him a sharp look—well, as sharp as possible with swollen eyelids—and bared her fangs.
“Sorry.” He coughed. “The House of Shadows.”
“How did you even know this was going down?” I asked. “I didn’t say anything about it.”
“Are you kidding?” Lee nodded toward Mrs. Cassopolis. “They got a freaking invitation. It was the talk of the town. Everyone knew.”
“Tell your mother I said to thank her for the Bundt cake recipe,” Mrs. Cassopolis said in a distant voice.
“Right,” I said to Lee. “So you decided to . . . what, exactly?”
He sighed and rested his head against the wall. “I just thought I’d drive out and lurk around the outskirts. Just in case.” He patted the busted light box with his good hand. “I wanted to know if it would work. When I saw the squad car hit the lights and fly out after Jen’s old beater, I figured something was wrong, and I followed as fast as I could.” He lowered his voice. “Cody Fairfax is in the database, isn’t he?”
I glanced in Cody’s direction. “Shh.”
“Sorry.”
“He’s a werewolf, duh.” Bethany dusted herself off. A flaky flurry of burned skin settled around her. “I should have figured that out in high school. Oh, but you’re not allowed to gossip about any of this.” She pointed at her mother. “Or I’ll be back. And the next time, I’ll be angry.”
Lee gave a dry laugh. “This wasn’t angry?”
“Everyone’s still breathing, aren’t they?” She jerked her chin at her father. “Including him. Is he gonna be okay?”
Cody straightened. “Yeah. No thanks to you.” He ran one hand through his hair and looked soberly at her. “Listen, I’m not your enemy. And you’ve got to realize things are different now. For the rest of your existence, you’re just one slipup away from villagers with pitchforks and torches. Okay?”
Bethany shrugged. “Whatever.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know. But this had to be done.” Ignoring Cody, she pinned her father with a flat stare. “You do understand me, don’t you, old man?”
He gritted his teeth. “Yes.”
“Good.”
At Cody’s suggestion, I got Lee onto his feet and into the living room while Cody went to retrieve the first-aid kit from the cruiser. Jen was in the kitchen making coffee because that’s the sort of thing you do when you’re trying to reestablish a sense of normalcy and you have no idea what else to do, and Brandon was playing some kind of first-person shooter military video game with a twelve-year-old’s determined intensity, blocking out the reality of the world around him in which his newly risen vampire sister had very nearly killed his father.
“Korengal Valley Mission?” Lee asked, settling onto the couch beside him with a wince, still cradling his arm.
Brandon glanced at him. “Yeah.”
He smiled. “I might have a few tips for you.”
Fifteen minutes later, Brandon had the mother lode of insider advice on how to advance in Korengal Valley Mission, Cody had Lee’s broken forearm splinted and taped to his body, and Bethany was ready to go back to the House of Shadows.
“Give me a lift?” she asked her sister. “You don’t have to come in, but I’d really rather not call Geoffrey. Or steal your car.”
Hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, Jen gave her a slow, measuring look. “Beth, do you really expect me to believe you’ve been planning this for eight years?”
Her sister shrugged. “Well, not exactly.”
Jen said nothing.
The television emitted staccato bursts of gunfire. Lee and Brandon bent their heads together, murmuring. Cody’s portable police radio crackled and he stepped outside to handle the call.
“I was and I wasn’t,” Bethany said softly. “I mean . . . that’s what I meant to happen at the beginning. That’s how it started, that’s what I went looking for. I got lost along the way. A lot lost. And I’m sorry. I never meant to abandon you. I didn’t. I never meant to leave you alone to deal with all their shit and take care of Brandon. But I’m back now. I was weak for a while, okay? Maybe for a long while, but now I’m strong. You can move out, get a life. Quit worrying about Brandon. I’ll make sure nothing bad ever happens to him.”
Damn. If you’d told me that after eight years of being a sniveling, clingy blood-slut, Bethany Cassopolis would turn out to be one badass vampire, I wouldn’t have believed it. Aside from a few flakes of charred skin clinging to her glossy black hair, she even looked good, already healed from the blast of artificial