“And youvolunteered?”
“I loved him enough to make the sacrifice. I stilldolove him, even after everything.”
Stake her,a voice inside me urged. Paralyze her. Light a match. End her.
The darkness slithered inside me, a twisted black serpent desperate for release.
Unleash me and watch her burn, burn, burn…
God, I was so tempted. It wouldn’t take much. Just a stake to the throat, then I could get one of the guys to take her out back and decapitate her. Or burn her.
Burn her!
I could almost taste the smoke…
I closed my eyes, shaking it off. I couldn’t end her. Not until we found out what she knew. Not until we finished making—and executing—our plan.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, forcing the serpent inside me back into its cage.
I flicked my gaze to Darius, who stood unmoving beside me, his arms at his sides.
“How did you find this… thisfilth?” I ground out the word, tightening my grip on her hair. Fiona didn’t make a sound, didn’t whimper or beg. Her eyes were flat, her expression neutral.
It was like she’d already given up, which pissed me off even more.
As far as I was concerned, she wasn’t allowed to give up or take the easy way out. Not after what she’d done to Sophie.
“It’s a long story,” Darius said, “but after I spoke with Grinaldi, I decided to start in Phoenicia. Public records pointed me to the location of her family home, where I’d hoped to gain some additional insights. Imagine my surprise when the vampire herself answered the door, smiling as though I were a neighbor delivering a fresh-baked apple pie.”
“My mom was expecting a visitor,” she said simply, like that was the only part of the story worth commenting on.
“Did this visitor know there was a monster in her midst?” I asked. “Did your mother?”
Again, she shook her pathetic head. “After I left Jonathan, I… I had nowhere else to go. My mother had no idea what I’d become.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “What I’d done.”
For the first time since she’d opened them, her eyes glazed with emotion. Her calm detachment was slipping away, revealing the broken girl beneath the mask.
Suddenly she was fourteen again, crying in the girls’ bathroom because Jonathan had told her to get lost.
“I just want to be his friend, Ray-Ray. I don’t get why he’s so mean to me.”
My heart skipped, an old, familiar ache pooling in my gut.
Pity.
I wouldn’t fall for it, though. Sophie wasdeadbecause of her. I was beyond compassion. Beyond even the most basic form of human decency.
“Why?” I demanded, my throat burning as I shouted in her face. I didn’t need to elaborate; she knew damn well what I meant.
Why had she gone along with his plans?
Why had she helped him kill my best friend and so many others?
Why had she given her life up for a monster?
Fiona took a moment to consider my question, not blinking, not breathing, not doing much of anything but staring up at me with the same light brown eyes that had once looked at me as if I were her big sister—someone she admired, envied, loved, and hated all at once.
When she spoke again, her voice was high and sharp.
