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To my amazement, the man’s eyes go blank. His companion, another of Cohen’s men I don’t recognize, wears the same vacant expression.

“You never saw us,” Adonis continues, his golden eyes glowing faintly in the darkness. “You’re tracking a different car. A blue Packard heading east toward Topanga. You’ll pursue it until you run out of gas, then return to Cohen with nothing to report.”

They both nod mechanically, and the driver puts the car in gear. The sedan pulls away and does a U-turn before accelerating eastward.

“Hot damn,” I whisper, watching them disappear into the night.

“Told you,” Lena says, a faint smile touching her lips. “More powerful than most.”

Adonis pulls back into traffic, seemingly unperturbed by the entire exchange. “Humans are simple to influence. Their minds want to be led. It explains a lot about society, doesn’t it? How people can be herded into doing the most vile things, following the most backwards ideology.”

There’s a lot to unpack there. I can’t help but think about the war. “Is that how you see us? Humans, I mean.”

“You were never fully human, Callahan,” Adonis says, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror again. “You were always one of us, just…sleeping.”

The words chill me, partly because they resonate with something deep inside. A recognition. A truth I’ve been running from.

“I don’t know what I am anymore,” I admit.

Lena’s hand finds mine in the darkness of the backseat, giving it a squeeze. Reassuring.

“You’ll figure it out,” she says softly. “We’ll help you.”

I don’t pull away, grateful for the contact, the anchoring presence of her touch. “Where are we going, exactly?”

“Malibu,” Adonis answers. “To Dr. Van Helsing’s colony.”

I stare at him. “Van Helsing? As in Abraham Van Helsing? Like inDracula?”

Lena laughs, the sound musical in the confined space. “It’s the other way around, actually. Bram Stoker based his character on Abe. They had a mutual acquaintance.”

My mind reels at the implications. “The novel was based on real vampires?”

“Very loosely,” she says. “Stoker took creative liberties, as most authors do. Made us into monsters.”

“Aren’t you?” The question slips out before I can stop it.

Her hand withdraws from mine, and I immediately regret the words.

“Do I seem like a monster to you, Callahan?” There’s no anger in her voice, only a quiet sadness.

I think of Marco’s mutilated body, the blood on my hands that I can’t remember spilling. “No,” I say honestly. “But I might be.”

Her eyes soften. “You’re not a monster. You’re just new. Untrained. Imagine waking up one day with superhuman strength, enhanced senses, and hunger you don’t understand, with no one to guide you. Of course you’d make mistakes.”

“Mistakes,” I repeat hollowly. “Is that what we’re calling murder now?”

“Marco wasn’t innocent,” she reminds me. “And neither were the men you shot tonight. They were going to kill me. Kill us both.”

“And what about the victim in Elysian Park?” I ask.

Lena exchanges a look with Adonis. “What victim? When?”

“Three nights ago. I woke up in the park with blood in my mouth.” My voice drops to a whisper. “I think I killed someone.”

Silence fills the car.

“You need to feed,” Adonis says finally, his tone clinical. “When the transition begins, the hunger becomes overwhelming. Without guidance, without understanding what’s happening, you’d naturally seek blood.”