JENNIE

One month later…

Every family has their secrets, my mother used to say. Every woman has her mysteries.

I wondered if she had known of our family's little secret, or of the darkness that had driven Orwell insane and forced Roseann to live a double life. I wondered if she had known much of anything apart from the carefully crafted world she'd created for herself. To her credit, denial and secrecy seemed to be an inherited trait among us Kims.

Rosé, once shrouded in silly mystery had become an enigma. She still wouldn't tell me the whole truth; the only clues she had let slip free were snippets about Raphael and contracts and …

It all made my head hurt, which was a figurative pain, of course, because with Lisa's chain around my neck, I felt absolutely nothing. Things that would have normally tired me no longer did. It was as if the magic infused in it enhanced everything to an exquisite degree—but it was merely an illusion; a temporary fix.

The damage wrought by Lisa's venom couldn't be undone by any cure. The moment I took it off, my body would begin to deteriorate again.

I wondered if she was limited without it. If she couldn't go out in the sun or whatever it was the magic seemed to enable her to do? I tried not to care. I tried … But so many things had gotten out of my control lately that it was laughable to think that I could. Almost as laughable as the fact that I sat in a town car, staring up at the boarded-up building that only I knew had once been a club for vampires.

Under the guise of needing "fresh air" I had taken off in a hired cab rather than risk driving the Rolls Royce by myself—we still hadn't found someone to replace Harper.

My instructions were clear, but when we had reached the skeleton of Anemia, I still had to double check the name on a nearby street sign.

Apparently, Lisa had wasted no time in putting Rosé's contractual promise of allowing her to 'relocate in peace' to the test. Jisoo's shop had been emptied as well, and the warehouse door had been sealed with a rusty chain.

"Ma'am?" I blinked as the driver spoke from the front seat. "Sorry, but the meter's still running …"

I glanced up to find him watching me in the rearview mirror with a puzzled expression.

Nut, I could imagine him thinking in disgust.

"That's all right," I said softly, folding my hands in my lap.

I sighed, sparing one last glance at the remains of Anemia. What would the building become now? An office? A store?

Would the new tenants ever have any clue about the creatures who had once wandered through the walls? Or the use of those mysterious rooms at the back?

"Miss?"

"We can go now."

I started to tear my gaze from the window, only to jump as a hand appeared to rap against the glass. A man stood on the curb. His expression was stern, but something in the way he was dressed—in a dark, crisp suit—made me warily hit the button to lower the glass.

"For you, Miss," he said, before slipping something through the gap so that it landed on my lap. My eyes fell to the object and I barely noticed as the stranger stood back, disappearing as quickly as he'd appeared.

It was a small parcel. My name was written across the front in elegant, unfamiliar script; an unusual occurrence in more ways than one. I rarely received personal mail these days—not to mention that very few people would send a messenger to approach me on the street.

My fingers trembled as I tore off the brown wrappings to reveal the object inside: a small, flat leather-bound book. It was so old that the bindings had started to come apart. In the center of the dilapidated cover, ironically in near pristine condition, was the symbol of that familiar serpent with ruby-red eyes. As I let the binder fall onto my lap, a single, square sheet of paper slid out.

Thank you, Miss Kim, our arrangement has worked out quite well, the first line read. As promised, I have upheld my end of the bargain.

-Raphael

My throat jerked around a gulp. I had to pinch myself just once before I slowly peeled the book apart, unsurprised to discover that it was a contract, much like my own.

The lettering was barely visible—I could only discern a few words. Five hundred years. Bound.

Across the bottom however, in a bright shade of ink, so fresh it could have been written days ago, someone had added: With the addendum of ten more additional years in exchange for the contract of J.R.J.K.

I knew what those initials stood for; my name.

I also knew of someone supposedly bound for five hundred years. Someone who called something that I now knew was nothing but an unspoken mantra, intended to reinforce those words repeated so often: is hell bound.

But the knowledge didn't make the words written on the contract any easier to stomach.

On the line specifying the contractor was only one name. Pranrpiya.

And below that was the name of the beholder. Jennie Kim.