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T he sun streams in. I’m in my bed. Fully dressed.

I’m not even completely awake when I start crying.

Candice . Her terrified eyes flash through my mind, the way she called out to me.

“Oh, god.” I lean over the bed and dry heave, my stomach churning as tears blind me. “No, no, no.” I lie on my side and curl up into a ball. “This can’t be real. It can’t.” I press my palms to my face. Everything replays in slow motion, every moment I spent in the presence of Gregor. I keep hearing Candice’s voice. It’s loud. Her dying plea. It rings in my ears so sharply I think they might bleed.

I lie like that for a long, long time. Not moving, barely breathing. It’s as if I think that staying still might make it all be some sort of a dream. It isn’t. I know it isn’t. I can still smell the tang of her blood.

Candice is gone. Killed by a monster. A real one.

Juno, what have you done ?

* * *

“You didn’t work today.” Valen’s voice wakes me from a tortured sleep.

He’s standing in the shadows just inside my bedroom.

“Get out.”

“You must work.” His tone is steady, almost gentle.

I turn to him, his face in shadow. “Get the fuck out!” I scream so loud it feels as if something in my throat tears. Burrowing under the covers, I know I can’t hide from him, from what happened. I do it anyway, my breaths coming quick and shallow as I hear Candice’s cry again and again. Georgia .

“Breathe.” He’s closer now.

“Get away from me.” I curl in on myself, like a dying animal trying to protect its soft belly despite the gaping wound in its throat.

“If you don’t do the work, he’ll kill you.” He says it softly. A simple fact uttered in a velvet voice. “He’ll hurt you first, in ways you’ve never even imagined. And then you’ll die.”

“Just let me fucking die then.” My whole body shakes.

“Not just you.” His voice sounds like he’s in bed with me, his breath at my ear. “You, your sister, everyone in the lab, everyone you’ve ever cared about.”

Cold fear trickles through my blood, crashing into the memory of Candice’s terrified face. It mixes, forms into something combustible. And then I’m out of the bed, my hands flying, nails scratching. I hit and gouge at Valen, slapping him so hard the palm of my hand burns. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch.

“You killed her! You’re a fucking monster!” I scream and use every bit of my waning energy to pound on his chest, slamming my fists into him until my knees go wobbly and I start to sink to the floor.

He grabs me then, wrapping his arms around me and crushing me against his chest.

“Let me go!” I fight but get nowhere. “Bastard! I fucking hate you! I’ll kill you!”

He holds on, his grip steady and almost terrifying in its strength.

“I hate you!”

“I know.” His deep voice vibrates against my ear, soft as a whisper, deadly as a blade. “But if the choice is letting her die or letting Gregor tear you apart for even thinking about interfering, I’ll let her die a thousand times over. I’d kill her myself before I’d ever let him touch you.”

“I don’t believe you!” I scream. “She didn’t have to die. You could’ve saved her. I—” My voice breaks on a sob, the tears so heavy they wash away my words. I cry so hard it hurts, my ribs aching, my head pounding. Everything drains out of me while I’m trapped in his arms—my fight, my rage. Only despair remains. Only him.

After what feels like an eternity of me falling apart, he lays me on the bed. “You must let it go.”

I don’t look at him. I can’t. And I will never let Candice go. “You’re only protecting me so I can find the cure. Gregor is using me. You—you vampires are using me.” There’s no other word for what these creatures are. Candice was right, they are demons, just not the biblical sort. “Why? So your food source is secure?”

He watches me in silence. Unmoving. Unmoved.

“You haven’t eaten.” He says it brusquely and leaves the room.

I close my puffy eyes, my nose running, my throat aching and raw. I don’t want to feel anymore. I can’t bear it. Not when I can still see the fear in Candice’s eyes. Georgia . A wail rips from me, muffled only by the pillow as I bury my face into it.

Time goes by, though I don’t know how much. I hear voices in the hall, but I don’t get up to investigate. I don’t care. I don’t fucking care.

“Doc?” Gene’s voice.

I turn my head so I can see him silhouetted against the hallway light. “Gene.” My voice is a croak.

“I’ve brought you some things to eat. Your friend Mr. Dragonis told me you’ve been feeling poorly. Not the plague, of course,” he adds quickly. “Just a regular cold or whatnot.”

I don’t know how to respond to that, so I don’t.

He moves closer, a tray in his hands. “A little bit of soup. It’s minestrone, and it’s short on the pasta, but it’s not too bad.” He sits it on the nightstand. “I may have added a few ingredients to it that aren’t the usual, too, but everything could use a little spicing up, don’t you think?”

I look up at him, my eyes swollen, my vision blurry. He’s in danger. Everyone is. And not just the people in this building or even in DC. Everyone .

We aren’t just dealing with a plague.

No matter how many times my mind rebels against what I saw, what I experienced—I can’t deny it. Vampires are real. They’re fucking real, and they’re using my sister, me, hell—the entire United States government—to create a cure for the plague. But not to save humanity. To control it. The blood resorts—my insides twist at the thought of them, at their true purpose. Humans are nothing more than a link in the vampire food chain.

But how can I tell him that? I can’t. It would only put him in more danger. And would he believe me? How could he? I know what I saw, but I have more questions than answers. How many of them are there? What do they intend to do once I’ve found the cure?

Gene shuffles his feet, his kind gaze searching mine.

“Thank you,” I force out.

He nods. “All right. I’ll get back down to my room. You know where I stay, so come get me or send that friend of yours if you need anything.”

He’s not my friend . I don’t bother saying it.

Gene leaves, the room settling back into quiet nothingness. I close my eyes again and try not to see Candice. But she’s there in the dark, in the space between waking and dreaming. I’m afraid she’ll always be there. Georgia .

“You have to eat.”

I jolt awake. Valen stands over me, his eyes catlike in the gloom. I kick, pushing myself to a sitting position and yanking the blanket up, as if that could protect me from him. “You’re still here.”

“Observant as always.” He doesn’t move.

“You’re a monster.”

“Yes.”

Wariness intrudes on my grief as I push my back against the headboard. “Why?”

“You may have noticed that Gregor is keenly interested in your research.” He grabs the napkin from the tray and lays it across my lap. “I’m here to ensure you succeed. I’m also here to ensure you manage the information you’ve been given.” He’s business-like, cold. His urgent whispers from earlier about saving my life are gone, like a lover’s promise evaporating in morning sun.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the more humans you tell about us, the more blood I’ll have on my hands. The knowledge you’re privy to has been closely guarded by my people for centuries. You know more about us than any human ever has. To Gregor, that makes you dangerous. It also makes the people you share that information with highly expendable.”

I don’t have to read between the lines to understand his threat. It’s right out in the open. If I tell anyone about the vampires, I’ll be signing their death warrant.

“I haven’t told anyone anything.”

“I know.” He sighs as if disappointed. “Your labmates are still alive … For now.”

“You’d kill them? You’d take their lives like it was nothing?”

“Gregor would order it, and I would do it. Yes.”

“So, you’re his attack dog?”

He grins—are his canines longer now? “More like a guard dog.”

An idea surfaces. “I’ve seen you out in the sunlight.”

He plucks the tray up and places it on my lap, the cold soup untouched. “Eat.”

“I thought vampires couldn’t go in the sun.”

“You’ve thought about vampires much, have you?” His arrogant tone reignites my anger, but I tamp it down. I have to. If I’m going to get out of this, to save my sister and the others, I have to learn more. Valen is my only contact with them, the only way I can get information on whatever the hell they are. The only way I can figure out how to kill them.

“Why are you here?” I ask again. “I doubt it’s to make sure I’m fed and tucked in.” I study him, the way he stands—seemingly at ease, but only in the way a loaded gun is at ease. It just takes a pull of the trigger to be deadly.

“Quite right.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m here to make sure you find the cure and save your people.”

“You mean save your people.”

His nostrils flare slightly. “All is one. Now eat.”

“You let her die.” I stare up at him. “You let him kill her. You did nothing. She was innocent. An old woman. You could have helped. She?—”

“And?” He leans down, his gaze holding the force of a touch. “Do you truly believe I’ve never taken an innocent life?”

I swallow hard.

His voice carries a chill that I feel in my bones. “I’ve killed countless humans. Countless . And it wasn’t a problem until you chimpanzees decided to meddle in designer viruses and created the plague. Now it is. Now we must survive in spite of you, not because of you.” He glances at my throat.

I cringe back from him, the tray shifting in my lap.

He grabs it with a quickness I can’t track and returns it to the nightstand. “You will eat, and you will take care of yourself.”

“Or what?” I hate the way my chin trembles. “You’ll rip my throat out, too?”

“No.” He looks around thoughtfully. “But that elderly man who brought you the soup. I might be doing him a favor by bleeding him dry, don’t you think?” He smiles, his fangs suddenly terrifyingly long and sharp. It changes his entire face. From something stonily handsome to something feral, an animal who lives for the kill. Have they been there all along somehow?

The fear I should feel is dulled by what I already know. He’s a killer, remorseless. I want to believe he’s bluffing, that he’d never hurt Gene. But I know he isn’t. I know, just like I know that my life means nothing to them if I don’t find the cure. I’d been lulled into believing he was a man, someone different and apart but also familiar. He’s not. He never was.

“Now eat and rest. I expect you in the lab first thing in the morning.” He turns and prowls away, his long strides effortlessly graceful. “And don’t think I won’t know if you don’t show up. I will. If you aren’t there, I’ll come for you.” He pauses at the door. “Understand?”

I grab the tray and put it back in my lap, my hands surprisingly steady. “I really fucking hate you.”

He turns, his eyes darker than I’ve ever seen them. “Good.”