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I swing my attention back to the vamps. The youngest is crying now. However, my attention is on the oldest. Her face gives nothing away, but a part of me knows she is angry. I don’t know how I know it, but it’s almost as if I can feel her fury.

“Marley, what’s wrong?” Luna asks as she catches sight of the teen.

We all wait on baited breaths. I imagine the vamp will gladly rat us all out over the joke.

“It’s nothing, Liz,” the oldest says, helping her sister stand. They abandon their food as they head toward the door.

“Why is Marley crying?” Luna presses.

“It’s nothing,” the oldest repeats as she ushers her sobbing sister further through the cafeteria. “We’re going to finish our dinner at home.”

Luna follows them to the door.

“Michaela,” she calls out.

The vamp turns to her quickly. “Let it go, Liz,” she whispers.

She then turns back to her sister and walks out of the room. Luna watches them leave before turning to their table and walking over. We all stare in silence as she lifts the top of the sandwich and spots the rat.

She turns to Chayton and tosses the bread down on the table before storming out after her friends.

Guilt hits me. Not for what was done to the bloodsuckers, but for the fact the actions hurt our Luna. I walk over to Chayton.

“Get this cleaned up,” he demands of the pack. His anger is so obvious it washes over the room like a wave.

The members quickly get into action to clean up the rat. Chayton storms out of the room. Without being told, I know he wants me to follow him.

As soon as I step out the door, he turns around to face me.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he shouts. “I asked you to deal with this and you let them pull this stunt?”

“I didn’t know about the rat. But it’s not that serious. They’re blowing it out of proportion because Luna walked in. It was just a prank.”

Chayton snarls at me. “That prank could have killed her sister.”

My thoughts freeze.

“What are you talking about?”

He runs a hand down his face. “I’ve been doing some research about vampires. Apparently, they can’t take blood from dead things. It makes them severely sick; some even die. That prank could have killed her.”

A knot forms in my belly and my chest tightens. I can only imagine how the oldest one would have felt if her sister died. She seems overly protective of the young leech. An image of how chipper the youngest one was right before she found the rat plays in my head.

I shake the image away.

“Don’t pretend like you would care if one of them died. They aren’t innocent.”

Chayton shakes his head. “What have they done to you? Not all vampires, but those two, particularly?”

I want to say exist, but I don’t think that would win me any points right now.

“We are trying to cope with this the best we can,” I grit out through clenched teeth.

He rocks back on his feet, tossing his hands in the air. “Yeah, well right now, you’ve just proven to my wife and your Luna that we are the monsters and not them.” He turns and storms off, leaving me alone.

My whole goal is to prove to Elizabeth that befriending a vampire is not a good thing. I guess today we fucked that up.

“Fuck,” I growl.