"They wouldn't give me a room. I drove six hundred miles to come to this conference, and then they wouldn't even give me a room."

"'Cause of your age."

"Yeah."

"You ever done anything like this before, Lucy?"

She shook her head. "But I thought about it a lot."

"Wait. This was your first time?" She nodded. The man got a big grin on his face. "Well, how was it for you?"

"Amazing."

"Yeah?"

"The blood was beautiful. So warm. I took my clothes off and rolled around in it."

The man's eyes sparkled. "I remember mine like it was yesterday. I'd give anything to go back and do it again for the first time." He reached his hand out. "I'm Orson."

She shook it.

He looked around the room. "So our friend in the shower. Who is he?"

"A writer."

"Oh, shit. What's his name?"

"Mark Darling."

"Never heard of him."

She pointed to the box of books. "Those are his books over there."

Orson went over to the box and lifted a book, flipped through it, glanced at the back. "This is his first novel. That's good."

"Why?"

"No one here probably knows who he is, so he won't be missed. Come on, where's your stuff?"

"Over there. Why?"

"Pack it up. You're coming with me."

"No."

"You can't stay in here, Lucy."

"I'm not leaving with you."

"Listen. Did you have fun cutting Mark's throat, rolling around in his blood?"

"Yeah."

"You want to have the opportunity to do it again?"

"Yeah."

"Then you better listen to me. If you get caught in this hotel room with that dead man, they're going to lock you up."

"But I'm not even eighteen."

Orson walked over to the side of the bed and sat down next to Lucy. "Look at me." She stared up at him. "I've been doing this a lot longer than you. If you were smart, you'd do what I say, maybe even learn a little something."

"How many people have you killed?"

"Enough to know we need to get out of this room right now."

She followed Orson down the hallway to the first room past the ice machine.

"It's a two-room suite," he said as he opened the door and let her in. "My friend's next door sleeping, so let's not disturb him. I think this sofa folds out into a bed."

She dropped her guitar case on the floor and helped Orson unfold the sofa sleeper. Orson swiped a blanket from his bed and tossed it to Lucy.

"Now I have to be honest," he said. "I'm a little worried you might want to cut my throat while I'm sleeping."

"I won't," she said.

"Why don't you give me your straight razor just to be on the safe side."

"You don't believe me?"

"I don't know you, Lucy."

She lay awake for a long time thinking how tomorrow was the last day of the conference, and in some ways, the first day of the rest of her life. She wasn't going home. She knew that. After Darling, how could she go back to geometry and biology and being a teenage girl in a suburban home? She could feel this stunning blackness flooding into her. It was filling her up so fast she could barely sleep, barely keep her eyes closed. She needed to see more blood. And soon.

She never slept. When the light began to push through the curtains, she sat up on the sofa and looked over at Orson on the bed, watching the man's chest rise and fall, thinking how he'd been smart to take the razor from her. Nothing would've made her happier than to slide the blade across his neck, maybe even taste his blood, let it run down her throat. She should've tasted Darling's. She imagined it would be so rich and even better than the wine her mother sometimes let her sip. Oh, well. Next time.

She rode down in the elevator with Orson and his friend, Luther, a tall, pale-faced man with long, black hair who was seriously creeping her out. He kept watching her with his big black eyes that held such an intensity she wasn't sure she ever wanted to see them alone.

They ate breakfast downstairs, the three of them sitting at a table in a corner, and the fourth time she caught him staring at her, Lucy couldn't help herself.

"Take a picture, dude. It'll last longer."

Orson looked up from his bacon and eggs. "What's wrong?"

"Why does your friend keep staring at me like that? It's weird."

Orson grinned and glanced at Luther, then back at Lucy. He leaned toward her and whispered. "He wants to kill you, Lucy."

She felt a coldness spill inside her gut.

"Why?"

"It's what he does. He can't help himself. He's sitting there imagining draining you in our bathtub. But don't worry. I've told him you're off-limits. Told him you might even be one of us."

She glared at Luther. "You don't scare me."

He said. "You look like you're scared, little girl."

"Oh, you can read my thoughts? Well, if you could, you'd know I'm thinking how pretty your dark blood would look running out of your snow-white neck."

Orson laughed out loud. "Isn't she great?"

Lucy hadn't averted her eyes from Luther, soaking in the psychotic malevolence.

"All right, listen," Orson said. "I think we're all a little hard-up for some fun. I had an idea while I was falling asleep last night. Darling's room is already a wreck. Why don't we all, together, find someone to take there this afternoon?"

Lucy's eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Yeah, we'll go right after Andrew Thomas's speech." Orson smiled. "I wouldn't want to miss that." He looked at Luther. "What do you think? You brought your toolbox, right?"

Luther smiled, and it was the scariest thing Lucy had ever seen.

For some reason, Orson didn't want to sit on the front row for Andrew Thomas's speech, so Lucy sat by herself, her heart pumping as the man walked up onto the stage.

She stood with the rest of the crowd and applauded the guest of honor, then sat with rapt attention as Andrew read an excerpt from a work in progress, one of the most gruesome and awesome things Lucy had ever heard.

The book was called The Passenger, a horror novel about an unnamed, psychopathic hitchhiker who travels around the country getting free rides from people, then robbing and killing them most horribly. In the section Andrew read, the Passenger ties a man to the back of his own car and drags him down the highway for five miles.

The signing line stretched all the way around the bookroom. The eight books in Lucy's arms were heavy, and by the time she got close to the table, her muscles were beginning to cramp.

She couldn't take her eyes off of Andrew as he signed books and made small talk with the fans. When it was finally her turn, she set her stack of books on the table and smiled and reached out her hand.

"Mr. Thomas, I am your biggest fan. I've read everything you ever wrote. I'm Lucy. I love what you read today. Will you sign my books?"

He shook her hand and smiled. "Of course."

"Um, I'm sorry, Mr. Thomas can only sign three books." Lucy looked at the woman standing behind the writer, a large woman in a horrific dress who looked like a librarian.

"But I want all of them signed."

The woman pursed her lips. "If everyone brought eight books, we'd be here until Christmas."

"But everyone didn't bring eight books. Most only brought one."

"Pick three. You're holding up the line."

Lucy glanced down at Andrew, flashed her puppy dog eyes.

"Margie, I think it's okay to make one exception," he said, grabbing the top book on Lucy's pile and opening it to the cover page. As he looked down to sign, Lucy stuck her tongue out at Margie.

"So are you in high school, Lucy?" he asked as he went through the books.

"I'm in 10 th grade."

"Excellent. I think you might be the youngest person here."