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“Two legs, four legs.” He shrugs, packing up the first-aid kit like he’s busing plates at the cafe.

She stares up at me.

“Do you kill people?”

The question spills out, flat and direct.

“What?” I lean forward, elbows on my knees, and make sure she’s seeing me properly. “No, never.”

“How do you eat, then?”

“I drink blood from the blood bank.”

She nods slowly.

“But you’ve killed vampires?”

“No.” I study my hands, dried blood underneath my fingernails. “Tonight was the first.” The fire pops behind me.

Mom returns with tea and a packet of frozen peas, laying it on Ellery’s knee. “Nicky, you have nothing in that kitchen but four bottles of blood, a pint of milk, and these peas, which expired before your father died.”

“Nobody eats here, Mom.” I’m too focused on Ellery to worry about my lack of pantry staples.

“Luca eats here.”

And then Ellery’s laughing, a hand covering her mouth. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t know why that’s⁠—”

She tries to hold it in and loses. Her body is quaking, and she’s not laughing anymore, tears filling her eyes.

Mom gets there before I do, sitting on the arm of the couch with a hand resting between her shoulder blades until it passes. Ellery wipes her face with the back of her sleeve and takes the mug of tea, cradling it between her palms.

“Are you okay?” she asks me. “Tonight was…”

When I meet her brown eyes, they’re full of concern. I haven’t been asked that in a long time, and I’m not sure of the answer. So I don’t give her one.

“Do you regret it? Regret becoming a vampire?” Ellery asks quietly, chin tipped down.

Mom doesn’t say anything. I know she feels guilty over what I had to give up to become Guardian. It’s not her fault, and I wish I could make her believe that.

“Sometimes.” I don’t look at Mom when I say it. “Mostly, I regret what I lost and how it makes me choose. Not the vampire part so much, but being Guardian comes with restrictions, and letting someone in means they’re burdened by that too.”

“Is that why you didn’t tell me?” She waits.

“Partly. And because you can’t unknow it. You came here to get out from under other people’s choices for you. The second I told you, every decision you made after would have this in it. I didn’t want to be the reason you made your life smaller. What I am, my obligations to this town, come with a price.” My hands squeeze tight, and I press them flat against my knees. “I can’t leave here, Ellery. Not ever. If I cross the boundary, there are consequences, not only for me. This town is all I’ll know for the rest of my life. I didn’t want it to be all that you know too.”

“So you decided for me.”

“I told myself I was protecting your choice. But I see now I was still making it.”

Chapter 32

Ellery

I’m angry, and my head hurts, both from being knocked around and from working overtime to process everything Nick has said. “You should’ve told me all of this.”

Instead, I got shown, by a guy who pressed his filthy hand over my mouth and smelled me like I was dinner.

“I know.” His head hangs low.