Scott turned to Philip. "Hey, if we give you the money, will you buy us some beer?"

"Where did you plan to drink it?"

"At Becky's. Her folks are gone. You want to come?"

This was too easy. Although if we trotted down to the nearest 7-Eleven, picked up a case of cheap beer, and then headed to Becky's, how would Philip manage to get someone off alone?

As we fell into step toward a store, I noticed Jet walking beside me and gave her an honest smile.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Seventeen."

"How old is he?"

"Twenty-nine."

She wasn't dumb. Due to our unnatural skin tone, our ages are often difficult to place. But Jet's questions struck a little deeper. Why would an incredibly beautiful, well-dressed, adult Frenchman want to hang with them when he had a pretty, seventeen-year-old girlfriend for company? It didn't make sense.

"You going out with Culker?" I asked to change the subject.

"Culker? No way. These guys are just my friends. I like your coat."

"Oh, thanks… Did you dye that dress yourself?"

"Yeah." She seemed pleased. "I do all kinds of stuff. Sell clothes at the Folklife Festival."

"What's that?"

"You don't know 'bout the festival? Where're you from?"

I smiled. "Portland."

She smiled back, and we talked all the way to a run-down mini-mart. Philip glanced back at me once. He went inside and came out with a case of Henry Weinhard's Ale that must have cost twice what Culker gave him. Didn't this situation seem unusual to any of them?

"Awesome," Scott said. "My car's two blocks south."

Becky kept moving closer to Philip. I'm sure he noticed.

We all piled into a rusted Buick Skylark with cigarette butts falling out of its ashtray. We ended up driving to Capitol Hill, but Scott spent twenty minutes trying to find a place to park.

Piles of dirt and garbage had been plowed to the sides of the road. One decrepit apartment building melted right into the next one. Every available parking space seemed filled with a dented Volkswagen Golf. Babies cried through open windows, and some guy down the block kept yelling, "You bitch!" over and over again.

I wanted to go home, but we didn't have one.

Scott finally managed to squeeze the Skylark between two cars, and everybody climbed out. I'd figured out by then that Becky's parents didn't live in a house.

"We can't be too loud," she said. "The guys below us are crack dealers. One of them gets mad easy."

Charming.

Something about her apartment's interior touched more sorrow than its outside. Small arrangements of dried flowers sat on paint-splattered tables. An old mattress was covered by a hand-stitched quilt. Cheap lace curtains blew out from chipped windowpanes. Someone cared about this place enough to try to make it a home.

Culker broke open a Henry's. "We should've bought some chips or M amp;M's."

"Order a pizza," Philip said. "Isn't that what you Americans do?"

"Can't, I'm almost broke."

"I'll pay."

Could they possibly be this blind? Jet sat alone. What was she thinking? It's funny how Wade had given me a different perspective of mortals. On impulse, I reached out and touched her mind-as I would have with Wade-not expecting to get through. Psychic pictures come to us only when feeding or when another vampire dies. But to my surprise, her immediate thoughts flowed into me as though she were speaking.

Philip was the most perfect thing she'd ever seen, and she usually didn't go for white guys. But what was he into? Why was he here? If he was looking for some kind of threesome, he'd pick Becky. That was obvious. Not that Jet cared. Her baby boy was with a sitter, and she ought to get back soon, anyway. His ears were bothering him, and she'd need to take him to the doctor tomorrow.

I pulled out, reeling internally. How long had that taken? Had she felt me? Only seconds seemed to have passed, and she continued watching Philip with the same cautious curiosity. She had a little boy? I wanted to know more but didn't know how to deal with the moment's revelation.

Was I more like Wade than I realized?

Philip caught my attention suddenly by sitting down next to Becky and touching her bare thigh. I hadn't seen him touch anyone yet, and the movement of his hand was slow, light, gentle. That's why he hadn't grabbed my hand in the carnival. Touching was only for victims.

The room fell silent as he leaned down and kissed her. Everyone-including me-watched the gradual movement of his open mouth as he licked her lips and face. His pale hand moved up her side, feather touch, like a concerned lover. Nobody else moved.

What was he doing? This didn't make sense. If he wanted to lure her away from her friends, he should have just asked. She'd have followed him off a cliff.

The red polyester couch they sat on showed huge gaping holes of foam rubber. Becky's breathing quickened when he moved to her neck. Completely lost in his gift, she tried to put her fingertips on his face. The scene changed.

Click.

He ripped out a chunk of her throat before I could blink-right in front of her friends. Instead of falling into a hazy state of slow motion, the world rushed to a hundred miles an hour. Scott started screaming as blood shot out of her jugular and covered his T-shirt. Philip jumped over the back of the couch and landed on top of him.

"No way, man," Culker kept repeating from the center of the room. "No way."

Philip stopped Scott's screaming by flipping him onto his stomach and breaking his neck with a loud crack. Then he smiled up at Culker.

Until that point, I'd been too off guard to move. What was he doing? He wasn't even feeding, just ripping and breaking bones. But they'd seen us. Both Jet and Culker could describe us right down to "any distinguishing features."

"You son of a bitch," I said in despair.

He turned his head toward me, laughing savagely. Jet bolted for the door. I caught her by whipping my left arm around her stomach and pulling her back into my chest. She was nearly a head taller than me. Her mouth formed a scream. Hating myself, hating Philip more, I grasped her entire chin with my right hand and jerked. Her body hit the floor before the scream ever escaped.

Culker began crying.

"Do it fast," I hissed to Philip.

It sounds cliche to compare Philip to an animal, but that's what he reminded me of. I mean it. He couldn't even talk. Culker seemed to know running was a waste of time and backed up against the wall.

Please don't let him start begging.

Philip was on him in a flash, tearing at his neck, but this time I heard sucking sounds. Often frightened by my own kind, sometimes confused, that was the first time I ever felt ashamed.

"We gotta go," I whispered. There was no way we could clean this mess up. Better just to leave it.

Philip dropped Culker's body and stared at me as if he didn't know who I was. His eyes made me step back.

"No," he said, finding his voice, red liquid dripping down onto his black shirt and vanishing against the darker color. "Not yet."

I'd thought the worst was over, but it wasn't. Putting his own wrist to his teeth, he tore it down to open veins and held it out. "Here, like with Edward."

For a minute I didn't get it. Then what he wanted came crashing down, followed by revulsion. "Stay away from me."

"Like Edward."

"Philip, don't."

Jet's dead body lay between me and the door. But in the time it took me to glance down at her, Philip had his hand around the back of my head, gripping my hair.

"You know nothing," he breathed in my ear. "You need me."

Survival instincts told me to do whatever he wanted and get away as soon as possible-please him and run. But I didn't. Something snapped. Grabbing his shoulder for support, I rammed my knee into his stomach hard enough to make him spit out a mouthful of Culker's blood.