Lucas shook his head. “What I do isn’t the same thing.”

“Really? Let’s see what your weapons are good for.” Charity gave Lucas’s broad knife a twirl, then brought it down with unbelievable force across Courtney’s neck, beheading her.

Beheading kills a vampire forever.

Courtney’s body stiffened. Her skin instantly turned gray and dried, shriveling around her bones as her flesh withered. Her detached head lolled from side to side. The corner of Courtney’s face that I could see wasn’t a face anymore, just something papery and earth-colored stretched over a skull. When vampires die, their bodies decay to the point they would’ve reached since that first death. The oldest ones turn to dust. Courtney had been dead only twenty-five years, so there was still a lot left of her. Too much.

I gasped. Balthazar turned his head away. Charity smiled up at Lucas. “That’s one taken care of for you, hunter. Now your secret is safe, Balthazar. Never say I don’t love you.”

Immediately she turned from us and ran, vanishing almost instantly into the underbrush. Balthazar took two halting steps after her before he stopped.

Charity killed Courtney. Charity killed. I watched her do it. I’d thought she was so helpless, so frightened, so weak—could I have been completely wrong? I remembered Lucas’s distrust of Charity, and my insistence upon protecting her, and shame welled up in me as strongly as horror. How much of this was my fault?

For a few moments, none of us could speak. Finally, I said, “What are we going to do?”

“What?” Balthazar was still staring in the direction Charity had disappeared.

“About the body, she means.” Lucas grimaced as he took a closer look. “The neighbors come out in the morning and find this, they’re gonna freak out. Run tests. The fact that it’s a twenty-five-year-old corpse will only make them ask more questions.” Could they match Courtney’s DNA? Her dental records? I felt a wave of pure horror at the thought of that nice family down the block learning that Courtney’s body had been found, decayed and dumped on their own street during a birthday party. That was about the worst thing I could imagine.

“We have to get her out of here,” I said. “We should bury her somewhere.”

“Digging in frozen ground is tough,” Lucas said. “Better to burn her.”

He didn’t say it meanly—just, like, that was reality. But Lucas didn’t have a vampire’s horror of fire, and he couldn’t know how gruesome it sounded to me, burning someone instead of burying them properly.

Maybe it was my disgust at the idea of cremation. Maybe it was my own confused feelings about watching Courtney die—I’d never liked her, but I’d never have wished for her to be murdered. Maybe it was the tension of nearly having our cover blown, then having it saved in the worst possible way. Maybe it was watching Balthazar look so lost. Maybe it was anger at myself for my foolish belief in Charity’s goodness.

Maybe it was months of separation finally taking their toll.

Whatever it was about that moment, it made something inside me snap.

“Burn her up. Burn her up.” I wheeled toward Lucas, so angry that I shook. “You don’t even think of her as a person, do you? Because vampires aren’t people! Not to you!”

“Whoa, whoa—that’s not what I said.” Lucas held up his hands. “It’s only cremation, Bianca.”

“It’s not only cremation, not to you. You think vampires aren’t like other people, and so you think it’s fine to treat them however you want.

You could’ve killed Courtney yourself. You could’ve killed Balthazar. If we hadn’t met at Evernight, you might even have killed me someday.

You wouldn’t have thought twice about it, would you?” Lucas couldn’t stand being yelled at like that. I could see the last remnants of his self-control incinerate as his temper took over. “Well, you think vampires never, ever hurt anybody, even though every single one of you is hardwired to drink blood and to kill! Even after Erich!

Even after this! What the hell is that about, Bianca? I’ve tried to make you see the truth, but you won’t see anything you don’t want to see.” Quietly, from beside us, Balthazar said, “I’m going to go get the car, bring it around.” We ignored him.

“You’re still in Black Cross,” I said, shaking with rage. “Still, more than a year after you found out that I’m a vampire, too. You talked about leaving, but that’s all it is, isn’t it? Just talk! Am I the only one who has to change? The one who has to give everything up?”

“What have you given up, Bianca? You haven’t left Evernight. You haven’t stopped planning on becoming a vampire. You get to be your parents’ perfect daughter and Balthazar’s perfect girlfriend and keep me on the side where it’s convenient for you.”

“Convenient? You think anything about this is convenient?”

“You looked pretty comfortable with the situation earlier tonight.” He was referring to my walking beside Balthazar. Something as simple as a stroll had turned into ammunition to be used against me. Tears had begun to sting my eyes. “I should have known. You never stopped hating vampires. That made it inevitable that someday—someday you’d hate me.”

Lucas looked like he’d been punched in the gut. “Bianca—God, please, you know I don’t hate you.”

“Maybe you don’t now, but you will.” My throat tightened so much that it hurt to talk. “I don’t know why I ever thought this would work.”