We ran up to the door, knocking loudly when we arrived. Antun let us in, looking harried. “I can’t find her anywhere and she’s not answering the phone I got for her. You know how she is, she wouldn’t go wandering off. She’s hardly left the house ever since you guys got away from Nikola.”

  “Do you think Nikola has her again?” My stomach dropped at the idea. She was terrified of him, likely worse than I was given how he treated her for so long.

  She had admitted to me that after I ran away that first time, he took it out on her, beat her until she lost consciousness. She said that that wasn’t the first time he hit her, but it was the first time she passed out from it. I grew sick at the thought of what she had to endure from that man.

  “Why were you with him?” I had asked her a few days previous. “How did you become a servant?”

  Syla gave a humorless chuckle and said, “Would you believe me if I said he was a dirty cop in the 1920s? He was busting a speakeasy and caught me, recognized my vampirism somehow, and convinced me to work for him in exchange for letting me off. It was my own stupidity that I didn't think about the fine print of the word “work.” He essentially trapped me for good, working for him until he’d deem it fit to let me go. And as you’ve seen, you know how well he does with letting go.”

  I shivered at the memory of her story. I looked out the huge window of the second story and I had to do a double-take. My stomach dropped, my heart started to pound.

  “Guys?” My voice shook as much as my knees, tears threatening to form. “I found Syla.”

  She was standing on the front drive, tears silently streaming down her face. Behind her, holding her firmly by the shoulder in front of him, was Nikola.

  Antun flew down to the front door, swinging it open. Michael followed behind with me at a more human speed. Antun stood in the very front, then Michael, then me at the back.

  “You know, this would be so much easier if you let me take your energy and be done with it.” He glared at the men, my men. “Move out of the way.” Nikola directed, his low voice as cold as his dead heart.

  “I don’t want to die,” my voice wavered, earning a hum from Nikola.

  “That’s really too bad.” He inspected his nails as he drawled, “I don’t care. Syla dear, go get Ms. Nelson would you?”

  Everyone’s eyes went wide, but none more than Syla’s. She took a step and she shrieked, “NO!” and as if the word unlocked her completely, she broke into a run. Straight for me. To capture me. Syla cried as she ran, her face twisted in sorrow, clearly fighting the bond but unable to break free.

  Antun ran in front of her, pushing her back like a linebacker, but she had supernatural strength as well, and she held her foothold.

  Nikola rolled his eyes again. “You’re useless, Syla.”

  He stepped around them, and now Syla held Antun, protecting Nikola with that bond that wasn’t broken. She cried, not wanting to hold her friend back but being forced to beyond her will.

  “Nikola, you bastard! Let me go!” Syla’s plea fell on deaf ears. She sobbed as she clung onto Antun, pulling him back.

  Nikola advanced toward Michael and I at a leisurely pace as if he had all the time in the world. Michael widened his stance in the doorway.

  “Drew, go upstairs,” Michael said without turning his face away from his opponent.

  I went as quickly as my tired legs could manage, the stairs feeling way harder on the way up than the way down. Just as I rounded the corner upstairs, I heard a crash down the stairs and ran behind the couch, trying to find somewhere to hide.

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  There’s gotta be something I can use to defend myself with – a lamp, a phone, something!

  My stomach knotted at the sounds of thudding footsteps and something breaking downstairs. They were fighting; Michael was still fighting.

  I could see through the glass and rebar railing as Michael and Nikola struggled against each other, having grabbed onto each other like wrestlers. Michael hooked a leg behind Nikola’s, making him fall, but before he could put him into a hold, Nikola tripped Michael. They were both rolling on the ground, Michael throwing everything he had at him, desperate to keep him from me.

  It seemed more like Nikola was inconvenienced, like he wasn’t putting in everything he had. He smiled at me as he saw the realization dawn on my face, likely reading my mind. Then, as if to prove it, he gave a swift kick to Michael’s chest, sending him crashing into a vase, dazing him. He looked at me with a malicious smile.

  “Oh, Ms. Nelson. Drew.” I froze at my name – he’d never used it before. “You really have been more trouble than you’re worth. You’ve been a delightful thorn, but I do prefer silence. If you wouldn’t mind…” he zoomed to my face, scaring me and making me fall.

  I tried to crawl backwards but he grabbed my ankles. He knelt down, holding my arms together across my stomach. My head hit the floor as my hands were taken from me and I saw stars as I blinked, trying to clear my vision. Nikola was straddling over me, holding my arms across my stomach with one hand. My legs scrabbled on the floor, trying to get him off of me but not having enough–

  “Ah, energy. Oh, your mana was delicious but your energy? It was a feast in comparison.” He used his free hand to caress the area where he had bitten me before, right above my left breast. “You’re determined and a fighter. The energy from such people is believed to be superior in all ways, and you are such a one. All I can say, from experiencing it? It tasted glorious, like life itself.” He leaned in close, smelling my neck. I thought for a moment that he would gloat longer. “The gift is, I get to have it twice.” He bit before I could even scream.

  Light exploded from my chest again and it felt as if everything were deflating, like the world was becoming more and more flat and grey. I heard screaming again. My vision began to grow dark again, the edges creeping in. I was falling, falling, falling.

  There was a vase of roses next to the couch, deep red. As my vision darkened, they reminded me of the dream lady, of her balcony. Was she aware of my trouble?

  This time, I’m really going to die, aren’t I?

  Images flashed through my mind that I didn’t recognize; I could sense that they were my memories somehow, like I was looking at past lives. A little girl pushing a hoop with a stick to keep it upright; another girl fetching water, her clothes homespun.

  Is reincarnation… real?

  Then all around me, the world went completely silent.

  ? ?? ?

  A too familiar blackness enveloped me. I didn’t move, not daring to.

  Maybe if I stand entirely still, the light…

  As if the light itself heard my thoughts, it appeared, starting as a pinpoint in the distance. I began to run away from it, my feet pounding on nothing yet I felt the sensation of running.

  “Excuse me, woman from my dreams? Where are you?!” I kept running yet the light kept growing.

  I began to think about my parents. What would they do if they had to bury their only child? And what about Husker? Mom certainly won’t let him live with them. What about Michael? Our kiss flashed through my mind, and I wished I had been brave enough at other times to kiss him again.

  No, I don’t want to die! “Where are you? Please!” Then everything plunged back into darkness, the light disappearing entirely right before it could swallow me. I didn’t stop running.

  Go, go, go!

  “Hello?!” The darkness somehow seemed to deepen even further.

  Is this to be my end? Darkness and emptiness, this vacuum for eternity?

  A familiar female voice in the darkness asked me, “Do you want to live?”

  The voice wasn’t quite hers anymore. It echoed, layered, like multiple women speaking as one.

  I began to cry with joy, “Yes!” My relief made me nearly stumble but I kept running.

  “What are you willing to give up?”

  That’s different.

  But I couldn’t stop running, I had to think and run. Is this like how it was before Michael was turned? Was he asked to give up anything before he offered it? Was he in an abyss like me?

  I thought about Michael’s experience. What was I willing to give up? What about my livelihood? What about my life? Without any other ideas, I shouted, “I’ll give up anything.” My name, my past, whatever this soul remembers. “Just don’t let me disappear.”

  Then, I was falling, the woman’s voice soft as if carried on the wind. “Then hold on, Drew.”

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