The fall sun was already slipping below the pines that wove throughout Jacksonville when Charmer practice ended that afternoon. As I walked through the fast-growing gloom down the hill toward the practice field's chain-link gated exit, I saw a familiar black muscle car purring at the curb.

I tilted my head and looked through the open passenger's side window.

"Hey!" Ron said, his smile tight at the corners and not quite reaching his eyes for once. "Anne said she talked to you at lunch. Ready to go?"

Okay.

A few minutes later, I was settled in the passenger seat and we were on our way up the hill and off campus.

"So Anne said you needed to tell me something?" I said.

"Yeah. Well, that and show you something."

We drove past the turn that would have led toward my house, instead heading out of town. "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere a little more private."

My imagination tried to cue the creepy horror movie picture at this point. But this was Ron, and both Anne and my parents and his supposedly knew about this roadtrip. So I forced myself to relax back in the seat.

"Are we going to Palestine?" He had just turned onto Highway 79, which led to the next town over. Palestine was also where Ron's family had moved from when we were in the ninth grade.

Behind us, the town's lights faded from view as the sun finished setting and left us to zoom through the cold in the dark.

"No, not that far. Just another mile or so." The dashboard lights turned Ron's face green as he glanced at me with a smile. "I'm taking you to this spot I like to go to where I can be alone and...think."

His expression looked the same as always, with that lopsided boy-next-door smile, and the emotions he was projecting were a little on edge but mostly...hopeful. Nothing about him said he intended to kill me in a ditch somewhere.

Besides, I was half vamp and half witch. I could take care of myself now.

I searched for something to talk about so I wouldn't feel so weird. "What's this band?" I gestured at the radio, which was turned down low.

"You like it? They're called Flogging Molly."

"Sounds Irish."

He nodded. "Yeah. They're awesome. Oh here, listen to this one. It's my favorite." He cranked up the volume and hit the forward button to play the next track.

I picked up the plastic case wedged into the space between our seats and read the back listing of songs. We were listening to "If I Ever Leave This World Alive."

Because we're about to die? my stupid imagination wondered before I told it to shut up. Other than creeping me out with the lyrics, I liked the music and let my head bob in time with the beat.

After ten minutes, Ron slowed the car then turned onto a black top road that quickly changed to dirt.

The headlights flashed on a familiar green Ford F150 parked at the side of the road ahead.

"That looks like-" I began.

"Yeah, Anne's truck. But what the heck is she doing here?" He didn't sound thrilled.

"You two didn't plan this?"

He shook his head as he parked a few yards behind her. He didn't shut off the headlights, though.

Anne slid out of the driver's side of the truck, her face set in a scowl. She moved to the back end and dropped the tailgate with a loud clang that made me jump.

Ron and I got out of the car. He was projecting every bit as much confusion as I was feeling.

"Anne, what are you-" he muttered.

"Hog hunting, of course," she said. "Brought my bow and everything. Uncle Danny couldn't come with me this time, though, so I thought I'd just go out on my own for a few hours."

Ron glared at her. "Alone? You were going to hunt alone? Are you crazy? You could get killed!"

Eyebrows raised, she gave her best innocent face. "Well, sure. Why not? You do it all the time. And besides, everyone knows the wild hog population's getting out of control around here. Halloween's tomorrow. All those trick-or-treaters are going to be in danger if we don't cull the hog population as much as possible before then."

"No." He took a step toward her. "Absolutely not. There's no way I'm gonna let you go out there alone-"

Her mouth twisted into a dark smirk. "Oh please. Give it a rest, Neanderthal. I was just joking. I'd never actually be that stupid. I only came because you said you'd be bringing Savannah here for the talk."

He rocked back on his heels, and she barked out a short, humorless laugh. "You really thought I'd let you just drop a bomb on my best friend without me here for emotional support? I don't think so." She hopped up to sit on the tailgate then patted the metal beside her. "Come on, Sav. Better get comfy for storytelling time. Ron tends to ramble."

I had no idea what was going on and wasn't sure I wanted to dip into their thoughts for clarity. Even though we were outside, the air between them was way too heavy.

Still, for the sake of keeping what little peace remained, I sat beside her then waited for Ron.

He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck, and stared at the dirt lit up by his car's headlights. After a hesitation, he began. "Okay, Savannah, do you remember the day we talked about that library book I was reading? The one about the East Texas myths and legends?"

I nodded.

"And do you remember what I told you about the black panthers that the Irish settlers brought over with them?"

"Sure," I said. "They helped protect their owners' castles in the old country and their homesteads here in America until their owners set them loose in the wild."

He winced. "Well, first off, the settlers weren't their owners. Secondly, those big 'cats' are actually the Keepers, and they were once allies with the Irish settlers until their help was no longer needed. And third, those settlers weren't just any Irish immigrants. They were the Clann."

Why did it always have to come back to the Clann? "So that's why you thought I'd already know about the Keepers. Because my family used to be in the Clann."

He nodded. "But there's another crucial detail to this story that I had to leave out before since you didn't already know about the Keepers and I wasn't sure my parents would let me tell you. The Clann actually created the Keepers."

"You mean they bred the cats?"

Anne snickered. Ron frowned at her, and she raised her hands in surrender. He looked at me again. "No, they didn't breed them. They created them using one of the biggest group spells the Clann has probably ever done. They cast that spell, though some prefer to call it a curse, on a select few human families. In return, those families promised their aid anytime the Clann needed it."

Whoa. No wonder some people called it a curse. I couldn't even imagine how miserable I'd be if a bunch of witches turned me into a cat.

"Okay, so there are a bunch of humans running around out here ticked off at the Clann because they were turned into giant cats then abandoned," I said. "And...what, you want me to change them back? Because regardless of what Anne might have told you, I'm really and truly not that good yet. I've only been practicing how to use power for a few months now. She's just lucky I could fix her wrist."

Ron froze, then took a huge step forward and grabbed both of Anne's hands.

"Hey!" she said. "What do you think you're doing? Hands off!"

He turned her hands over, running his fingers over her wrists despite her struggling. "What happened?" He searched her face, both of them eye level due to her sitting on the tailgate. "Why didn't you tell me you got hurt?"

"I didn't tell you because, one, it's none of your business anymore, and two, because I'm not hurt anymore. Sav fixed me with her hoodoo voodoo." She jerked her hands free and gave me the evil eye. "Which, by the way, I did not spill the secret about, thank you very much!"

He looked to me now for answers, his eyebrows pinched. "Savannah?"

Her eyes widened then narrowed in an unspoken warning not to tell him. But she hadn't made me promise not to. And diehard romantic that I was, I couldn't help but be moved by the anxiety and confusion pouring off her ex.

"We...uh, had a little encounter with Dylan Williams at lunch today," I said.

"Sav, seriously, it's none of his business," she hissed.

"Yeah, it really is," Ron said. "What'd he do?"

"He went after Sav, so I went after him," Anne said. "End of story."

He ignored her, staring at me, wanting more details. I gave in. "Well, yeah, it's basically like she said. He figured out I could read his mind and flipped out. When he went after me, Anne hurt her wrist while trying to put the hurt on his nose."

"Which totally would have worked if the jackass hadn't been able to fix it immediately afterwards," she said. "But then Sav healed my wrist, too, so we were basically even. And now you know everything. Happy?"

The muscles in his jaw worked for several seconds. Finally, he stepped back, arms crossed. I expected him to throw a million questions at me about my spell-making abilities. Instead, gratitude radiated from him. "Then I guess I need to thank you, Savannah."

I shrugged. "It was no big deal. She wouldn't have gotten hurt if not for trying to protect me."

Why wasn't he curious about my ability to heal Anne?

I snuck a peek at his thoughts and got the answer. "Your mom told you about me, didn't she?"

He nodded. "And why your family was kicked out of the Clann and why you didn't know about the Keepers."

So he knew I was half vamp and half witch. And yet he didn't seem scared. "How long have you known?"

"Since that day I told you about the panthers of East Texas."

I thought back over the weeks and months since then. How he'd guessed that I could read Tristan's mind and didn't seem bothered by it. The way he'd acted so quickly to help me when Dylan left his blood on my locker.

And how he hadn't once been afraid to be alone with me in the library. My throat got a little tight at that.

"Thanks for not freaking out about it," I said.

Smiling, Ron shrugged. "It's no big deal."

So now two normal people knew all about me and were fine with it.

I took a deep breath. "Okay, but none of this explains why we're out here tonight. I mean, I feel bad for the Keepers. Believe me, I've had more than my fair share of crap from the Clann, too. But what do you want me to do about it? Even if we could find and catch one of those poor creatures, I'd never be able to change it back to human. Especially if it took a whole group of descendants to do the spell in the first place. I'm not that strong, and I wouldn't even know where to begin."

One side of Anne's mouth hitched. "Oh, we don't have to hunt down a Keeper. They're much easier to find than you think. In fact, I bet if we sit here for a few minutes, Ron can go find us a Keeper, can't you?" She looked at him, eyebrows raised with a weird twisted sort of smile.

He made a face back at her. "Sure. I'll be right back." And then he took off into the woods.

Whoa. Was he suicidal? "I thought you said these woods were filled with wild hogs. Isn't it dangerous for him to-"

"He's fine. Trust me. The hogs will be more afraid of him than the other way around. You'll see."

Silence as Ron's footsteps faded.

"So why'd you think I'd need emotional support for this Keeper stuff?" I asked. "Or was it really that you just wanted an excuse to see a certain tall, blond and handsome guy?" Grinning, I bumped a shoulder against hers.

"Puh-lease. Actually, I just wanted to save time by being here so you wouldn't have to call or text me later all ticked off because I didn't tell you myself."

"How in the world are the Keepers going to make me mad at you?"

"Because it's a secret I swore to keep, even from you." There was something in her tone, a note of pain that combined with a strange sense of loss she was projecting. It socked me in the chest and squeezed my lungs.

How could she not want to do whatever it took to stop that pain and get Ron back?

"Does this Keeper stuff have anything to do with why you two broke up?" Maybe Ron was so obsessed with finding a way to end the Keepers' curse that Anne had gotten tired of it and broken up with him?

No, that couldn't be the reason. Anne was just as obsessed with perfecting her overhand volleyball serve and her skills as the junior varsity Maidens' star setter.

She surprised me by nodding and swallowing so hard I heard the gulp in her throat.

So that was it? She'd broken up with Ron over his Keepers obsession?

I searched for something to say to make her feel better. "Well, you know, nobody's perfect. Everyone's got a weird hang-up or two. Have you tried searching for Keepers with him? You never know, it could turn out to be a bonding hobby or something."

Lips pressed together, she shook her head. "I already told you, we don't have to hunt for them. And trust me, this is not the sort of thing you 'take up as a hobby.'"

Fine. I was just trying to help.

Irritated now, I stayed quiet, listening to the nighttime sounds of the forest...an owl hooting somewhere off in the distance, the slight breeze rustling through the pine trees all around us. That cool wind brought with it the familiar scents of pine and dirt and unfamiliar smells of the wild things that lived in these woods.

I heard the breathing first, loud and heavy, almost like a warning. I froze.

"Anne, did you hear that?"

She looked at me. "Hear what?"

"Breathing. Loud, like something big's coming-"

And then I saw it, its black fur catching and rippling in the edges of the car's headlights as it padded out of the woods on silent paws that were as big as my hands. Its yellow eyes, their pupils vertical slits instead of rounded, watched us as it slunk ever closer.

Holy crap.

The last time my heart had raced this fast, Nanna had been hanging in midair, held captive by the power of the Clann in the Circle.

Tonight had to end better than that. I would do whatever it took to make sure of it. Dad said vampires were immortal unless we were staked through the heart, decapitated, or set on fire. As long as I kept my neck clear of that thing's claws, I should be all right. Anne, on the other hand, was all too human. I had to get her somewhere safe.

The inside of the truck cab. Surely it couldn't get through the windows or windshield.

Scared to make any sudden movements, I eased a hand out to touch Anne's shoulder, hoping this would keep her calm. "Anne? I don't want you to freak or jump or anything. But listen to me very carefully. I swear to you on Nanna's grave that there is a huge animal over there."

She glanced in the right direction. "Mmm-hmm, I see it."

"Okay. Here's what we're going to do. I want you to very carefully ease your feet up onto the truck. Move super slow and quiet, and maybe it won't attack. I want you to head for the back sliding-glass window and see if you can get it open."

"It's already unlatched. I thought I might need fast access to my bow and arrows-"

Was she thinking about shooting it? "Forget about the bow and arrows for now. I do not want you to play the hero. I want you to get inside the cab of your truck so it can't get to you."

She turned to me with a half smile. "Oh yeah? And what about you?"

Frowning, I kept staring at the monstrous beast. It had stopped at the opposite side of the road a few yards away. No telling how far it could leap, maybe right into the back of the truck with us. "I'll be okay. Don't worry about me. I'm a vamp, remember? As long as it doesn't cut my head off-"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous. Just let me get my bow and arrows and I'll take care of it." Anne hopped up to her feet, moving way too fast.

I hissed, "I said move slowly! And you will not get your bow and arrows. Just get inside and..." A whooshing sound behind me signaled she'd opened the back glass window. I risked a glance over my shoulder. She had thrust her arm and shoulder inside, but the rest of her body was still vulnerable outside the cab. "What's the matter? Are you stuck?"

"Nope, I'm good." She spoke at a normal volume.

"Keep your voice down!" Geez, did she want to provoke the thing to attack us?

She stood up, and I wanted to throttle her. She was holding a compound bow with arrows attached and a weird plastic hook thing strapped to her right wrist. "Dang it, Anne, I said no! Just get inside where you'll be safe."

But even as I spoke, she was inserting an arrow into the bow then hooking it with the wrist thing.

"Anne, don't!" What if she missed? It might make the beast run away. Or it might make it come after us for sure.

"Don't worry so much," she said, drawing the arrow and one of the three strings back to her jaw, resting the tip of her nose against the string with a smile. "I've got this. Ready? On three. One, two..."

Her right index moved forward and pressed the trigger of the hook attached to her wrist. The hook released the arrow. It went wide, missing the monster to the right by at least a foot.

The cat reached up and caught the arrow as easily as if it were a kitten grabbing a bird out of the air.

My jaw dropped. No normal panther would have done that. It must be a Keeper. We were so in trouble here.

Anne chuckled. "Good catch! But don't you dare mark it up with those teeth or claws. Just leave it on the ground and I'll get it later."

Male laughter sounded, not nearby, but closer, as if I were listening to it through headphones. As if it were in my mind.

And it sounded familiar. "Ron?" I called out in a stage whisper, daring to look around us and trusting Anne would keep an eye on the panther. Ron had to be close by if I could hear him laughing.

Yeah? Definitely Ron's voice. Was he up in one of these trees?

"Where are you? Stay away! There's a-"

A giant black cat staring at you? Yeah, I know. He sounded ready to laugh at me.

Had everyone gone nuts around here?

"Yeah, well, this cat's definitely not normal. Where are you? Can you get into your car safely? If you can't, stay where you are and we'll try to get inside Anne's truck and come and get you."

Anne laughed. "Yeah, Ron. We'll come save you." She laughed harder.

I scowled at her. "What is wrong with you? Can't you see that huge black animal over there ready to tear our throats out?"

"Hickeys on the neck, yes. But he's not going to hurt us." Lifting her chin, she called out, "Ron, are you done playing with her yet?"

The panther eased closer. And closer. It was beside the truck now. Throwing caution to the wind, I jumped to my feet and darted in front of Anne, using my body for protection.

Whew, you're fast! Ron said.

The panther leaped onto the tailgate, and the entire back end of the truck dipped under the panther's weight. Despite my clenched back teeth, a shriek escaped through my nose. It had to be at least six feet long from head to butt.

"Get inside the freaking truck!" I yelled at Anne, moving to stand between her and the monstrous cat. I had no idea how I would fight it off. I would have to pray my vamp strength would be enough against its huge size and weight. Was there enough of a human mind caged within that furry body to be reasoned with? Maybe if I apologized for Anne's shooting at it...

"Dude, easy on my truck," Anne said over my shoulder to the cat.

The panther sat on its haunches and made a sneezing motion with its head.

Give me a break, Ron said. She carts around dead hogs back here but tells me to be gentle with her truck?

For the first time since the panther's arrival, I stopped trying to figure out how to save Anne and fully focused on Ron's voice.

"Ron?" I said.

Yep.

The panther tilted its head, its tail slowly sweeping the tailgate.

"Where are you? Wave a hand or something so I can see you."

The panther slowly lifted a paw in the air.

No flipping way... My mind locked up.

"Yes, you were funny," Anne said, sounding bored now. "But I'm still not giving you a high five when you look like that."

"That's- The Keepers are-" I stuttered.

"Shapeshifters," Anne said, playing with her compound bow.

Right. Of course they were. Because if the world could actually contain witches and vampires, then why not shapeshifting kitty cats?

"So this is a Keeper," I said.

"Yep," Anne said.

One of them, at least, Ron said.

"Are there more like you?"

Oh yeah. Too many, in fact. It's why my family had to leave Palestine. The Keepers are overrunning the woods there and need to start spreading out before we attract more notice than we've already gotten. Heck, we've already been seen so many times in the area over the years that they named one of the high school mascots after us!

I frowned at the panther. No, at Ron. "Why can I hear your voice inside my head?"

Part of the Clann's original spell, he answered. It allows us to communicate with descendants, or in your case partial descendants, when we're in panther form. Very handy in times of war, I guess. Not that any descendants have bothered to include us in anything they've been up to for the last hundred years. And it works both ways, by the way. I can hear your thoughts too right now.

Oh yeah? I thought, testing him.

Yeah, he answered, and I could hear the smile in his tone.

Cool.

"Okay, this is boring," Anne said. "Can we all go home now?"

Fine, Ron said, lightly leaping down off the tailgate.

"Sav's riding with me," Anne called out to his retreating furry backside, stuffing her bow and wrist device in the backseat of her truck again before hopping down over the side of the truck.

I climbed into the front passengar side of her truck in silence, still trying to absorb the whole Keeper revelation. What the Clann had done to those families-putting a spell on their very DNA that continued to work on their descendants throughout the centuries-was some seriously hardcore old magic. Talk about fundamentally affecting someone! I could see why the Clann had done it, too. The Keepers would make amazing allies during a battle. So why had the Clann let that alliance fade?

Ego, I finally decided. The Clann had gotten cocky, arrogantly believing their magic was more than enough in the modern world.

What a shame, too. Now the Keepers were stuck with what they were, whether they were needed or not.

"So what do you think?" Anne blurted out when she couldn't take the silence anymore.

"Um, I think...wow would be the word I'm looking for."

"Yeah. It's definitely some heavy stuff. I tried to talk Ron out of telling you, but he was convinced it would make you feel less alone or something." She rolled her eyes.

"No, I'm glad he did. He's right, in a weird way it does make me feel better." I snuck a glance at her. "So I guess this is why you broke up with him?"

She nodded, her mouth tightening at the corners. "I've had time to get used to the idea now. Especially after knowing about your...stuff. But when he first told me..." She shook her head, staring at the road through the windshield, the approaching lights of Jacksonville lighting up her face. "It was just way, way too much info to handle all at once. What kind of guy drops a bomb like that on a girl he's only been dating for a few months?"

"Weren't you two together for like eight months or something?"

"The key word being months. He wasn't even supposed to tell me about the Keepers, much less show me! No one outside the Clann or the Keepers is supposed to know about it. But there he went, blabbing his mouth to me last year. Was it any wonder I freaked out?" Her eyes looked wild in the streetlights as we reentered the city limits and the pines were replaced with buildings again.

"So you dumped him because he was different."

"No, of course not! You know I'm not like that. It wasn't the whole shifter business itself that bugged me. It was the fact that he was dumping this major huge family secret on me! I mean, what if I'd taken it into my head to shoot a video of him shifting with my phone when he didn't know it or something, and I put it on YouTube?"

"Oh Anne. You wouldn't do that."

"But I could have, for all he knew! Not to mention he was my first boyfriend and I was all of sixteen when he showed me. That is just way too heavy for a girl's very first relationship. For all I knew, he was planning on proposing the week after that!"

"So you broke up with him. Because he trusted you with his deepest, darkest secret."

Silence as we pulled up to a stoplight and waited for the light to turn green. More silence as we took off again.

"You know, I'm kind of surprised you decided to stay friends with me after I told you about my family's secrets."

"That's different and you know it. I'm not dating you. And you and I have been best friends for years. Ron is just some guy I dated for a few months."

She was so full of crap. "You're reaching."

"What?"

"You heard me. You're reaching for excuses. You know good and well that you never should have broken up with him. But you can't admit it because then you'd be admitting you were wrong."

"I was not wrong! Ron was pushing too hard too fast. What did he expect me to do with that kind of info? And that, by the way, was before my best friend told me vampires and witches actually exist, too. By the time you dropped your little bombshell on me, I'd had months to get used to the crazy crap that's out there."

I would not get offended by that. She was panicking at the truth right before her face, and she was lashing out like a cornered animal.

But it was time for her to wake up and see reality, whether she thought she was ready for it or not. Losing Nanna and Tristan had taught me life could be incredibly short and love could end at the drop of a hat. She needed to figure that out, too.

"You're scared."

"Excuse me?"

"You're running scared. You realized you love Ron. You could have handled a one-sided love, but then he showed just how much he loved you back by telling you all this. So you ran away."

"I'm not scared," she hissed. At the next intersection, she ignored the yellow light and plowed through without slowing down. "I go hog hunting all the time. Some of those boars are six hundred pounds! Scared little girls don't go hunting animals five times their size."

"So what? Maybe you're not scared to go hunting. But you're definitely scared of love. And do not run that red light."

She screeched on the brakes, the front tires stopping inches from entering the crosswalk area.

"That's ridiculous! I love my parents, my aunts and uncles, even my pain in the butt cousins-"

"Not the same thing and you know it."

Silence filled the cab as we waited for the light to change. When it did, she turned left without using a blinker, and I sent up a prayer of thanks that there wasn't any oncoming traffic.

She stomped on the gas as we passed the Tomato Bowl, and we hit the railroad tracks fast enough to get an inch or two of air between our butts and the seat before the curve in my street forced her to slow down. The tires squealed as she slammed on the brakes at the curb before my house, rocking both of us forward then back. I sighed in relief as she shoved the gearshift into Park then killed the engine.

The silence grew, the ticking of the cooling engine the only sound inside the cab. I could have gotten out, let her run away from the conversation. But I refused. Not this time. She needed to see what she was doing to herself and Ron.

"You know, I'm not the only one who's scared around here," she muttered. "What about you and Tristan?"

"What about him?"

"You come up with all these reasons why the two of you can't be together. But let's face it. If you really wanted to still be with him, you'd make it happen and to heck with the consequences. Just like when you first decided to start dating him."

"That was a dumb decision I made last year. I had no idea my grandma would pay for it. Once the consequences of what we were doing became clear..."

"That's a load of crap and you know it. You decided to break up with him hours before your grandma died. Remember? You said you promised the vamp council that you would break things off with him back in France."

"Because I found out my kisses were killing him!" Okay, now she was going too far. I tried to twist sideways to face her head on. The seat belt bit into me. Growling, I wrestled with the buckle till it finally snapped free. "So, what, I should just not even care if I accidentally kill him? To heck with risking his life, as long as I'm happy?"

She hesitated, and I heard her think, Well, no, but... "You could find a way. What about turning him?"

She sounded like Tristan. This was an old argument I shouldn't have to rehash with my so-called best friend. "I can't. For one thing, I'm not even a full vamp. And even if my vamp genes were strong enough to take hold, he'd still die from the process. Every descendant who's ever tried to turn died."

She looked away. "Sounds like a cop-out to me."

"No, what it sounds like to me is that right here, right now, you're still running away! Why face the harsh reality of your own mistakes when you can try to turn the tables and make your best friend feel bad about what she can't have instead?" I grabbed my door handle, gave it a jerk, thrust open the door and slid out. "If I could be with Tristan without risking his life, you'd better believe I'd do it. But there isn't a way. I can't turn off what I am. You, on the other hand, are miserable simply because you're acting like a spineless idiot!"

Her jaw dropped. "I am not a spineless idiot!"

"That's right. You're not. Which is why I said you're acting like one. And now that you know it, and I know it, and Ron sure as heck knows it, would you please do us all a huge favor and pull your head out of your butt already? Call him. Tell him you made a mistake and you're sorry. I swear to you, if he doesn't take you back and forgive you immediately, I'll...I'll..." I was so mad I couldn't even think of a good promise to offer. "I'll go hog hunting with you!" There!

I slammed the door, rocking the truck but thankfully not denting the metal, then gave in to the urge and did a vamp blur across the lawn up to the porch. Inside, it was all I could do not to slam the front door too and break its custom stained-glass design.

Outside, Anne started her truck, cranked up the radio to blaring, and took off with a roar of the engine.

"Have an educational outing in the woods with the Abernathy boy?" Dad greeted me from where he was reading the newspaper on the living room couch.

"Oh yeah," I snapped. "Very illuminating."

Stupid humans! Anne had a chance at love, maybe even true love, that I would never have again, and she was throwing it away! She had no idea what I would give to have Tristan back in my life.

"I'm going to bed," I said before blurring up the stairs and down the hall to my room.

By my bed, I flipped on my MP3 player's docking station, kicked off my shoes, then put on Kelly Clarkson's "What Doesn't Kill You." I listened to the words for a minute, my feet tapping the hardwood floor to the beat. Then my head started bobbing along. The next thing I knew, my body was whirling and punching and jabbing to the rhythm, and it felt good. Good enough to stop me from calling Anne and giving her another piece of my mind.

A minute later, something wet slid down the side of my nose. It wasn't a tear. Vampires didn't cry. Keeping my eyes closed, I brushed it away with the back of my hand.

But then another rolled down my cheek, and another, and suddenly my lungs and throat were burning like they used to when I was still fully human and tried to run for more than thirty seconds.

Even singing a song about feeling stronger felt like lying to myself.

I slumped onto the edge of my bed and held my head in my hands. I had been such an idiot, trying to fix my best friend's love life. How could I have possibly ever thought I could fix someone else's problems when I couldn't even fix myself?

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