Leesa lingered in Rave's embrace for several minutes, her mind a whirling kaleidoscope of unanswered questions and unfinished thoughts. With all she had gone through the past three months, she thought nothing could ever surprise her like this. When you’ve discovered your mom had truly been bitten by a one-fanged vampire, and that your boyfriend is a supernatural vampire hunter, and a guy at school who liked you is a real-life vampire, it’s hard to believe anything could shock you to this degree. But this one simple phone call had knocked her for a loop, for sure.The man’s message just could not be true—it challenged everything she believed about her childhood. How could the man she had called Dad until she was seven years old not be her father? It did not make sense.Finally, she eased back from Rave’s embrace. Max backed away and looked up at them, his eyes wide and seemingly sympathetic, as if he understood what was going on in her head

“You’re gonna be in for a long winter, girl,” Cali said, grinning. She puffed out another big cloud of steamy breath. “Ol’ Man Winter is barely getting started.Leesa pulled her gloved hands out of her pocket. “Heck, it’s not like I lived in San Diego my whole life,” she said, a bit defensively. “I grew up in New Jersey, remember?”“Yeah, but only until you were seven, right? That was a long time ago. I bet your blood has thinned a lot by now.”Leesa wondered what Cali would think if she knew about the grafhym blood in her veins. Knowing Cali, she would probably think it was way cool. When Leesa told Cali Stefan was a vampire, she had asked if he had any vampire friends he could fix her up with. She had been joking, of course. At least, Leesa hoped she had been joking. Besides, Cali already had a boyfriend, a cute frat guy named Andy, who she really liked.“So,

A few nights later, Leesa lay awake in the darkness. The glowing blue numbers on her digital clock told her it was 3:42am. The soft blue glow reminded her of Rave’s fingertips when he let his fire show. The thought of Rave was comforting, but she could still feel her heart beating in her chest, faster than normal for someone who had just been sleeping. She did not want to be awake, didn’t need to be awake, but something had dragged her from her sleep. She had no idea what it might have been. Lying on her back, she looked and listened, straining to penetrate the darkness for any sign something was amiss, but found nothing. Her room was certainly dark enough to invite sleep. Thin starlight outlined her windows and leaked into the room, not bright enough to show more than the barest outlines of her furniture. The night was peacefully quiet—she had seen movies where a nervous character would say it was too quiet, right before disaster struck—but such scenes always took

The picture returned to the earlier helicopter shot. “That’s all we have for now,” the reporter said as the camera zoomed in on the graveyard. Leesa leaned closer to the television. A ragged circle of dark lumps was barely visible now. They had to be the unearthed bodies. From this distance, she couldn’t tell if they were covered by anything or not.She shuddered. Even though the view was still too far to see clearly, she was struck by how similar the circle of bodies looked to the one she had seen in her dream. She switched off the television.“Wow, that’s freakin’ crazy,” Cali said. “Do you think your vampire friends could have done it?” “I keep telling you, they’re not my friends.” Leesa stood up and took a few aimless steps around the room. “But no, I doubt vampires had anything to do with it. What would they want with dead bodies? They only like live ones, filled with lots of warm

Leesa stood behind the top row of the amphitheater style classroom, surveying the seats below. The room was about half full right now, and more kids were steadily filtering in through the doorway behind her. She wanted an aisle seat, as close to the front as possible. Aisle seats were always in demand, though, and the best one she saw was on the left aisle, only about one-third of the way down from the top. She limped quickly toward the left stairs before someone else nabbed the seat.She needed to be on the aisle so she could get down to the stage as swiftly as possible when class ended, to talk to Dr. Clerval about her strange dream. The professor was always surrounded by students wanting to talk to him after class, so it was best to get down there quickly. With their shared history, she knew he would make time for her in any case, but she didn’t want to have to wait while he answered questions from other kids.She settled into the seat she had eyed from the ba