“I call it Ode to Anarchy. See how the colors are in a constant state of collision?”

“Yeah, you can’t miss that.”

My halfhearted praise didn’t put a dent in Raquel’s enthusiasm. Paint striped her forearms, and she’d even gotten some orange in her hair, but she just kept grinning down at her work in progress while munching on a cookie. “You can walk around it, right?”

“Yeah, but I think tonight it might be better if I crashed with my parents.”

“Will they let you do that?”

“Not all the time, but I don’t think anybody will care about one night.”

My parents turned out to be excited to see me. They’d once been very careful about the amount of time they’d let me hang out with them, worried as they had been by my refusal to get to know the other vampires at Evernight Academy. Now they were confident that I was grow-205

ing up the way they wanted—and their door was open to me whenever I liked.

That had seemed natural to me before, but no longer.

“Dad?” I asked, as we changed the sheets on the bed in my upstairs room. “Did you always know I’d eventually be a vampire? A full vampire, I mean.”

“Of course.” He kept his eyes on his work, in this case a neat hospital corner. “Once you grow up and take a life—and you know we can find a decent way to handle that—then you’ll complete the change.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Honey, it’s going to be okay.” He put one hand on my shoulder, and even his crooked, oft-broken nose couldn’t disguise the gentleness in his expression. “You’re worried about it, I know. But if we find someone who’s already dying, not even conscious anymore—you’d be doing them a favor. Their last act will be giving you immortality. Don’t you think they’d want to do that for you?”

“I won’t know, because I won’t know them at all, will I?” How had I ever found that idea comforting? For the first time, it struck me how pre-sumptuous it was, and how callous it was to assume that I had the right to end a life, even one at its conclusion, for my own convenience. “But that’s not what I mean. You keep saying, when I kill. When I kill. What happens if I don’t?”

“You will.”

“But what happens if I don’t?” I’d never pressed for this answer before; I’d never felt like I had to. Now all those unasked questions were weighing down on me at once and getting heavier all the time. “I just want to know what the alternative is. Isn’t there somebody who would know? Mrs. Bethany, maybe?”

“Mrs. Bethany will tell you exactly what I’m about to tell you, which is that there’s really only one choice for you to make. I don’t want to hear you talking like this again. And don’t say anything to your mother—you’d upset her.” Dad took a deep breath, obviously trying to calm himself. “Besides, Bianca, how long can it be? You were eager enough for human blood last year.”

That was as close as my father had come to mentioning Lucas in months. I felt my cheeks flush red.

“I’m not naive. I realize you and Balthazar must have drunk each other’s blood by now.” He said it sort of quickly; maybe he was as embarrassed as I was. “You have to be close to being ready to drink and kill for real. I know you’re getting hungrier just from your appetite on Sundays. If you’re anxious about it, I don’t blame you. Just don’t let your anxiety drive you to this kind of crazy talk. Have I made myself clear?” I couldn’t speak, so I just nodded.

Not long afterward, I turned out my lights and tried to talk myself in-to going to bed. But not only was I confused by my conversation with my father, I was also starving.

The power of suggestion at work, I thought. Dad had mentioned my appetite, and now I was hungrier than I’d been in a very long time—this, despite the fact that I’d drunk a full pint at dinner.

Well, at least I didn’t have to sneak a thermos from under the bed.

My parents’ refrigerator held all the blood I needed.

I tiptoed down the hallway, past my sleeping parents, into the kitchen. My bare feet padded softly against the tile floor. Instead of turning on the lamp, I relied on my night vision and the sliver of illumination that widened as I opened the fridge door. Although some real food for me was on the lowest shelf, mostly the fridge was laden with bottles and jugs and bags of blood. Carefully I took one of the bags in my hand; I usually didn’t drink these, because they were hard to get—treats that my parents needed more than I did. They contained human blood.

Maybe my father was right. Maybe my craving for blood had become so acute because I hadn’t had any human blood for so long. Maybe that was what I needed now. If Dad tried to yell at me for taking his stash, I’d point out that he’d kind of suggested it.

I squeezed a bag into a large mug, then nuked that in the microwave.

Though the timer chimed loudly enough to make me flinch, my parents didn’t awaken, and I hurried back into my room.

The heated mug made my fingers sting, but the rich, meaty scent of the blood overwhelmed my discomfort, my worries, and pretty much everything else. Quickly I lifted the mug to my lips and drank.

Yes. That was it—what I’d needed, bone deep. The heat swirled down into the center of me, warming me from within. Human blood did something to me animal blood never did—it made me feel exhilarated, connected, and strong. I clutched the mug with both hands, gulping the blood down so quickly I could hardly breathe. I felt as though I were swimming in the warmth of it. The rest of the world was cold by comparison—