* *

“I’m sorry, Two.” Sam said. She was holding a gun, pointing it at Two, looking sick with fear and shame and regret. “I’m so sorry. Two, I’m sorry.”

“You fucking bitch...”

“You don’t understand!” Samantha was crying. “He came to me last night. He said if ... if I didn’t tell him what you were going to do, he’d never finish me! I didn’t have a choice!”

Two was taken aback. “Never finish you?”

Samantha took a step forward. “He gave me a taste last night. Just a drop, and ... the blood, you know what it’s like. I’ve never felt so good in my whole life. I want more. I need more.”

“Not like this, Samantha. You don’t want what he’s offering.”

“I do! How could I not want it? He’s a god, and he promised me I could be like him. Never sick, never weak, living forever ...”

Abraham observed them, silent, smiling to himself. Two whirled, faced him, hatred now beating down the last of her fear.

“Tell her! Tell her the truth! Tell her what your blood does!”

“The truth, Two? The truth is that I have escaped the curse of my blood. I have discovered, through much experimentation, that my blood can be diluted. I can have now what I could never have before: a true fledgling, dedicated and attentive. I will dole out my blood in small amounts, and slowly Samantha will be transformed.”

“A slave, Abraham. That’s what she’ll always be to you. You’ll never finish her, and even if you do, you’ll keep her here forever.”

“Can you take the word of this prostitute, Samantha? This whore who would throw away your chance at immortality for the sake of her dead lover?”

Two turned back to Sam, plaintive. “Sam, please...”

“I don’t want to shoot you. Just ... just hold out your hands.” Sam took another step forward. A third. The distance was rapidly closing. Two took her own step backward.

“Hold them out and what, Sam? Let you tie me up? Let him drag me some place and kill me?”

Abraham spoke again. “This end was inevitable, Two, from the moment you murdered my daughter. Make it easy for Samantha, and I shall make it ... easier, for you.”

Two closed her eyes and felt despair welling. It ate at her courage once again. Accept this? Get it over with? Lay down and die?

Inside her something grew. A spark became a flicker, a flicker a blaze. Death meant reunion with Theroen, so what reason was there to fear it? If she must die at Abraham’s hand, so be it. She would do so on her own terms, though, not on his.

Samantha was nearly within grabbing distance, her gun visibly shaking as cold and nerves took their toll on her body. Two looked up at her, met her eyes, and shook her head.

“I’m so sorry, Samantha.”

Action as instinct. Two moved so quickly that Sam had no chance of stopping her. Abraham might have, if he’d wanted to, but Abraham simply stood where he was, his black grin never wavering. In one swift move, she drew Darren’s gun from the waistband of her pants, leveled it at the girl in front of her, and fired. Once. Twice. A third shot went wild, but it didn’t matter.

The first bullet hit Samantha in the neck. The second entered at her forehead and removed the top half of Samantha’s skull, spraying it backward in a gout of bone and brain. Samantha’s upper body was thrown backward with the force and when her hands clenched in a spasm of death and her gun fired, the shot went well over Two’s head. Sam landed on her back in the sleet and mud, exhaled a long, rattling sigh, and lay still.

Two was already spinning, pointing the gun at Abraham, and now he moved. She felt it yanked from her grip before she could squeeze off another shot. A hand she couldn’t see collided with her midsection and sent her hurtling backwards, rain-softened ground rising up to meet her. On pavement, the landing would have shattered bone. Two lay in the grass, writhing in pain. Abraham towered over her, grinning madly.

“That was wonderful,” he said, and Two could hear real satisfaction in his voice. She felt disgust filling her and found her breath.

“You sick, crazy ...”

Abraham cut her off. “Yes, yes ... I’ve heard it before, from better than you. Can you still run, little girl?

“Break as many of my fucking ribs as you want, bastard. I can run.”

“Then I think you had better do