Page 33 of Love Immortal

Thirty-Two

“ T hey’re dead. Th-they’re all dead. Even Becky,” Fiona stutters.

She looked so brave standing up to Mads, but it seems reality has caught up with her. A tremor is starting to spread from her hands to the rest of her body.

“Not everyone,” Dacian objects, his face grim. “Those two have completed the ritual. I merely slowed them down, but they’ll rise again shortly.”

This comes as a shock to me. How can those piles of human remains walk, let alone fight? But then again, they aren’t human anymore, are they?

Dazedly, I examine Dacian. There’s a weird steam coming off him and a squelching kind of sound. And his hands—I nearly recoil. It was too dim inside the living room to see that they were gone , smashed into shapeless pulp. His arms don’t look right under the sleeves of his jacket either. Did he break his bones when he punched Mads? But no sooner do I have that thought than the damaged flesh of Dacian’s hands starts to reshape itself, growing back anew right in front of Fiona and me. I blink, trying to reconcile what I’m seeing with what I’ve always believed about biology. Fiona is speechless too.

“Other than the people inside the house, does anyone know you went to this party?” Dacian asks her, not paying the slightest attention to his injuries.

“No. Just Jonathan,” she replies, her lips still trembling.

“Good,” Dacian says. “Drive back home, get rid of your clothes, and no matter what, do not tell anyone you were here tonight, all right?”

Cold understanding dawns on Fiona and me. I can practically see the headlines questioning how one of the few Black students in Camden and a gay scholarship kid whose ex-boyfriend was driven to suicide were the only two survivors of one of the biggest massacres Vermont has ever seen. We’d be blamed immediately. Unlike vampires, we can’t just disappear into the mist.

Fiona exhales. “You’re right. I have to go.”

As she sets out to search for her car amidst the rows of vehicles left by the partygoers, Dacian turns to me. “Go with her,” he says sternly.

His gaze flickers to the journal in my pocket.

“This isn’t what you think it is!” I blurt in a panic. Although truly I have no idea what he’s thinking—Dacian’s face is a steel mask, devoid of emotion. But underneath it, he must be furious that I’ve betrayed him like this.

“We can talk about this later,” he says. “Join your friend.”

“I’m not leaving without you,” I say firmly.

“Jonathan!” He glowers at me.

But I meet his intimidating gaze head-on. Without words, I try to convey that there’s nothing he can do to make me leave short of physically removing me. I won’t go without him. He’s hurt. Steam is still rising from his half-regrown hands!

But it isn’t only the fight he’s about to face that terrifies me. What scares me is the possibility of Dacian disappearing after he’s done with Mads and Grady. What if I never see him again? That’s worse than being skinned alive by these two bloodthirsty monsters. Why can’t he understand that?

Having found her car, Fiona pulls up behind Dacian. “You ready, Jonathan?” she asks.

I shake my head. “You go without me.”

She frowns and doesn’t leave, waiting for Dacian to weigh in. He’s still glaring at me, but I hug his journal protectively and refuse to take a single step away from him.

Finally, he relents. “Go, Ms. Onayemi. Drive safely.” He pauses, then says, his voice suddenly softer, “Thank you, Fiona.”

It takes a second for Fiona to process that Dacian is thanking her for walking into a house full of vampires to save me. Solemnly, she nods, says, “Be careful,” and speeds off into the night.

“How did you find us?” I ask as the lights of Fiona’s car disappear around the bend.

“I will always be able to find you, Jonathan,” he says meaningfully. I look down, shamefaced. And here I thought I could keep my whole journal retrieval plan a secret. “Now please, hide. I haven’t fought another vampire in a long while,” Dacian urges.

I wonder what he considers to be a long while, but his tone makes me instantly anxious. Just as I duck between the rows of the cars parked nearby, Mads and Grady burst out of the house, fully regenerated.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Dacian takes them on. There’s another series of loud booms, each making me jolt from its intensity. The force is so strong that many of the car windows shatter.

I crouch on the ground, maneuvering to get a better view. I need to check on Dacian.

At first, I’m completely disoriented. All I see is a violent collision of three shadows, bouncing and smashing into each other again and again. I can’t understand what is happening at all. But after a few seconds my eyes seem to adjust to the vampire speed. It reminds me of seeing hockey for the first time and learning to follow where the puck was going.

Dacian punches Mads and then barrels toward Callahan. Mads’ body flies back with so much force that it makes a crater in the Honda he collides with, knocking him out. But at the last moment, Callahan lurches to the side; Dacian misses and instead smashes into one of the marble pillars framing the house’s portico. There is an awful, horrifying sound, and I don’t know how much of it is from the pillar cracking in half and how much is from the impact Dacian’s body takes. He collapses on the stone porch and coughs up blood.

For a moment, I can’t breathe. I want to help him, but how can I? Callahan closes the distance between himself and Dacian in one giant leap, and stomps on his back with the force of a sledgehammer. I hear more gut-wrenching cracks. I cover my mouth to stop myself from screaming.

Steam erupts from Dacian’s spine. He must be trying to heal. But how long will that take? Callahan leaps into the air, about to descend on Dacian again, but just before he lands, Dacian rolls out of the way and springs to his feet.

I’m so consumed by watching him that I miss the moment Mads regains consciousness.

“Keep him busy, Grady,” he calls out, panting. The metal door he slammed into creaks as he straightens up, his rib cage hissing with steam. “I can still smell that little rat. I’m going to catch it.”

Horror pricks the back of my neck as I realize I’m the rat.

Dacian lunges to stop Mads, but Callahan gets in his way. Another boom shakes the air, causing a whirlwind of fallen leaves. But I don’t see what happens next as I duck behind a Jeep, out of Mads’ sight.

“Come out, come out, little rat,” he says with glee.

The gravel and broken window glass crunch as he moves down the aisle of cars with deliberate slowness. He could rise up in the air and find me much sooner, but some people enjoy the hunt far more than the capture. Still, I only have a few seconds to figure out an escape route.

I gaze into the thick darkness of the trees. There isn’t much distance between the Jeep and the woods surrounding the property. If I can disappear in there, maybe I can get away? But can I make it across the driveway in time? My heart hammers so loudly that I’m amazed it hasn’t already given my location away.

“Come out, rat!” Mads rasps, sounding even closer.

Unable to think up a better plan, I pick up a piece of gravel and throw it at one of the cars at the far end of the row with as much force as I can. When it ricochets off the metal, I hear the patter of footsteps moving away from me.

It’s now or never.

I make a mad dash for the woods. But just as I dive into the welcoming darkness, something yanks me by my hood. I nearly choke as Mads drags me back and tosses me onto the open driveway.

Pain radiates through my back as he leers at me, victorious. I have no idea what he’s going to do to me. I pray that Dacian will intervene, but he’s still fighting Callahan.

My whole body goes rigid, expecting Mads to tear out my throat with his teeth at any moment. But instead, he grabs my shoulders tightly and leaps into the air. Suddenly, the world becomes a blur as he pulls me upward with mind-bending speed. The temperature plunges as we climb.

By the time he stops, I’m terrified to look down—I feel nauseated just thinking about how high up we may be. When I look around, I can’t see the horizon, just the night sky and distant stars. The air is so frigid that my panicked breaths come out in hazy puffs. And there’s a sharp pain in my shoulders from the crushing grip of Mads’ fingers. Why did he drag me up here?

“I know I said I’d skin you alive,” Mads says, bringing his face closer to mine.

I flinch away from the deathly rotten stench coming off his teeth and his blood-smeared mouth. His pupils have shrunk into tiny black pinpricks surrounded by glowing, blood-red orbs. I can’t believe how ugly he’s become. “But I think this might be a bit more exciting, don’t you?” He grins as he reads the dread on my face. “What goes up must come down!” He bursts out laughing, and before I can ask what the hell he means by that, he drops me.

The scream that leaves my body doesn’t sound like my voice, or even a voice that belongs to a human at all. My stomach plunges, and my guts feel like they’re being rearranged as I free fall. The wind that whips my face is so loud it nearly drowns out my thoughts: This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. This can’t be!

I flail my limbs desperately, causing my body to rotate, and I finally see the ground rushing toward me. It’s astoundingly far away but approaching rapidly. I search the legacies’ house as I plummet. But I can’t see Dacian, just the quickly growing shapes of the parked cars in the driveway. My throat constricts as the realization hits. He won’t save me this time. I’m really going to die. I await the ground in terror, too shocked to look away and unable to change anything. I can only hope that my death is instant and that my agony is short.

But just before I crash into the earth, a smoky shadow bursts into my peripheral vision. Then suddenly, my body jolts sideways as something—someone—catches me, the shadow materializing into a man. It’s Dacian!

He carries me through the trees with the speed of a missile—we have too much momentum to decelerate. Branches hit my face and legs painfully, but it’s nothing compared to the fate I’ve been spared.

“I’ve got you,” Dacian exhales into my ear, his voice rough.

It takes several long moments for my mind to catch up to my body and realize I’m no longer falling. Dacian tightens his arms around me, and I cling to him with my frozen fingers, focusing on his words: I’ve got you. I’ve got you. As he navigates through the dense growth, slowing his pace somewhat, gradually, my hammering heart calms down too.

My eyes adjust to the darkness, but all I can make out is the looming black trunks of the trees surrounding us. No signs of human life, and Mads and Callahan don’t seem to be pursuing us. I take my time to recover my sanity, expecting Dacian to stop, but minutes pass and we’re still flying. I thought he was trying to get away so we could regroup, but it’s clear now that he isn’t planning to return to the house.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

When he replies, his voice is dripping with barely contained anger. “I’m taking you away from the heart of their domain. I should’ve known better than to engage with you so close by—” He cuts off abruptly, struggling to contain his upset. “I forgot what it’s like to defend someone so fragile.”

My eyes widen. I don’t know how I feel about being called fragile. I’m both offended and smitten with how protective he feels of me.

Before the fight started, I thought Dacian would easily tear the legacies to shreds. But now I’m not so sure. There is a fist-size chunk missing from his right shoulder. He’s bleeding a lot. Steam rises from his flesh, but he’s regenerating noticeably slower than before. And Dacian is no longer flying —it’s more like long-distance jumping. He uses the trunks of trees and occasionally the ground to propel himself forward and upward. Why is that?

He fought two against one, and they had home-court advantage, where their strength was at full capacity. But that can’t be the only reason Dacian is struggling. I wonder how long it’s been since he properly ate . He told me he’s been restraining himself from hunting and that fighting increases his need for blood. What if he doesn’t have enough strength because he’s starving?

A cold worry slithers around my throat. If this person, this being who walks the thin line between eternity and oblivion, born of the shadows yet carrying such a strong glimmer of light that it persists through centuries without diminishing or burning out, this man that I’m stupidly, irreversibly in love with—if he were to die, then I?—

“Stop!” I demand. “Dacian, stop.”

Confused but alarmed by the intensity of my voice, he immediately lands on the forest floor, kicking up a storm of dead leaves. My legs feel much shakier than I expected when he sets me on the ground in front of him.

“What is it, Jonathan?” he asks, a crease between the perfect arches of his brows. “If you’re going to insist that I take you back to that house, I’m telling you right now that I will not listen.” He sounds adamant, and he looks ready to grab me and carry me away again.

I look down, not quite able to meet his faintly glowing eyes. “It’s not that. I…I want to help you,” I say. My body buzzes nervously.

I’d never offered anything like this before. I wonder what it’ll feel like, if it’ll be painful, or if there’s some kind of vampire magic that will make me not feel anything—or even make it pleasant. I wait for Dacian to say something, to acknowledge my offer, but seconds tick away, and he’s silent as a tomb. Of course, nothing is ever straightforward with him. I guess I’ll have to be more direct.

I lift my eyes and tip my head, giving Dacian a full view of the left side of my bare neck. “I want to help you,” I repeat slowly. “I can do this. For you.”

Dacian’s eyes flash bright red. “No,” he says sternly.

My heart falls. “Why not?”

He shakes his head. “Not like this.”

“I don’t want them to kill you,” I say, my voice rising in despair. But that does nothing to convince him.

He stubbornly takes a step back. “I am very hard to kill, Jonathan, in case you’ve forgotten. Once you’re safe, I will go back and?—”

“I already told you I’m not leaving you!” I shout, swiftly closing the distance between us again, grabbing the lapels of his jacket. He all but confessed to me before that I make him hungry. So why is he refusing my offer? Refusing me ? Am I not good enough for him? “Take my blood,” I say, holding his gaze. “Or not, if you don’t want it. But if you dare to leave me behind, I’ll chase you right back into that horror show, I promise you.”

Dacian stares at me, stunned, but an unmistakable spark of desire, of hunger, flashes in his eyes at the mention of the word blood , betraying what he really wants. “You’re mistaken,” he whispers. “It’s not that I don’t want it .”

The way he says it makes my insides flutter. A strange relief washes over me. He’s not rejecting me . Instead, he seems worried about what it will mean if he crosses this line and drinks from me.

I pull down the collar of my sweatshirt. “Take it,” I repeat in a soft, reassuring voice. “It won’t change anything between us. I’m offering it to you willingly.”

Dacian’s red eyes flicker at the sight of my exposed skin. He swallows, his lingering hesitation crumbling in the face of his own irrepressible need. “This isn’t really the best place,” he manages to say after a moment.

“Oh. Where is?” I ask, suddenly self-conscious. From all the vampire stories I’ve read, I’ve always assumed they preferred the neck.

Dacian leans in. Heat flashes over my face when he replies, his velvety voice caressing my ear, “Your thigh. It is a bigger artery.”

I am now very aware of his hand hovering over my hip. I lick my lips and grab hold of my belt buckle. A tremble runs through my hands.

But Dacian stops me, his sure fingers over mine. “Thank you, but that will have to wait until another time. America may be the land of fast food, but I savor my meals. Neck is all right for tonight.”

My breath hitches in my throat. There is a promise there. It’s full of want, tamed for now, but when all of this is over, when we’re alone again in the tangle of sheets with all the time in the world and nothing keeping us apart…

I nod. “All right.”

I hear Dacian’s murmured confirmation as he circles his arms around me and his mouth inches closer to my neck. I shiver in anticipation, but the first touch that comes is not that of fangs piercing my flesh. It’s Dacian’s lips pressing softly to the skin below my ear—once, twice—then he moves down, following the pulse in my vein.

Unhurriedly, he kisses me like there’s nothing more he wants in the world than to simply be with me. My eyes close. My body turns pliant in his embrace, lulled by the gentleness of his touch. It makes me forget about everything—the rest of the world, the fight with the legacies, even the offer I made just moments ago —until a sharp pain pierces my skin. It explodes across my neck just above my shoulder. I gasp, and my arms go stiff around Dacian, instinctively trying to shove him away, but a second later, the hurt subsides, and I’m overtaken by a rush of warmth. It flushes over my entire body, and suddenly every sensation is amplified: the feel of Dacian’s tongue on my neck; the strong clasp of his arms, every muscle defined like he’s carved from marble; the quiet and infinitely erotic sucking noise that his mouth makes. It leaves me dizzy and breathless.

My legs fold, but he holds me up, stopping me from collapsing, and lowers me carefully onto the carpet of fallen leaves. There’s a shimmer all around him now as steam rises from his wounds, all the damage mending right in front of my eyes. He’s like a celestial body that has descended to Earth, his own sun and moons illuminating the voluptuous darkness that envelops us.

He pulls away after what could be moments or millennia. With his eyes closed, he takes a deep breath and then slowly exhales with contentment. The forest seems to sigh along with him.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

His shimmering eyelashes lift, showing the intoxicating scarlet irises underneath. I truly don’t know how to answer. All I know is that I need him. Every cell in my body yearns to be close to him, to crash into him and erase all the distance between us.

Clumsily, I reach for his lips, but he leans away. “You wouldn’t like the taste,” he whispers, self-conscious.

“I don’t care,” I half growl, unapologetically drunk on him, and kiss him anyway—on the corner of his mouth until I can wrestle his face toward me. His resistance lasts for only a moment before he gives in and kisses me back, my tongue colliding with his in a mad urge to embrace each other.

The taste is sharp with lingering undertones of metal, but I barely notice it. A million sensations and thoughts swirl in my head as Dacian’s hands find their way underneath my sweatshirt, fingers splayed possessively around my waist. He’s so much warmer to the touch now that he’s eaten, almost feverish. I want him to keep going, to yank these clothes off of me and touch me everywhere. But Dacian pulls away.

“I… I should go back and find them before they kill again,” he says, visibly struggling to convince himself.

We both know he’s right, though. The consequences of letting Mads and Grady escape are too great, not only for Dacian but for anyone else they might encounter.

I try to do the right thing and order myself to get up, but my fingers stay clasped around his jacket.

His lips curve up. “Thank you, Jonathan,” he says as he helps me to my feet.

“I’m yours,” I say, swaying a little. “I will always be yours.”

There is a fondness in his eyes when he replies, “I will let you rethink that invitation when you feel a little more yourself again.”

I want to argue that I haven’t felt more like myself in a very long time, but instead, I gasp as he scoops me up in his arms again and springs off the ground.

“Try not to move too much,” he warns me, covering my head with his hand. Before I can ask what he means by that, Dacian zooms through the air like a supersonic jet, and my heart flips.

The world blurs into a canvas of rugged black lines with a streak of silver that is Dacian’s shimmer. His warning not to move proves unnecessary because I can’t move. My body is pushed into him like I’m on an airplane taking off.

It took him several minutes to travel a safe distance from the legacies’ house, but it takes only a few seconds for him to return to it. The ground shakes on impact when he lands; the little pieces of gravel around his boots shoot up into the air.

“Stay by me,” he says as he puts me down on the path leading to the front of the house. His eyes narrow as he senses danger.

Mads and Callahan are still here. Alerted by our arrival, they quickly emerge from the house, each holding a jerrycan. Are they trying to set the place ablaze to destroy the evidence of what they’ve done?

“Look, the old fuck is back,” Grady growls.

“And he brought his little rat back too,” Mads adds. “Didn’t go splat-splat after all.” He fixes me with a look of cruel amusement. My stomach feels queasy. My shoulders ache from his grip, and my throat is still scratchy from being forced to skydive without a parachute.

Grady puts down his gasoline can. “Haven’t you learned your time is over? It’s our world now. Leave while you still can, old man.”

“If your little rat runs fast enough, we’ll even spare him,” Mads taunts. They both laugh—a horrendous, screeching sound.

I can’t believe their audacity. Did they just tell Dacian to surrender? Do they know who they are talking to? A small dark corner of my soul hopes he obliterates them just for that.

But Dacian doesn’t respond to their insults, doesn’t move a muscle. I glance over at his oddly impassive face; something feels off. At first, I can’t pinpoint what it is. It’s nothing physical, just a feeling of deep unease, the kind of ominous, skin-crawling pull you feel while gazing into a dark tunnel. But moments later, I start to hear it—the howling .

I peer into the woods. The sound is coming from far away but seemingly from every direction at once, and it’s rapidly increasing in volume. It isn’t long before Mads and Callahan hear it, too, and stop laughing.

“What the hell is that?” Grady grits out.

By now, the howling isn’t the only thing out of place—the woods appear to be reacting too. The trees start to shiver, their dark branches vibrating as though in anticipation of something closing in. A lot of something. But no matter how long I stare at the woods, nothing appears there.

I look down at my feet and almost stumble. “What the…”

Dacian is still next to me, as still as a statue, except for his shadow—which is moving . Mine is cast behind me, where it should be, by the glow of the house’s lights, but Dacian’s is defying the laws of physics by lifting off the ground and slithering in front of him. And it’s not just his shadow; plumes of shimmering black mist crawl toward him from the forest, curling around him as though summoned. A gathering of darkness.

Mads and Callahan bare their bloody teeth at Dacian.

“I don’t know what this illusion is, old-timer,” Mads warns him, “but it ain’t going to save you. Your chance to escape has passed!”

Even still, Dacian’s gaze seems far away, and the cloud of shadows starts to swirl in front of him like a vortex, its tendrils blazing through the night air and forming strange, dangerous shapes. The hairs on my neck stand up. His shadows have teeth .

The howling around us becomes impossibly loud. Driven to rage, Mads and Callahan lunge at us. I flinch, ready to get hit, but the legacies never reach us. Two massive shadow wolves jump from Dacian’s vortex and barrel at them like cannonballs. Either unable to react to such speed or simply caught off guard, Mads and Grady can’t evade them. The impact sends their bodies flying. They slam back into the porch. The remaining pillar supporting the portico gives out, and the whole thing crashes down on top of them.

Knowing vampire strength and healing ability, I expect them to recover quickly, but Dacian’s shadows never give them a chance. The wolves bite their way through the collapsed overhang, shredding marble and wooden planks until they reemerge with the legacies’ wrecked bodies in their mouths. They spit them onto the gravel as half a dozen more dark wolves spring out of the vortex and encircle them, snarling like hounds of hell. Steam erupts from Mads and Grady as they try to heal.

Grady manages to get on his feet and swing at one of the wolves, but the moment his fist connects with it, he screams. His arm goes right through the shadow as it turns into mist, only to rematerialize around his limb a split second later, all teeth and rage, shredding his arm into chunks of muscle and splintered bone. He howls in excruciating pain.

Mads tries to mount an attack as well, but Dacian’s wolves are relentless. They pounce on him, flickering between thin mist and their corporeal shapes. They tear Mads and Callahan apart limb by limb. This isn’t a fight. It’s an execution.

Dacian doesn’t call them off until the legacies’ bodies are nothing more than a pile of gory mush and shattered bones. Only then does the snarling finally cease. The wolves retreat into the vortex, and then it collapses with a swoosh, slithering back into Dacian’s shadow.

He steps forward. I’m too stunned, too shaken to follow him. Dacian walks up to the pile of gore and reaches down to lift Mads Jr. by what’s left of his neck. Nausea roils up my throat. Chunks of flesh hang off his face, yet impossibly, he’s still breathing. “Plea…ple…”

I struggle to decipher the gurgling noises that come out of the remains of his mouth. A plea to let him live?

But Dacian is unyielding. The ice in his voice could freeze the ocean. “You don’t know what I am,” he says, sounding suddenly sinister and unfamiliar. “You don’t know where my power comes from. I have been as I will be. And you will return to ash.”

A shiver runs over the back of my neck as I catch sight of Dacian’s mouth. He’s smiling. It’s the same sickening, malicious expression I glimpsed in the memory from his past, where he stood on top of a mountain of corpses, blood streaming from his hands and madness raging in his eyes. I remember his cautionary words about the magic that created him and how difficult it was for him to hold on to himself.

He pulls Mads’ head off his spine with a loud crack. Then he reaches down and effortlessly rips Grady’s head off too. He carries them by the hair toward the house.

I snap out of my stupor. “Wh— Where are you taking them?” I ask, my mouth refusing to form the words on the first try.

Dacian looks over his shoulder. “I’m going to burn them,” he says matter-of-factly. “That is the only way to truly kill a vampire.”

The image of Dacian’s skull being locked up in a box for ninety years flashes in my mind. That’s why he couldn’t die—they only burned his body, not his head.

“Wait! What about all the students inside?” I call after him.

Dacian doesn’t turn around this time. “Everyone is dead.”

Numbly, I sit on the lawn and watch Dacian finish up what the legacies started. He picks up the jerrycan, pours out the rest of the gasoline, and sets the place ablaze. It only takes a few minutes for the fire to engulf the old mansion.

Satisfied, Dacian returns to me.

Unlike Mads Jr. or Callahan, there’s no blood smeared on his face, no trace of the deadly battle he just engaged in. Outwardly, Dacian looks impeccable. However, there’s still something disturbingly wrong about him, as though the wicked shadows he summoned have released their grasp on the legacies and sunk their hungry teeth into his soul instead. For the first time in a long time, I find myself fearing what he is.

“My diary, Jonathan,” he says, extending his hand expectantly.

I stand up. I thought there would be a price to pay for going behind Dacian’s back to retrieve his journal, but he sounds eerily calm. An alarming suspicion sprouts in me.

“What are you going to do with it?” I ask.

He doesn’t bat an eye. “Burn it to ash.”

My heart tumbles. “No,” I say automatically, shaking my head.

“No?” he echoes in disbelief.

“You can’t do that,” I say. “We don’t burn books, Dacian. You, of all people, should know that.”

But my attempt at reasoning with him fails spectacularly. His face changes, suddenly all sharp angles, and he towers over me. “That is no book. It is my diary, Jonathan,” he snarls, his mouth twitching furiously. “Give it to me.”

My body stiffens at the sheer violence in his words. I can see the points of his slightly elongated fangs peeking out from behind his lips. The fire rages behind him, casting him in an ominous light. But I wrap my arms around my front pocket protectively. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t.”

Violence flashes in his eyes. “How dare you!” he roars, and without warning, he shoves me. What would have been a small push had it come from a human, sends me twenty feet backward into the nearest tree. Pain explodes across my back when I collide with its trunk. For a second, my vision blacks out. As I struggle to get over the shock of what Dacian has just done to me, his blurry silhouette leaps over and grabs me by the neck. He lifts me up, pressing me into the tree.

“Why do you want the diary?” he hisses into my face. I’ve never seen him this angry before, and it’s chilling. This isn’t the Dacian I know. This is something else.

I gasp for breath, chasing spots out of my vision.

“Because without it, there will be no truth left about you!” I wheeze desperately. “The whole world will forever think of you as a monster.”

“Well, maybe they’re right. Maybe I am a monster!” he exclaims, glaring at me with his scarlet eyes.

“But you aren’t!” I choke out stubbornly. “If you were, you wouldn’t have saved me. You wouldn’t have come here at all. Why risk your life for your journal or to fight Mads and Callahan? Real monsters don’t care about other people.”

Surprise registers on his furious face. His grip on my neck slackens a fraction. But still, he does not concede. “One good deed is not enough to change what I’ve done.”

My throat aches, and I struggle for air. I don’t know if I can get through to him when he’s like this, but I mustn’t give up trying. Everyone he’s ever met gave up on him. But I won’t be like them.

“You’re right—one good deed is not enough,” I agree as my eyes begin to sting. Smoke fills the air around us. “But this isn’t judgment day, Dacian. You still have years of deeds ahead of you, possibly centuries. Are you saying those don’t matter? Nobody is proud of everything they’ve done, but you have to live with all of it. It’s called being human. Each choice, good and bad, gets you closer to who you really are. Your book is still being written. If you’re going to burn it before your story is finished, you’ll have to toss me into the flames with it because I’m not letting go!” I cry out desperately. Tears are rolling down my face now.

Dacian’s eyes widen. For a moment, he just stands there, frozen. The fire crackles loudly behind him, and the house makes an anguished screech as a section of the roof caves in.

“I could never do that,” he finally whispers.

His grip on my neck loosens. His thumb slides up to gently hold my jaw. The violent glare fades from his eyes, leaving them unbearably sad, like everything he’s been running away from for centuries has caught up with him at once. “What would you have me do, Jonathan?” he asks mournfully.

My lips tremble from trying to stifle my sobs. “Let me be the keeper of your story. I promise your truth will be safe with me.”

A bright swirl of embers erupts and disappears into the dark sky as he considers.

Then he pitches forward, his arms encircling my shoulders. His lips draw near my ear. “Very well, Jonathan,” he whispers.

Still shaking and deadly tired, I collapse into him, let myself feel the warmth of his embrace. This is the Dacian I know. He’s back. My fingers grab hold of his jacket, terrified to let go. Whatever just happened, we can talk about it later. Or not at all. Right now, all I want is to get out of here and put this carnage behind us.

But as the words leave Dacian’s mouth, my vision turns wobbly. Before I can fully register that he’s using his powers on me, I’m too far gone to protest. My eyelids fall shut, and I tumble into the deep, cold darkness.

When I wake again, it’s morning. I’m tucked into my bed with Dacian’s journal on my bedside table next to the box of Clay’s letters, but Dacian is no longer here. I can feel it in my bones, even before I rush to his house and find it boarded up and empty. Even before the announcement of instructor change for Gothic lit lands in my mailbox. He has left just like he said he would. In the end, nothing I did was enough to change his mind.