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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Theo watched in mute horror as Victor stepped over Carol’s limp body to cup his beloved’s cheeks. Aaron was still warm in his arms. Kade sat next to him, holding Felicity back from charging after the unconscious Mrs. Fletcher.

I’m gonna have to tell her what happened , Theo realized dully. He pressed harder, desperate and useless, on Aaron’s wounds.

Victor nuzzled Cyth’s hairline. “As beautiful as the day I lost you.”

Cyth stared up at him, her dark eyes keen and wonderous. “I knew you’d come for me.”

“Always,” he vowed.

She cracked her neck. It extended horribly, her limbs lengthening, her skin growing even paler. Wings burst from her back. She smiled eagerly, her mouth full of fangs.

“We have a town to raze,” she said. “But first, let’s take care of your lock and key. We hardly need them now.”

She turned toward Kade, who was still holding Felicity down. Her gaze was dismissive, the same way everyone’s gaze was dismissive when it came to Kade “Monster” Renfield. Like Kade wasn’t Theo’s whole world.

Theo roared.

It went on and on, splintering in his throat.

“Ah,” Victor said quietly. “Finally.”

Theo dropped Aaron and stood. His bones lengthened, his skin stretched and turned white. Wings tore out of his back, huge and horrible.

“Theo,” Kade whispered.

Theo ignored him, shaking his wings out with a hiss. He’d been searching for the monster inside him, and he’d finally found it.

If he looked at Kade, he would see the horror on his face. The wrongness of watching the love of his life turn into something unrecognizable. But Theo was too focused on Cyth, who was watching him transform with detached curiosity.

Theo screeched. Then he flared his wings and streaked toward Cyth.

Victor clicked his tongue. “Attack.”

Sparky leapt to intercept Theo, a rush of black fur and sorrowful red eyes.

Theo tried to slow down, but he was already in midair. He slammed into Sparky, sending them rolling into a tree. Theo shielded Sparky with his wings, taking the brunt of the blow. Then they were struggling in the dirt, Sparky snapping at his face, whining all the while.

Theo blocked her, letting her sink her teeth into his unnaturally long arm.

“It’s me,” he said, his voice strange and rough. “Hey! We worked on this! I know you. You’re not his. You don’t want to hurt me, you don’t want to hurt anybody .”

Sparky growled, trembling. She forced her teeth deeper into his arm, even as she whimpered. Trying to wrest herself free.

Theo gritted his fangs against the pain. He used the leverage to drag her closer, fixing his eyes on hers. “You don’t want to hurt anybody,” he repeated.

Sparky’s jaw relaxed. She spasmed, then jerked back, licking furiously at Theo’s wounds.

Theo slumped, stroking her head. “There we go. We’re not his. He made us, but that doesn’t make us his. We?—”

Theo stopped. He’d spent this whole time thinking he needed to be vicious to win this fight. To become what his father always told him. Both times he escaped these fights, it wasn’t because he was vicious. The first time, it was because he recognized a fire eye plant while he was bleeding out. Because Kade distracted Hawthorn at just the right moment. The second time, it was because the Sloans came in to save the day.

Sparky kept licking the tooth marks as Theo’s skin turned pinker. His limbs shortened once more, wings shriveling back into his shoulders. Human again. Or as close as he could get.

Theo tipped his head back and yelled with every ounce of hope he had left in him: “HELP! WE’RE HERE! HELP US!”

Kade cursed as he watched Sparky and Theo tumble into the tree.

“Now would be a great time for you to come back,” he told Felicity, who was unhappily pinned under him.

She thrashed, trying to bite his arm.

“Or not,” Kade said shakily.

Theo yelled from the trees. Calling for help. Victor looked back at him, annoyed. He stepped toward him.

“Not yet,” Cyth told him. She was still moving languidly toward Kade. Other than a faint wildness in her eyes, she hadn’t changed from the woman he’d seen in the visions. This wasn’t her first time being trapped for generations.

Kade shivered under her gaze and lowered to hiss in Felicity’s ear: “ Hey . I need you on my team right now, or we’re screwed. I need knife-throwing Liss, not out of her mind with bloodlust Liss. You already ate one guy, stop being greedy.”

He glanced over at Aaron’s body, guilt coursing through him. This was going to destroy her.

The scent of fresh blood hit Kade in a wave.

Cyth was dragging Mrs. Fletcher’s unconscious body over. Her head was cocked, watching him twitch as she dropped her bleeding body a foot away.

“There is an admirable monster in these two,” she told Victor. She knelt to meet Kade’s gaze, smiling when he shrank back. Her eyes were so dark . He’d never seen her with normal eyes, even in the visions. It was as if this was her true self, and any human form was a disgrace.

“She is still settling,” she said, wings folding neatly behind her. “But you —it is in you, is it not? Deep as bones. Deep as soul. You’ve known you’re a monster long before you were given fangs.”

Kade held his breath. But he could still smell it: rich blood, pulsing sluggishly from the holes in Mrs. Fletcher’s neck. She’d tried to kill him. She did kill him. If anyone deserved to be drained, it was her. Right?

“You could join us,” Cyth continued in that soft, scraping voice. “I can feel how much you hate this town. Wouldn’t you like revenge for all it’s done to you?”

Kade swallowed. The hunger howled inside him, almost as deafening as Mrs. Fletcher’s slowing heartbeat. Watching the town burn down was one of his go-to fantasies in freshman year. Whenever he’d been pushed to the ground or barked at in the hallway or Aaron ignored him again, he’d imagine pushing a drum of gasoline under the gym and setting a match.

It would be satisfying. But Kade was so tired of being the town monster.

Felicity went rigid underneath him. Her eyes were wide with panic, twisting to see who was on top of her.

“Where are we?” she slurred. “What happened? Why is Aaron’s mom—?” She froze as she noticed Cyth and Victor’s monstrous forms.

Cyth waved a clawed hand. “Hello, vampling. Would you like to join us?”

Felicity barked an outraged laugh. “Would you like to shut the hell up?”

Kade clambered off her and pulled her to her feet. They needed to find the others. Regroup. But first, they needed to get Theo and get the hell out. This wasn’t a fight they could win, not with three of them?—

“HEY!”

Kade turned.

Theo stood in the splinters of the tree he’d crashed into. No wings, no pale, sleeting skin—he was once more the boy Kade had fallen in love with. Sparky stood at his side, tail wagging.

“You’re very loud tonight,” Victor called. “I heard your pathetic little cry for help. It’s like all those years of parenting never happened.”

“It happened,” Theo replied coolly, hands in fists at his sides. “I’ll probably still be recovering from it when I’m a hundred.”

“Well, I don’t see…” Victor trailed off as vampires emerged from the trees.

Ryan Emmerson, their eyes bleeding black. Delilah Emmerson at their side, teeth bared. Sundance with moonshine glass studding her bare arms, Skeeter carrying two axes at once and panting nervously. Milly with a bloody mouth, her facial scar healed. Interestingly, her eye had not. It was still flat white, staring through the smoke unwaveringly.

Russel covered in fire eye burns and carrying Beverly Sloan, who had a giant duffel bag in her lap and a crossbow leveled at Victor’s heart.

Cyth inclined her head. “Minions. I see your appetite has been whetted. The night only gets better from here.”

“Oh, shut it,” Sundance snarled. “And while you’re at it, get the hell away from those kids.”

Victor laughed. “What is this, Theo?”

Theo’s shoulders sagged. Kade could see it in him, the same thing he’d see if he was looking in a mirror: Theo was tired of being a monster, too.

“Let’s end this story already,” Theo said.

Victor’s wings spasmed, his mouth twisting in a snarl. “You really think that I’m going to let some ragtag band of vamplings take me down after I finally achieved what I set out to do two hundred years ago?”

“I don’t think you’re going to let me do anything,” Theo said. “I think?—”

An anguished cry cut them off. Felicity was on her knees next to Aaron, cradling his bloody face. She raised his shaky red hand to her mouth. For a moment Kade thought she was going to lick it.

Then she looked up, peeling her lips back into a ferocious snarl.

“I’m going to FUCKING kill you,” she screamed at Victor.

Then she leapt. Everybody leapt with her, weapons drawn.

Kade landed on Victor’s wings and started ripping. Victor screamed and bucked, trying to shove him off. Then Skeeter’s ax slammed into his elbow and he turned to swipe at her instead.

Something burned Kade’s cheek. He whirled to see Beverly tossing him one end of a fire eye net.

“Pin them down,” she barked. “Let’s see how they like being prey for once.”

Kade grabbed the net, clenching his jaw as it singed his palms. He wrapped it around Victor’s wings and threw it around Victor’s front where Theo was waiting.

Victor roared. His burned arm flashed out, and the net tore.

“Another,” Theo barked.

Kade caught the next net. And the next. His hands smoked, the air filling with the stench of burned flesh as they wound net after net around Cyth and Victor. First their wings were trapped. Then their legs. Kade ducked and weaved and lunged, getting a claw in the face and Ryan Emmerson’s leather-clad elbow slammed into his nose as they gained ground.

Beverly stood back, firing arrow after arrow into the increasingly trapped monsters. Felicity screamed, gouging chunks out of them with her claws. Skeeter’s ax buried itself in Cyth’s shoulder, Russel’s claws slashed her cheek open, Milly shoved a shard of moonshine glass in Victor’s eye.

“Catch,” Theo yelled.

Kade turned. Theo was dragging a can of gasoline from Beverly’s bag, eyes on him as he threw.

Kade caught it and poured it over Victor’s head.

Victor spat out a mouthful of foul liquid and shrieked. His trapped leg struck out and snapped the net pinning it down.

“Liss,” Kade yelled, and threw.

Felicity caught it in midair. She splashed gasoline into Cyth’s arrow-studded torso. Liquid leaked into her black intestines.

Cyth lunged at her, teeth tearing through the net and searing her gums.

Felicity ducked out of the way and tossed the gasoline to Skeeter.

Nets snapped. More nets piled on. Gasoline flowed, tossed from person to person until Cyth and Victor were dripping with it.

“Kade,” Theo panted. “Lighter.”

Kade fumbled the silver lighter out of his pocket. He’d polished it last night, like always.

Victor snarled up at them from the dirt. His wings were trapped against his back, the fire eye net binding him tight against a struggling Cyth.

“Going to have to be vicious,” he told Theo as Sundance poured one more splash of gasoline over their writhing bodies. “If you want to kill me, you’ll have to become the very thing I always?—”

Theo cut him off. “Victor. Shut up.”

Kade threw the lighter.

The forest lit up. Inhuman screams rang through the trees. Kade averted his eyes as they thrashed, only to find that Theo was doing the same thing.

“This is taking too long,” Felicity growled. She grabbed an ax from Beverly and strode up to the flaming vampires.

Theo flinched. Kade touched his sleeve, instinctually making sure not to get too close to his bare hand.

“Felicity,” Milly said, slurring around her fangs. “We should pick?—”

Felicity heaved the ax down. Then again. And again. It took five in total for the screams to go silent. The vampires’ heads rolled onto the forest floor, still smoldering.

“There,” Felicity said shakily. “D-done.”

She swayed on the spot. Then she collapsed. Beverly and Skeeter ran to her side.

Kade looked at Theo, confused.

“He sired her,” Theo reminded him. “Kill your sire and turn human again.”

Kade squeezed his eyes shut. “Right. Shit.”

He stared at Felicity’s lax body a moment longer, then tugged at Theo’s sleeve. “Come on.”

Kade led him away from the bodies. Away from an unconscious Felicity, whose heart was starting to beat once more. Away from their classmates bleeding black and Russel doing his best to craft an eyepatch for Ryan Emmerson while their newly gouged eyes grew back in. Away from Mrs. Fletcher, who was starting to moan. Away from Theo’s mom lying motionless on the ground. They would have to do something about them all—but not right now.

Kade led him into the trees and turned to face him. Black blood was drying in Theo’s hair. Burns covered his arms. He was so beautiful Kade ached.

Theo gestured at Kade’s cheek. “You have something.”

“Come and get it then,” Kade whispered.

Theo took off one glove and reached up. His fingertips were cool and lovely as they stroked the grime away, and Kade marveled. He’d been starving for such a simple touch for so long.

Theo cupped Kade’s face. He watched Kade with disbelief and wonder, like he had never felt anything as glorious as Kade’s sharp cheekbones. He pressed their foreheads together, nuzzled his nose. If Kade still had a heartbeat, it would have stuttered.

Then Theo kissed him. It was exhausted and bloody and sweet, everything Kade had been wanting for the last year.

The last seventeen years.

The last two hundred, depending on who you asked.