Was he blushing? So was I, if the lava flow covering my face and spilling down my throat was any indication. He kept glancing at me, and I couldn’t look away.

For Christ’s sake. The lunacy just would not end.

I wiped at my nose again, wished for a Kleenex. “I don’t—” I began. I don’t date. I don’t have time, even if you are one of the better kids I’ve met. And—

He shrugged, his cheeks going a deeper tomato red that had nothing to do with the snow. The flush spread down his neck, even. We were about even in that department. “It was a joke, Dru. God. Just relax, will you? Come on.” He kept dragging me. Admittedly, I didn’t put up much of a fight. But still . . . “A whole day at school ruined. You’re gonna wreck my GPA.”

“I thought you were going to take your GED anyway.” My lips were numb. My hands were too; I stuffed them in my coat pockets. The sirens whooped and brayed, getting closer.

“I want to get into a college so I don’t have to be poor. GPA still matters,” he informed me in the tone reserved for gormless idiots. “But hey, I’ve been good all year. Might as well take a couple days off. Now, you wanna tell me what’s going on? I’ve been thinking you probably don’t want some stupid kid messing up whatever you’ve got going, but I told you, I’m in it now. I might as well know what I’m facing, right?”

I looked down at the sidewalk. My face was still sweat-hot, prickling in the cold. Feet had worn some of the snow down; deicer, rock salt, and sand had done the rest. Ice rimed the concrete, but it was pretty passable, all things considered. It was a nice clear day, clouds lowering around the rim of the horizon but not closing the lens of the sky just yet. The only problem was the cold, knifing straight through every article of clothing.

“That stain in your living room is about the size of a body.” Graves let go of my arm, but I kept walking next to him, powerless to stop. “And your dad . . . I’m not stupid, Dru.”

I know you’re not. “You wouldn’t believe me.” I was mumbling like a kid caught out after curfew.

He didn’t look at me, but his shoulders hunched. He turned the corner just as the ambulance roared by, and I followed. Once we were a block away, the siren shut off abruptly and it was possible to talk again.

Graves gave me a sidelong glance. He wasn’t red anymore, but the new weight in his gaze was uncomfortable. “Yeah? Try me.” Two steps further, and he hunched even more, an oddly fluid movement. “I keep seeing it. In my dreams. That thing that bit me.”

I hadn’t told him I’d seen the streak-headed wulf again. It just didn’t seem like good news to give him. “That’s normal. It’s like, post-traumatic stress or something.” I swallowed drily. The last of the sobs hitched to a halt. After crying that messily your head gets clear, whatever chemical it dumps into your blood giving you a lightheaded buzz.

“Is it normal that I can smell people now? Really smell them, and really smell what they had for lunch? And is it normal to be able to see in the dark? Like, as if it was day? And what about being able to move quicker than I should be? It’s like I’m dialed to superhero now. Is that goddamn normal?”

I stopped, staring at him. He kept walking, paused a few steps away, and looked over his shoulder. “Come on, keep up. It’s cold out here.”

“You really . . .” This is what comes of not shooting someone when you have the chance. Dad would have shot him. But he didn’t turn into a fur rug! “You didn’t change. You shouldn’t be having effects like that.”

“I thought you said I was safe.”

“I thought you were.” My cheeks were now cold, stinging wet. I shivered. Once I started I couldn’t seem to stop. The high-octane trembling ran through me like ice water. “Where are we going?”

“Nuh-uh.” He shook his head, dark hair swinging. Most of the snow had been stripped free, the rest melting, water clinging to the strands. He was a blot of black on the gray and dirty-snow day, hardly the most inconspicuous kid. “Your turn. What the hell happened to you? You’ve been set on ‘weird’ ever since you left me in that coffee shop. Not that you have to stretch very far for it.”

“I . . .” I held my breath, let it out in a sharp sigh, and decided to take the plunge. What was he going to do, laugh at me? “I saw someone. I have this . . . thing. . . . Anyway, I found my dad’s truck by following this thing I have. It tells me stuff sometimes. There was a—the wulf that bit you, it was there.” I don’t know anything about this, and that’s wrong. I should be hitting the books to find out all I can, and hitting them hard. “And a sucker showed up.”

“The thing that bit me?” His face squinched up, hard, as if he’d tasted something bitter. “And a sucker?”

How the hell am I supposed to explain? “As in, blood sucker. We call them all sorts of names—nosferatu, undead, sucker, you know—”

“You’re a vampire hunter? Jeez. Really? Or do they call it something different?” He sounded amused and thoughtful, rather than uncomfortable, at the thought.

“They just call it hunting. And not just vampires.” You’re taking this really well. “Other stuff, too. Whatever’s dangerous and messing with people. My dad did it; I helped. Something killed him and turned him into a zombie. Probably this sucker—they can do it. Anyway, the sucker ran the wulf off and told me to go home. He’s going to come kill me.”

“Why? I mean, doesn’t it make more sense for him to kill you there? Not that I’m in a hurry for you to bite it, you know.” He actually hopped from foot to foot like a bird, impatient. “Come on. Keep moving. Your lips are turning blue.”

“Leave my lips out of this.” But it was awfully cold, and as soon as I started moving I was reminded that I hadn’t put on a sweater, either. How had I gotten out of the house this morning? I suddenly wanted a hot shower more than anything else in the world. “They like to play with their victims. They get bored, I guess.”

“Doesn’t make much sense,” he repeated.

Haven’t you ever had a cat? “Like so much about this does?”

“It does, actually.” He slid out a pack of Winstons, offered it to me, and frowned when I shook my head. “I mean, look at all the shit on TV. It’s all over—witches and werewolves and all that sort of stuff. No smoke without fire, right? My stepdad used to say that.”

It was by far the most information he’d ever given about his family. We were just sharing all over the place, Graves and I. The houses around us watched with their prissy little doors shut tight, blinds drawn down, driveways empty. “It’s not like it is on television. You need to get that through your head right now. It’s dangerous and dirty and smells bad and—”

He tapped out a coffin nail and lit up, stuffing the pack back in his pocket. His breath was already a cloud of smoke. “Yeah, well, so is sex and drugs and everything else worth doing. So what’s our next move? You’re the expert here.”

I’m no expert. I’m just a kid. “I don’t . . . I mean . . . my dad did all the planning.” I couldn’t believe I’d just said something so mealy-mouthed.

“So? What would he do?” Graves’s coat flapped. He exhaled a stream of tobacco smoke. His nose wrinkled. “Gah. This doesn’t even taste good now.”

“Then why do you do it?” He would get everything together and go back to those warehouses, looking for the “scene” so I could tell him what happened. He would take me to canvass the occult stores and the bars where they know about the Real World and find out who this Christophe is and where he sleeps—if he could cajole the information out of someone. He’d barricade the house or move somewhere else.

But there was no way I could find a lease on my own without some serious work, and a hotel would be expensive and full of nosy adults unless it was a flophouse, which would be expensive and full of nasty people looking to take a bite out of a teenage girl.