A terrible roar of agony resounds throughout the room, and the corridor beyond, as well, I'm sure, because only a few seconds after the bullet rips through the shoulder of the man on the ground, a second one – his partner, I presume – comes rushing in, attracted by the sudden commotion.

"What the hell is going on?" He looks between his comrade on the floor, bleeding copiously from the wound on his shoulder, and Thalia and I.

"I shot him." She says simply.

"Why?"

"Why not?" She raises the gun again, this time at the man still standing, and blows a hole through his kneecap. He falls to the floor, howling. Shocked at this sudden plot development though I am, I'm not ashamed to admit that I don't feel sorry for them, not in the slightest. I like to think of myself as compassionate towards human kind, unlike the vast majority of my own kind, but for these men, I feel no sympathy whatsoever. These people were involved in the plan to bring Thalia and I here, to kill us and her brother, and countless others, there's no doubt. Their plan set in motion the sequence of events that turned Thalia into someone that I don't recognise. I'd kill them myself, but their wounds look painful, and I want them to suffer.

Thalia tucks the gun beneath the waistband of her jeans and covers it with her shirt. "Come on," she mutters, gesturing for me to follow her.

"I didn't know you could shoot." I say as soon as we're out of the room and back into the corridor.

"You don't know my dad." She replies shortly.

We go through the next door we arrive at, and this time, thank god, it doesn't lead to another windowless room or another corridor, but outside. It seems to be some small, emergency exit door. It's still dark, but near enough to sunrise that I'm starting to worry. Thalia, who seems to have taken charge, leads the way, following the side of the building until we reach a small parking lot. She takes a small set of keys out of her pocket, selects one and presses a small button. A black SUV on the far corner beeps and the headlights flash.

"That's our ride."

"Where did you get those?"

"I took them when I took his gun. What's the use in getting out of the building if we don't have a getaway?"

She climbs in the driver's side and I take the passenger seat. It's a nice car, there's no denying that. I suppose kidnapping and murdering vampires pays well. Extremely well.

"You don't happen to know where we are, do you?" Thalia asks as she thrusts the car into Drive.

"Well, I'm hoping we're still in Dallas."

We fall into silence for a while. Thalia swings the car out of the parking lot and I think that she's concentrating on getting us out of the immediate vicinity when she bursts out, "Why do people keep doing this? What have we done that's so wrong that they keep trying to kill us? Why can't they just leave us alone?"

"You know why." I reply. I turn to look at her with a sad smile. "At the risk of sounding ridiculously cliché, it's not you, it's me." The truth is that no matter what we do, there's always going to be someone to oppose it, someone to break us apart or to hurt one, or both, of us. It's not just the Fellowship of the Sun or Thalia's step-mother, Sarah. There are so many others out there who will stop at nothing to rid the world of vampires, and who can blame them? My kind insists on tearing its way through humanity, taking lives for sport, for pleasure, out of boredom, our of revenge. The list never ends. I had hoped at one point for some sort of co-existence, but I see now that the notion is a lost cause. I may have evolved into a lesser version of my former monster, but the same cannot be said for others. Tru Blood will sustain us, but it doesn't give us the satisfaction of a kill. It's in our very nature, hard-wired into our DNA.

"It's not fair."

"I know." It's not fair on her, to put her through this kind of turmoil. She's eighteen years old, barely an adult. She deserves to grow up, to graduate and get a job, to start a family, without worrying about dying every time she wakes up. She deserves to be with someone who can grow up with her, who can give her a family. She deserves to be with someone who can come out in the daytime, who doesn't have a target on their head. She deserves to be with someone human.

"About what I said before," she says quietly, "I didn't mean it…"

"I know."

"I'm so-"

"Don't apologise."

"Why?"

"Because everything you said was true."


The roads are quiet, what with it being the early hours of the morning and all. We're still in Dallas, fortunately. It seems like we've been in the car for hours, but twenty minutes seems more plausible. If it weren't for the tense silence that's fallen between us, I'm sure that this journey would not be anywhere near as unenjoyable.

"Did you see him die?" Thalia asks me suddenly. I expected this question earlier, if I'm honest, but I knew I'd have to answer it at some point.

"Yes. There was nothing I could do. I wanted to save him, I really did…"

"No, I know. I'm not blaming you again. I just," she pauses, biting down on her bottom lip, "was he in pain?"

"It was quick." I offer. I know that I'm supposed to say that, no, he wasn't in pain. He died quietly. He died at peace having fulfilled his purpose on earth, but it wasn't like that. Of course he was in pain. He was trying to save his sister, and even after he'd been shot, he struggled against them, trying to get to her, to take her away from the people that were trying to hurt her. His last word had been her name, fallen from his lips in his last breath. There was nothing I could do, I was powerless. It's something that will haunt me from this day forwards.

"Quick." She repeats thoughtfully. "That's something, I guess."

We make it back to Thalia's house. I suggested that we go to mine, but she insists on going back to hers.

"I need to find my dad." She says, and I can't argue with that. Her younger siblings will have been on their own, not that they will have known it, but still, so there's that as well.

"What will you tell him?"

"Everything."

"Will you tell him about me?" My presence in her life has been kept the utmost secret from her father. From what I'd heard about her family, if anyone was going to try and kidnap and murder me, it would have been him.

"I think it's about time, don't you?"

She parks the stolen SUV outside her house and we get out. She pulls the gun from the waistband of her jeans and tosses it onto the driver's seat before locking the car. "I can't imagine taking a gun into a house with three small children is a smart move."

The sound of an engine reaches my ears, just as a pair of headlights swing around the corner at the bottom of the street.

"This better be my dad." Thalia mutters as she walks up the driveway. "I don't have my keys."

"Thalia…" I can see the figure sat behind the wheel. Who should be slowing down at this point, but only seems to be accelerating.

"Where even is he? Who even goes out at this time?"

I'm not fast enough, though Lord knows I should be. Perhaps it's the shock, or the disbelief, because right up until the moment it happens, I'm almost positive that it won't. There aren't many people who would drive themselves into the front of a house, a house that their own children are sleeping in, just to run down an eighteen year old girl, but Sarah does. I should have grabbed the car and thrown back down the street. I should have grabbed Thalia and thrown her down the street, out of harm's way, but I don't. It's almost like I can't. I'm glued to the spot. I shout at her to move out of the way, and, almost as if it's in slow motion, I see the look on her face as she realises what's happening. I see the resignation in her whole being as she realises that there's no way out. Her face is lit up in the headlights, pale and terrified, as the hood of the car hits her and then ploughs her through the front of the house.