I know it's been forever since my last update, and I'm sorry about leaving such a terrible cliffhanger and not updating for long, but I've just been so BUSY. Right now, I'm neglecting my studying and homework to do this, so be happy. If I was being responsible, I'd wait till tomorrow to post this. Anyway, I don't think I can tell you guys how amazingly WONDERFUL you all are. Your reviews are just so nice. I was just reading through them today, and I felt so bad about taking so long to update. This was, of course, what prompted me to be irresponsible and finish this chapter instead of doing my homework. So THANK YOU soo much for taking the time to review. I really appreciate it. Now you can all head on to the chapter. I hope you guys like it. :D

I jumped three feet away from Anthony, people stared at me. My heart was thumping painfully in my chest. Ethan only needed a few seconds to collect himself. After those few seconds, his expression became murderous.

We'd been stupid of course. Very, very extremely, without a doubt, stupid, a month without problems had made us careless. I had known Ethan would be coming here, but did I consider that when I rushed like an overexcited teenager? No, of course not. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that I am an overexcited teenager, but as a hunter, I'm not supposed to act like one.

I was hyperaware of the very crowded mall. I imagined that it would be somewhat regrettable for the supernatural world if Ethan decided to start a vampire hunter versus vampire fight.

Anthony was moving away from me slowly, obviously trying figure out what his best move should be. He glanced at me a few times trying to see what I wanted.

"Ethan," I said softly, slowly walking toward him.

He didn't move. He didn't appear to have heard me; he kept his eyes locked on Anthony. He was probably weighing the pros and cons of attacking Anthony in his head.

"Ethan," I repeated trying to be gentle. "There are people here. Let's go." I indicated toward the security guard who'd obviously noticed the look on Ethan's face.

I pushed at his chest a little bit to get him moving. I mouthed "I'll call you" to Anthony and led Ethan away. Still standing in the same spot from when I'd first seen Anthony was Juana with an expression of shameless, uncontained glee. I wanted to slap her.

I was surprised that Ethan let me take him away from Anthony, and even more surprised that he didn't complain as I did it. I took him to the exit toward the back parking lot, looked around the deserted place, and teleported away.

I took him to my house which was thankfully, but not surprisingly empty. And that was when the rage was unleashed.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" he hissed.

It took a lot to look him in the eye. No matter what, Ethan was never, ever angry with me. It threw me off. The several excuses that I'd been contemplating left my head, leaving me feeling defenseless.

"I don't want to know how long you've been lying to me," he continued, "but don't lie to me now. Don't say you were hypnotized or that he kissed you and he was too strong for you to pull away or any crap like that because I saw you kiss him back."

Damn, those were good excuses, not that I could use them now. He was looking at me sourly obviously waiting for my brilliant explanation.

When I didn't say anything he continued his tirade. "Are you stupid? Or do you have a death wish? He could kill you. Did you think about that? But you probably don't care about that; did you think that he could kill the rest of us? Or do you not care about us either?"

"What?" I finally found my voice. "I'm not stupid or and it's not that I don't care," I said bitterly. Yes, it's not right for me to be angry. And I knew it wasn't helping my cause, but I was the youngest of my family, the screw up, I did and said things that I regretted every single day.

"Then why the hell were you making out with a vampire?" Ethan roared, raising his voice for the first time.

I flinched back, reevaluating the consequences of my temper. "Ethan, I wouldn't do anything to hurt anybody, not on purpose."

He looked at me and I saw how obviously I had hurt him. "You like him?" he asked with a desperate hope in his eye for me to say no.

I nodded slowly. "Yeah, I do."

He sucked in some air. "He's a killer. He's evil," Ethan broached this topic more calmly, clearly hoping to appeal to my sense of reason. "Haven't you ever thought about how many people he's killed?"

"Zero," I said instantly. "He's never killed anyone in his life."

"Oh, is that what he told you?" Ethan asked with a bitterly skeptical look.

"He uses animal blood, and when he takes it from humans, he doesn't kill them, he's good," I maintained.

"You have no way of knowing that he's telling the truth," he threw back at me.

"He's been here for over a month now, and he hasn't done anything," I said.

"He probably goes somewhere else to hunt then, somewhere not close enough for us to track him," Ethan said firmly refusing to take what I was saying into consideration.

"That doesn't make any sense!" I was starting to lose my temper. "Why would he come here to live if he had to go somewhere else to eat?"

"So that he could find out about us Evelyn! Why can't you see it?" Ethan was frustrated.

"You know what? It's nice that you think I'm an idiot. That I would just let myself fall for any vampire without thinking about what I was doing." I was glaring at him now, openly showing my fury.

"Of course you fell for a vampire without thinking about what you were doing! How else would you fall for one? Think about it. You're one of the most powerful younger hunters out there. Your mother is on the Administratio. What better way would there be to find out about us?" He ranted.

"I know what I'm doing."

"No you don't," he disagreed.

"So now you're going to tell on me," I said resigned. "You're going to tell on me, and I'll get disowned, or beaten bloody, or buried alive, I don't know what the punishment will be, but I can trust my mom to make sure it's painful."

Ethan rolled his eyes and just stared at me for a minute. "I didn't say I was going to tell anybody."

My mouth fell open. "What?" I gasped.

"I won't tell anyone if you stop seeing him," he said watching me carefully.

I hesitated and he noticed.

"Damn it Evy, I don't want you to get in trouble," he said exasperated.

"Well that's easy, just don't tell anybody. Problem solved," I said.

He rolled his eyes. "You think I'm just going to let you-"

I cut him off. "You don't get to 'let' me do anything. You're not my father; I can do whatever I want." Again with the temper, still not helping the cause, but sometimes I just can't resist.

"Evelyn, I just don't want him to kill you," he slowly, as if he was explaining to a child why they couldn't have a snack before dinner.

"He's not going to," I said just a slow, hoping for it to sink in. "He's not going to hurt any of us," I said confidently.

Ethan just looked at me. His eyes had narrowed at the obvious conviction in my voice. And then, "Prove it."

"Excuse me?"

"Prove that he won't hurt anybody. Let me meet him." I couldn't believe how calmly he was saying this. "You look pretty worried," Ethan said triumphantly.

"I'll only introduce him if I know you won't hurt him," I said.

He looked me square in the eye and said, "I promise not to hurt him."

"Okay, but what if you meet him and you decide that you don't like him. You're pretty biased," I said worrying.

"I'll try to keep an open mind," he assured me.

"Yeah, right."

"I will," he said. "And, if he's as good as you say he is, I'll even cover for you."

I looked at him suspiciously. "Really?"

He nodded and teleported away.

I was left standing in my living room confused. Was it possible that I might actually get away with this?

As soon as I thought about that, I laughed at myself. Even if Ethan didn't attack Anthony, there was no way he was just going to stand by and let me date him.

I flipped open my cell phone and called Anthony. He answered on the first ring.

"Evelyn, is everything okay? I'm so sorry. I should-" his words were rushed.

"It's fine, I think," I cut him off. "We might be able to work something out here," I said daring to be hopeful.

"Really?" he asked sounding incredulous and relieved at the same time. "I didn't know if I was going to hear from you again."

"Well, basically, Ethan gave me two choices. One, I break up with you," there was silence on his end of the phone. I remained quiet as well thinking about the best word choice to use to continue.

"And two?" Anthony asked emotionlessly.

"Two is he meets you and decides on whether or not your good," I said.

Again silence.

"Well?" I prodded. I wasn't entirely sure what kind of answer I was expecting. Did I want him to say "sure I'll meet the hunter who'd give anything to kill me?"

"I'll meet him, if you want to do this. If you trust him," he answered.

I bit my lip and considered. "I don't think he'd lie to me, but he is pretty overprotective," I said.

"It's your call," Anthony said. "I'll do whatever you want."

"Well, he already knows everything, so we might as well do everything we can…" I trailed off.

"Okay," Anthony agreed immediately, still sounding emotionless, but I thought I heard a little relief in his voice.

"Can I come over?" I asked. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with myself. Right now things were too confusing.

"Of course," he said. "When do you want to come?"

I teleported to his house while he was still speaking. "Hey," I said.

He turned around with the phone still at his ear. "Oh," he smiled at me and closed his phone. "There you are."

He reached over and hugged me. I sighed and leaned against him. He kissed my hair, and we just stayed like that for the longest time.

"Everything's going to be okay you know," he assured me.

"Yeah, let's see you say that tomorrow when you have to meet Ethan," I said.

He raised his eyebrows. "Why? Should I be afraid?" he asked playfully.

I sighed again. "Why don't you ever take these things seriously?"

"Because you worry enough for the both of us," he answered.

"Yeah, thanks."

He grinned. "It will be okay though."

"Wow, you two are still a couple. I thought your hunter guy would've broken that up by now," Juana walked in on us again.

"Ugh," I rolled my eyes. I didn't mean for her to see, but apparently today was my day to be unintentionally conspicuous. She frowned at me.

"Hey Anthony, we need to talk," Eric and Mark walked into the room.

"Where's Emily?" I asked.

"She's in her new room," Eric answered. "She wanted to be alone for a while."

I used my hunting senses – which, I have to admit, I'd been neglecting for a while – and sure enough, I could feel another vampire, a new one, in the house.

Anthony leaned over and kissed my forehead. "I'll be right back," he said. With a quick glare at Juana, he walked out with his brothers.

"Are you an idiot?" Juana asked when the boys were out of the room.

"Excuse me?" I asked. I could feel my temper building up. If I wasn't careful, my natural vampire hunting instincts might get the better of me. Although, it was possible that mine weren't so natural. After all, I was able to throw those supposed "natural instincts" aside to date a vampire so…

"You just got caught, not even an hour ago. By some stroke of luck that stupid, lovesick hunter didn't go running to tattle, but really! Why are you here?" She looked at me sourly.

"What is your problem?" I asked annoyed. Why did this have to be her day to pick a fight with me? As if I wasn't already in a bad enough mood.

"My problem? Only that a vampire hunter is at my house every day!" She looked furious.

"I'm sorry, did you say at your house? Do the Carsons know that you made your stay permanent?" I could feel the rage building up.

"Oh, believe me, I'm going to be here a lot longer than you are," she said viciously.

"Yeah, whatever," I said.

"Don't you have a life? Something better to do with your time?" she asked looking at me with contempt.

"Do you have a life? Why do have to barge in every time I'm with Anthony?" I said. Now, I was definitely furious.

"Because you two are disgusting to look at. Just because Eric and Mark are so lenient doesn't mean that anyone else will be. Do you know what other vampires would think?" she threw questions at me.

"Why the hell would I care about what other vampires think? Even Anthony doesn't care about what other vampires think," I said. However, damn her, I was thinking about it now. What would they say? I'd thought a lot about what the other hunters would do if they found out about us – they'd freak out for sure – but I'd never considered what the vampiric world would think.

"And then," she was ranting now, "you have to go and have your friend come here, but of course Anthony welcomes her with open arms – anything for his oh so precious Evelyn."

My mouth hung open a bit as I put two and two together. "You're jealous," I said.

"What?" she glared at me furiously.

"You're jealous that Anthony and his brothers want Emily here more than they want you," I said smiling a little at the way her face contorting.

"You just think you have it all figured out don't you? You never think about all the things Anthony hides from you," she said grinning maliciously.

"Anthony doesn't hide anything from me," I said immediately.

"Then why did he leave the room to go talk with Eric and Mark?" she asked, her grin widening.

"To get away from you," I said.

"Cocky, are we?" she said still with a look of great happiness. "Did you ever think it was to get away from you?"

"Evelyn!" we both turned to see Emily coming down the stairs. "How come you're back?" she looked excited and relieved to see me.

"It's a long story," I said. "I'll tell you about it later. I was just finishing something up with Juana."

"Oh don't worry about me," she said with that sickening smile still on her face. "I don't have anything else to say. You just try asking Anthony what it was he left to talk about."

I hated the way she could plant those seeds of doubt in my head.