Oliver.

What he saw, chilled him to the bones: Oliver was impaled on the shovel of the dipper, one of its jagged teeth sticking out through his stomach. Blood gushed from him. His body hung there, suspended like a limp rag doll.

Quinn scrambled forward, lunging through the remnants of the windshield, ignoring the crumbled pieces of glass.

This was all his fault. He’d distracted Oliver while he was driving. He should be the one impaled on those spikes now, not Oliver, not the innocent boy who had an entire lifetime ahead of him.

Within seconds, he reached his friend.

“Oh, God, Oliver.”

Why did he have to die so violently? Why so young? He hadn’t even begun to live yet. Out of its own volition, Quinn’s hand touched the boy’s cheek, where dirt and blood had mixed. His skin was still warm.

“I’m so sorry. I would do anything to make this undone.”

He would have gladly given his own life for Oliver’s. He’d lived three normal lifetimes, and he was tired of it. Recalling Rose in the moments before the beam had hit the car, had brought it all home for him: he couldn’t continue like this, whoring his way through life in the hope he would one day forget her. He knew he never would. He’d always known that his heart belonged to her, that she’d taken it to the grave with her. She would never release him, just as he could never release her.

He should have died tonight. Maybe then he would have finally found peace. He would see her again—if there was such a thing as heaven. Maybe he would get one more glimpse at her, see her, touch her, love her one last time.

“God, why? Why are you so cruel?” he screamed, lifting his head toward the night sky. Stars glittered in the dark, unaware of his turmoil. Mocking him in his despair. No help would come from that direction.

Resigned, he wrapped his arms around Oliver and held him, cheeks touching, wanting to give comfort even though the life had already left his body. All of a sudden, he felt a pounding, beats of two different rhythms dueling. Startled, he pulled away, his hand instantly sliding to Oliver’s neck, pressing against it.

There! A movement against his fingers. Was he dreaming? Imagining it? A beat. Then another one. Faint and growing more irregular, it was barely recognizable, but it was still there: a heartbeat.

Oliver was still alive.

There was no time to lose.

As gently yet as quickly as he could, Quinn drew Oliver forward and pulled him off the spike, bringing him down on the ground where he kept him in his lap.

“If there was another way, I wouldn’t do this,” he said to his unconscious friend. “But there’s no time left.”

The kid had only seconds to live. His pain would soon be gone. He would surrender this life, but in its stead, he would be issued a new one—a less vulnerable one.

Quinn brought his own wrist to his mouth and extended his fangs, piercing his skin so the blood dripped from it. Touching Oliver’s neck again, he listened for the heartbeat growing fainter, anxiously waiting for the short window during which a human’s body would be susceptible to a change, when it could accept what Quinn offered. When the time between the beats stretched longer and longer, he brought his bleeding wrist to Oliver’s lips.

The first drops of blood entered his mouth. Quinn pumped his fist, causing more blood to drip from his wound and into his dying friend’s throat. When he saw the boy swallow for the first time, he expelled a sigh of relief.

“More,” he commanded.

Relieved that the unconscious Oliver obeyed, Quinn brushed a wayward strand of dark hair away from his face. Glass splinters had left him with cuts to his young face, but they would heal quickly. Once the transformation was complete, Oliver would bear no sign of the accident—if he survived the turning. A fair percentage of humans didn’t. He could only hope that Oliver’s body didn’t reject the change.

Still feeding him his blood, Quinn looked up at the night sky, searching it, yet finding nothing.

“Are you happy now? Are you?” he yelled out his frustration. But God didn’t offer an answer.

Quinn had never turned a soul, never considered it. He didn’t want this responsibility, didn’t want to be the one who changed another’s life for eternity. This had been thrust upon him. But now he was stuck with it, with his decision and the newfound responsibility it brought with it.

He would be a sire now. A maker. Something he never wanted to be. Would he fail in his duties the way his own sire had failed him? Would he desert his prodigy just as his sire had deserted him soon after he’d been turned? Just when he had needed him most, when he had been in the depth of despair, his sire Wallace had disappeared, simply left him never to come back. Quinn had searched for him, but never found a trace. He’d felt alone and abandoned. And heartbroken.