her father left her at our house and never again returned.

What a damn fool he was.

He was just as unaware of her as she seemed to be of herself. Sofia grew up without giving much thought to the effect she had on people. She didn’t notice the way men looked at her whenever we were out. It was part of her appeal.

That and the fact that she was mine.

It helped that I was the only person she ever truly let in. She liked keeping to herself, her fear of becoming like her mother and her insecurity after being abandoned by her father always looming over her. It made it easy for me to keep her to myself. The guys in school knew that she was off limits. I think even the girls I dated knew that they were flings and that Sofia was the one. It was never spoken out loud, but we belonged together.

My security in that idea was my undoing, because during the time we spent at The Shade, it seemed she let someone else in – Derek Novak. I never could’ve seen that coming. No one was ever able to penetrate her walls, but it seemed like he did. He managed to get through to her and I couldn’t understand how.

All I knew as I sat across that table from her in the library, was that I was losing her by the minute. You never know what you got until it’s gone, Ben. You treated her like crap and now, you’re scrambling to fix things with her.

“I’m not trying to pressure you, Sofia…” I began to say.

“Really? That’s exactly what it feels like.”

I wasn’t used to her being so assertive around me. She normally always heard me out – yet another thing that changed about her since we left The Shade.

“I can’t take this.” I got up from my seat. “I’ll see you after practice.” Like I always did when forced into situations I had no idea how to handle, I ran.

Had it been any other guy, I would’ve been happy for her, but this was Derek Novak. I watched him kill Eliza, drain her of every drop of blood in her body. No hesitation. No hint of shame. He preyed on her remorselessly. I didn’t care what he did or whether or not there was still any hope of good in him. He didn’t deserve my best friend. Sofia deserved far better than him.

And yet, it felt as if I were losing her to him.