Page 55 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends

Travis straightened the sleeves of his jacket, tightened the bolo tie at his neck, and raised his hands.

An older woman froze in her tracks mid-twirl on the dance floor, putting her hands to her temples and shaking her head vigorously.

A man with thick black eyeliner stopped reaching for a bat-shaped truffle and started looking around frantically like a dog watching a fly.

A girl about Brennan’s age turned and sprinted out of the room, nearly knocking over someone wearing an impressive amount of body glitter.

At the same time, the burning itch of thirst grew in Brennan’s throat.

All around him the vampires of the room glitched, confused and panicked.

Brennan felt ice creep up his body. How had he thought it would be as simple as stopping Travis from spiking the punch? Of course Travis could do whatever he wanted. Dom had warned him—he was scarily powerful, and Brennan had gravely miscalculated.

Which meant the next best plan was to keep shit from going south as long as he could, to distract Travis long enough for Dom to bring Sunny and Nellie.

Across the room, Cole frantically texted their chat with updates. Brennan’s phone ping ed. He ignored it. The humans at the ball eyed the odd behaviors with judgment, not realizing what was happening.

Except for one girl, the one from freaking Reddit, Micah, who took it in with wide eyes and shaking hands.

“I knew it,” she breathed.

The eyelinered vampire guy stumbled toward her, twitching, fangs bared. But she stood frozen, speaking like prayer.

“I knew it was real, I knew it—”

The guy reared back, poised to strike. But before he could lunge, Tony skidded to a stop in front of the girl, wielding an oversized water gun, which he pumped menacingly a few times before unleashing a stream of what Brennan knew to be the most pungent batch of garlic sauce Tony could muster.

The vampire hissed and stumbled back, gagging and retching. Brennan winced. It wasn’t harmful, but it stung a little and smelled atrocious enough to stave off even the deepest of thirsts. At least for a moment.

“That’s right,” Tony jeered. “Anyone makes a move, you get a mouthful of Grandma Esposito’s finest scampi. Extra garlic .” He pumped the water gun to punctuate the threat.

Behind Tony, Micah fumbled for her phone and started recording, her phone pointed at the twitching vampire guy, then flickering toward Travis and Brennan.

Shit. Goddammit.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Travis said.

The grand doors to the ballroom slammed shut with a whoosh, and the lights flickered as wind began to rush around them. The gusts swirled violently, with Travis at the eye of the storm.

People yelled out in surprise and fear as the storm mussed their dresses and hair. Blood packs began flying from the cart and from people’s hands, snacks from the food table lifting up to join a threatening tornado.

Travis burst into a laugh, and panic erupted. If some had thought this was a cute vampire-ball gimmick, now they were scared. Brennan whirled around as people started screaming and rushing toward the closed doors, as even furniture was swept up in Travis’s storm.

The musicians stopped playing for less than a second before Travis shot them a grin through the chaos and said, voice laced with magical influence, “Don’t stop on my account.”

They obediently continued playing, if a bit more of a harried tune.

The affected vampires remained cornered by Tony’s garlic gun, but most of the humans yanked at the doors, which refused to budge.

Then there was Micah and a few Reddit companions, valiantly filming on their phones while cowering against the walls.

The news was out, or would be soon. Vampires in Boston. Brennan had failed. Dom and Sunny and Nellie weren’t coming to save them.

Brennan found Cole’s eyes across the ballroom. “Get out of here!” He had to shout over the gusts of wind. Even with the roar of it, Brennan could see, if not hear, Cole’s adamant “ No! ” in response.

Brennan lifted his arm to shield his eyes with the back of his hand, pressing forward toward Travis even as the wind pushed him back.

“You know, Brennan, you’re really the most disappointing turn I’ve had,” Travis said. “I thought you would understand. I thought, there’s someone who will understand the hell I’m living. But you don’t. No one does.”

“You don’t have to do this!” The wind carried his voice away. Brennan wasn’t sure Travis heard it.

But he responded, so dry and empty, “What else is there to do?”

Brennan hesitated, wind whipping his hair into his face, and he vowed that if he survived this, he would chop it off.

“You choose humanity,” Travis spat. “Don’t you see?

These things are like flies. What will you do, decades from now, when all these little things you care about are long gone?

” Travis let out a roar and the wind picked up.

He extended one hand, and in an instant, a crushing invisible force went around Brennan’s throat like a fist.

Brennan struggled against it, clawing at his own neck.

“I’ll find new things to keep me human,” Brennan managed. “New reasons to—to try to be good. You just have to try. ”

The fountain behind Travis wobbled, wavered, and fell, sending rushing waves of red punch splashing over Travis and across the white marble floor. Travis stumbled and the wind sputtered, and Brennan gasped for air.

Behind the fallen fountain was none other than Cole.

Travis was drenched in sticky red sugar water that looked like thinned-out blood, and he straightened his jacket before turning to glower at Cole.

Travis reached out a hand. Cole went taut and was pulled forward by an invisible force until his throat was in Travis’s grip.

“You’re young and naive. But as soon as this one dies, you won’t be.” He pulled Cole toward him, Cole’s back to his front, and his fangs glinted as they drew out. Brennan’s heart stopped. Cole was stock-still in Travis’s grip, frozen in fear or thrall, and Brennan was going to have to beg.

But then Cole leaned forward—

“I’m not a fucking chew toy. ”

And reared back to headbutt Travis with all the force he could muster.

Travis was an immortal vampire, and it couldn’t have hurt much, but it was enough of a shock to buy Cole a second to dart out of his grasp and sprint to Brennan.

Cole took his hand at his side, where he fucking belonged as far as Brennan was concerned.

“I’m so in love with you,” Brennan blurted out.

“Not the time, darlin’,” Cole said, but he smiled like nothing else mattered.

They faced Travis together.

The wind picked back up. People were shouting. But everything seemed to slow down around Brennan, where his hand intertwined with Cole’s, and he felt unstoppable. Infinite. And understanding dawned on him, clicking into place like a puzzle piece.

He’d been so afraid of turning into someone like Travis, someone distanced from humanity, utterly alone and far too old for this world. Someone who’d loved and lost too many times. But now he pitied him.

Ancient and empty, no humanity, no purpose.

Throwing a tantrum at a party for attention.

Crying out for help.

Hurting people because he’d been hurt, just like every other human on this fucking planet.

Travis had succeeded in outing vampires and throwing a temper tantrum, but he didn’t have to succeed in this. In his swan song.

Brennan needed to say something. He needed to say something fast.

His brain moved too fast and too slow at once, wading through information and angles and late nights of reading and what came out was—

“I’m sorry,” Brennan said. “About Shea.”

“Don’t say her name,” Travis roared. The wind lashed against Brennan’s face like whips, but he refused to stop.

“It must be lonely without her,” Brennan said. “Thousands of years old in a changing world.”

“You understand nothing, ” Travis said.

“I understand you more than I want to.”

The words hung in the air. The winds raged on. Brennan took a step closer. He didn’t know why, but if he could reach Travis, he thought he might be able to get through to him.

“Okay, yeah, maybe I don’t know what it’s like to be thousands of years old and watch everyone you know age and die while you stay the same. Maybe I won’t really understand until I’ve lived it.”

“Brennan,” Cole warned.

The wind whipped faster, but Cole’s grip didn’t waver.

“But this, right now? I understand perfectly,” Brennan said, taking one step closer. “You’re lonely, and you’re tired, and you’re lashing out at everything because it hurts too much not to.”

The wind slowed.

“You were good once.” He took another step forward. “You could be again.” And another.

Travis opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Everything swirling in the air dropped to the ground, collapsing onto the sticky red floor.

He was thinking. He was teetering on the edge of believing, and Brennan was begging him to choose correctly.

The grand doors slammed open. Brennan didn’t tear his eyes from Travis’s.

“Travis,” Brennan pleaded.

Travis’s eyes caught on something over Brennan’s shoulder. Something like resignation flickered over him.

“Make sure someone takes care of Rosie,” Travis said.

And Brennan was so busy trying to decipher that, he didn’t see the commotion behind him. He only saw the blur of motion, a flash of dark hair and a red velvet dress. He processed Dom, processed Micah tossing her the stake from her belt, processed Cole’s shout—

“Dom, wait!”

Before the stake plunged into Travis’s chest.

In the split second before Travis died, the only emotion on his face was relief.

Travis collapsed. There was no blood. No scream. The quartet stopped playing, and the room fell silent.

The quiet left behind by the wind was deafening.

Slowly, Dom slid to the floor, falling to her knees beside him, and sobbed quietly.

Brennan looked around. Everyone had spread out to the edges of the room, as far from Travis, Brennan, and Cole as possible.

They all watched the spectacle with wide eyes, except for a few unaffected vampires watching with bored or amused expressions, like this was an average Saturday night.

And there, before the doors, were Nellie and Sunny, dressed to the nines and alive and awake and okay.

Next to them were two vampires Brennan recognized from Facebook, Quinn and Narrissa, along with Mari, who rushed in with a janitorial cart loaded with blood.

Nellie locked eyes with Brennan. She smiled, soft and proud.

Mari started doling out blood packs. An older woman ripped into one with her fangs and chugged it.

Dressed in a purple tea-length dress, Sunny didn’t miss a beat. She used the silence to gracefully stride up to the microphone by the quartet of musicians who were only now looking around in confusion, released from Travis’s thrall.

“A huge thanks to the Sturbridge University drama troupe for their impressive performance,” Sunny said, each word crisp and pointed.

The words sounded candy-coated, and Brennan realized they were imbued with magic.

“And to the special-effects team that made it possible.” She started a small, polite golf clap that people slowly but surely joined.

She was using her vampire powers on a huge room full of humans. Something about that would have terrified Brennan a few months ago, but now it was the ultimate comfort. She was protecting them. That was her job.

“Of course, you’ll all comply in deleting any photos and videos of the performance from your phones,” Sunny added, the magic laced in her words cutting hard enough that even Brennan felt a tug to clear out his recent photo album.

Around Brennan, people reached for their phones, even the Redditors. Only Micah paused, staring at her phone with pinched brows before tapping, reluctant but obedient.

“Wow,” someone remarked behind him as the crowd finished applauding and started to edge away from cowering near the walls. “The budget this year must have been astronomical.”

“Was that KeepItSunny from Instagram?” someone else asked.

Sunny stepped away from the mic and waved at Quinn and Narrissa, who easily picked up Travis and left the room, like they were clearing a set.

Nellie went to Dom, who was crying on the floor.

The quartet began to play again.

And that was it.

It was over.

Travis was dead.

They’d won. But Travis had gotten exactly what he wanted.