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“Get closer,” my mother says.
Climbing onto the bed, I hold my hands to either side of Edward’s head and try again. It’s a monumental effort to concentrate. With each passing second, it feels like more and more of me is being lost down a long, dark drain.
Hands rest upon my shoulders. My mother and grandmother standing to the left and right of me, lending me their strength. I clench my jaw and concentrate on infiltrating Edward’s mind.
Centering. Tunneling. Delving inside...
My palms start to burn. I recall the pain I felt as his fangs ripped into my neck and roll that sensation into a ball that I then hurl at him.
Edward lets out an ear-splitting screech. He lifts his face from my throat, and I move with him, fighting to maintain the connection I’ve established. I condense my own pain and anguish into agony that I channel his way.
“That’s it, Mariah,” my mom says. “Now finish it.”
My hands glow as heat courses through them. I grasp the sides of Edward’s head. Finally, he sees me, his expression twisting in disbelief. I hold his gaze as I give him the full force of my concentration, screaming in his face.
Milky blood seeps from the corners of his eyes, mouth, and nose. A bright light blinds me. I tumble backward onto the floor as Edward collapses. I can’t feel his presence anymore.
Then again, I’m having trouble feeling much of anything.
Will comes careening into the room, his gaze wild. He sees Edward and then me—on the bed as well as the floor.
“No,” he says, glancing between both versions of me, not sure which one to run to.
In a flurry of movement, he grabs Edward’s head and rips it off his shoulders, then shoves my father’s disparate parts to the floor. He cradles my body in his lap on the bed.
“I can’t lose you like this,” he says over me. “Not to him.”
I sway in place. Everything hurts, yet so much of me is already gone.
“How did he come back?” I ask.
“He must’ve drank my venom last night when he realized I was coming for him,” Will says, glowering at the heaps of meat on the floor. “This was his insurance policy.”
“She doesn’t have much time, William,” my grandmother says. “Make your choice.”
He scowls. “What choice is that, Katherine? You already know what’s going to happen, so why don’t you just fucking tell me.”
“Will?” I feel my edges fading. He reaches for me, and I fall straight through his hands—back into my body.
I cough and splutter. My vision is blurred, like somebody’s placed a strip of gauze over my eyes. Will presses his forehead to mine.
“Listen to me, Mariah. If I drain you fully, you’ll die and become a ghost. But if I let you die with Edward’s venom in your system, there’s a chance you’ll come back...like me. You have to tell me what you want, or I’m going to choose for you, and it’s going to be a selfish choice, because I’d rather you hate me forever as a vampire than be forced to live without you.”
What’s left of me is fast slipping away, like the last few grains of sand in the neck of an hourglass. Becoming a vampire wouldn’t just mean turning it over. It would mean shattering the hourglass completely and tossing the shards into the desert.
Infinite grains of sand as far as the eye can see.
Will’s right about it being no choice at all. My fate was sealed the moment we met in the vineyard.
“Let me die,” I whisper.
And then, I’m gone.
Chapter Nineteen
Mariah
I dream that I am small. Maybe five or six years old. Sitting on my grandpa’s shoulders. We’re at Assateague State Park with my mom and her friend Kim. I squeal excitedly as a brown-and-black pony clomps across the packed sand. I ask where Will is, but nobody hears me. I ask again, where’s Will? They tell me he’s not here yet, and I start to cry.
