Panic welled up in Jenny's chest as she felt Damian's teeth break the skin.

This is going to hurt, the panic whispered in her head. Suddenly unable to breathe, she grabbed Damian's shoulders to push him away.

Jenny. His voice, inside her mind. She froze, the panic still clawing inside her, trying to break through. Don't fight it, Jenny. Damian's voice was low and calm, brushing a stillness through her mind with soft fingers. It only hurts when you fight it.

She relaxed. Damian wouldn't hurt her on purpose, not right now. She could feel that. The panic pulled back inside her, like the tide of the ocean.

All that was left was a warmth, radiating out from Damian's lips on her neck. A closeness, like she and Damian were one person. Even when he had kissed her, it hadn't been like this. She was floating in a splash of rainbow colors, reds and greens and purples. Damian was a pale blue glimmer in her head, pulsating with the life she was giving him.

I had no idea, she thought to Damian. I didn't know it was like this.

She sensed Damian smiling. It's usually not like this.

Jenny felt as if she were spinning, her arms out to the side, like she used to when she was little. The colors whipped around her. She couldn't help but smile. It was amazing. She felt like she could stay like this forever.

Have you felt it like this before? Jenny asked.

A pause. The blue of Damian's mind darkened. Jenny suddenly sensed another feeling, blackening the brightness of the colors. Yes.

Jenny reached out with her mind. She felt Damian pull back. Damian? She felt suddenly desperate for him. What's wrong?

A rush of cold air blew through the warmth she felt. She reached for Damian again, this time catching something before he backed away. An image. A girl, with chestnut hair and liquid brown eyes. She sat on a bench, smiling.

She heard a cry of pain, and the image shattered.

Damian! she cried, and suddenly she was back in her body again. She blinked, confused. They stood in the living room, Damian still with his arms around her. He had withdrawn from her neck. He looked away, refusing to meet her eyes. Jenny was glad to see he had lost the pasty pale on his skin.

"Damian? What happened?" she asked.

He suddenly turned to her, looking her in the eye. Jenny was struck by pain swimming in the depths of the icy blueness of his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice sounding strained. "I need to go now."

He turned and walked to the door.

"What?" Jenny exclaimed. "Go where? Damian, talk to me!"

The door slammed, and she was alone.

***********

When Damian returned a few hours later, the pain in his eyes was gone. In fact, he was almost cheerful. He tossed Jenny a bag.

"Put it on," he said, heading down the hallway without stopping. "We're going."

"What?" Jenny looked in the bag and saw a bundle of sheer black fabric. She sat down on the couch, still feeling a little lightheaded from earlier. She had spent the few hours since Damian left sitting on the couch, trying catch the breath inside her mind. Impulsively, she touched her neck again, feeling two small bumps that were already beginning to fade. I feel so strange, she thought. She had never felt quite like she did after Damian left. It was almost like she was a completely different person; she felt outside her skin. The feeling had faded as the afternoon drew toward dusk, though.

She found herself thinking about the girl she had seen when she had been … donating. Who was she? And why did it bother her so much? So Damian had a dark little secret, just like everybody else. She had suspected that since the beginning.

She shook her head. It didn't matter. If he wanted to tell her, fine. If he didn't, that was fine too.

Suddenly remembering the bag in her lap, she reached in and pulled out the fabric. Her jaw dropped and she stared, horrified at what she held in her hand.

Damian came walking out of the hallway, having changed into a pair of black biker's boots, tight black jeans, and a black leather vest with nothing underneath it except his well-muscled and extremely defined chest and abdomen. Despite the almost pink glow still in his cheeks from the blood he'd taken from her, his skin looked extremely pale against all the black he wore and the darkness of his hair. Except it wasn't the sickly paleness of earlier; his skin looked alive and almost milky. His eyes were the only spot of color on him. He smirked at her.

"What the hell is this?" Jenny asked.

He smiled. "It's a dress. For you to wear when we go visit my friends tonight."

Jenny stood up, clenching the dress into a ball of thin fabric in her hand. She waved it at him angrily as she talked. "Oh, no, no, no. I do not wear dresses. Ever. Especially not this … this … whatever it is!"

Damian raised an eyebrow. "Well, aren't we touchy? Jenny …"

She interrupted him. "I refuse to wear anything like this. And what makes you think I would anyway? And why would you want me to? Why can't I wear my normal clothes? I can't fight in a … piece of body nylon like this!"

In a blur of motion, Damian stood in front of her and gently covered her mouth with his hand. "Shh, Jenny," he said softly. "Be quiet and listen to me."

He took his hand away and she stood staring at him indignantly.

"You have to wear it," he said, holding up his hand for silence when she opened her mouth to object. "Let me explain why. Where we're going, they're not your friends. In fact, they would love to chop you up and have you for dinner if they knew what you were. By wearing this dress, you blend in more, because that's what they'll be wearing."

"That doesn't mean that I …" She couldn't help it. She had to try again.

"Jenny!" he interrupted her again, this time with a hint of annoyance in his eyes. He held her gaze with his eyes. "You can't pretend to be one of them. They'll know it just by looking at you. So you have to pretend to be an ignorant human, my toy. That, they'll believe, because they all have their own. And that means you have to listen to me and do what I tell you. Do you understand?"

Jenny nodded, pursing her lips. She got it. That didn't mean she had to like it though.

"If they get even a hint that you're one of the Executioners," he continued, "I swear to God, they'll make you wish you were dead."

"Alright, I get the picture!" she exclaimed. "Jeez…" She impulsively smacked him with the dress as she walked by him to the room. She would not let him get away with this guilt-free; he would be hearing about it all night.

Sighing, she pulled on the dress, if you could call it that.

"I can't believe this," she grumbled to herself. "I can't believe I'm actually going to wear this."

She glanced in the mirror and felt herself growing red just at the thought of going out in public wearing it. It wasn't a dress; it was a couple pieces of fabric connected with sheer black nylon. The top was a bit like a tube top, with her stomach bare except for the sheer black fabric. The skirt part, connected to the sheer fabric, was also like a tube top, only a little bigger. It barely went halfway down her hips. She had never in her life even considered wearing something like this.

"Oh my God," she said, looking at herself in the mirror. She looked like someone who worked on street corners. Then another thought struck her. "Where am I going to keep my knife?" she gasped. She didn't care what Damian said – she was not going into a Night World lair without some kind of weapon. But there was nowhere to hide one under that skimpy dress.

"Great."

Someone pounded on the door, making her jump. "Hey, are you okay in there?" Damian, that sneaky little rat, she thought angrily at the door.

"No, I'm not!" she yelled through the door. "This isn't a dress! I might as well just go naked!"

A pause. "Well, if you'd rather …"

Despite herself, she felt herself blushing. "Go away and leave me alone!" she shouted at him.

He didn't say anything, but she heard him whistling down the hallway.

She looked in the bag again and realized there was more. A pair of fishnet stockings. Leather boots that would reach almost to her knees – and had three-inch heels on them.

"Great," she muttered again. "I'll probably break my ankle just trying to walk in those things." Then she realized she'd found the answer to her problems. The boots – she could hide at least one knife in them.

Feeling a little better about the situation, she pulled on the fishnets.

I wonder what Michael would think of this outfit, she thought, then immediately blushed at herself. He'd think you're as bad as Raina, that's what he'd think.

Michael. What would she do if those vampires killed him? How could she live? She couldn't. It was that simple. Thinking of Michael, she felt the usual deep longing pain in her chest. The kind of pain that only comes with the thought of someone a person would die for, but would probably never get. She sat on the toilet seat in her skimpy dress and fishnet stockings and thought of Michael, the only person she'd ever truly loved since her parents died.

She suddenly remembered the first time she saw him. She had been sitting on a bench outside of school, waiting for the bus. She'd been 12, just beginning her training as a vampire hunter. She had sat on the bench while throngs of kids pushed by her, yelling and screaming.

A group of boys had walked past her, older boys in the grade ahead of her. When they saw her, they had stopped to tease her. Jenny the outcast, Jenny the freak. They didn't like her because she always sat by herself and had the tendency to glare at people. That was just how she had been at that age.

Jenny knew this, but didn't care. Ever since Daniel had taken her under his wing and began teaching her how to defend herself and how to pay back the monsters that slaughtered her family, that was all she could think about. She didn't care about the other kids, only about revenge.

Pretty serious stuff for a 12-year-old. Although she hadn't known it at the time, her training and knowledge of the Night World had made Jenny grow up fast. Maybe it was the sense of this pre-adulthood sophistication that made the other kids turn on her.

Either way, Jenny just wanted to be left alone. And when those boys came along and began teasing her and calling her names, Jenny felt the longing to get up and beat them both down. But she knew she wasn't ready for that.

Instead, she sat on the bench, staring sullenly at the boys, not saying a word.

That was when Michael came into her life. He had been at her school for a few years, but she hadn't really paid attention to him before. Michael, with his dark curly hair and little boy's smile, had come to her rescue. With three words, he had won her heart.

"Leave her alone!" he yelled at the boys. And since the boys, although older, were smaller than Michael, and really just bullies on the outside – bullies on the outside usually equaled cowards on the inside – they turned and walked away, leaving a trail of threats and name-calling behind them.

"Are you okay?" Michael had asked her, looking at her with concern. Even at that age, Michael was the type of person who felt concern for everything.

Jenny had met his eyes then, held them for a second, and from that moment she had known that if there was one person anywhere in the world for her, he was standing right in front of her.

"Thank you," she had whispered, nodding.

He had grinned, that cute boyish grin that he still showed traces of today. "No problem," he said, and like that he was gone, strolling off down the sidewalk like he didn't have a care in the world.

That was the first time Jenny felt The Ache, the same feeling she got whenever she thought about Michael.

She didn't talk to him again until The Executioners formed. They had become close since then, as all of the gang had – even Raina, although a bit spitefully. But Michael was like a song on the breeze, beautiful and perfect … and impossible to touch.

Feeling suddenly melancholy, Jenny heaved a deep sigh.

Look at you, the little voice in her head nagged. You're sitting on a toilet seat in the apartment of a vampire, wearing clothes that would embarrass any nice girl. Some vampire hunter. Michael would be better off with someone like Raina.

She pushed the thought away, suddenly angry with herself for letting men – vampire or human – distract her from her entire purpose in living. She would avenge the death of her family, and she would get her friends back. No one could keep her from that – especially not some bloodsucking egomaniac with eyes of pure ice.

She fiercely zipped up the boots, with her knife hidden snugly inside of one, and marched herself out of the bathroom to face Damian.