“All of us?” Daggett’s eyes drifted to Melanie, and I knew exactly why. She wasn’t human, she wasn’t even a werewolf. She was something else entirely, and something that didn’t have a place.
“Yes, all of us,” I barked. I didn’t mean to be so defensive but, well…I was.
Daggett dipped his chin, curled in his lips, and nodded. I could tell he felt bad, which made me feel worse for snapping at him. He had every right to be curious about how this would work. It was new territory for all of us.
It was like Max was reading my mind, because he gently told Daggett, “We’ll make it work. We can meet up with Brinly and see if she can take her in for a while.”
“Max, that’s a werewolf compound. I don’t think…” He went silent. He knew speaking about his doubts wasn’t helping.
Softly, Melanie said, “He’s right. They’re not gonna want me there. I remember how that place was. They acted like Cora and I were terrorists, and we were just stupid humans.”
“It’s changed,” Max told her. “Brinly is in charge now, not Aga. She’s way more empathetic and open-minded than he was. She won’t leave you to the streets.”
“What is a werewolf princess going to do for me, anyway? Huh? Brinly doesn’t know what I’ve been through or what I’m still going through. She’s no more useful to me than you guys are.”
“I was thinking along the lines of protection.”
Melanie turned away and scoffed. “If he wants to get to me, he will. Compound walls won’t keep him out.”
She didn’t even have to say his name for us all to know who she was talking about: the figure in the darkness that was The Master. Melanie never gave a description of him, and only spoke of him briefly, but the thought of him sent a chill down my spine.
“Why is this guy even after you?” Daggett asked.
Melanie’s cheek was still turned away from us, but from the side, I saw her eyes briefly close. “I have something that he wants. That they all want.”
The room went deathly silent.
“What does that mean?” Max asked.
Before she could answer, Daggett threw out a guess. “You took something from them? Like an object?”
“No,” she said. “It’s me. I’m what they want.”
“Why?”
I already knew the story, but it was time for everyone else to as well.
Melanie sat back down in her chair and let out an exhausted sigh. “He’s the one that got us out of that place. Where they experimented on us. He broke down the front door and slaughtered everyone who worked there. They didn’t even have time to prepare for him. He moves like he’s weightless, like he’s faster than light. He hardly even makes a sound.”
“Why did he come for you?” Daggett asked. “How did he even know about you?”
“I don’t think it was us he was after. We sort of got picked up after the fact.”
“After what?”
“I was pretty out of it for most of the stay there and only learned what they were doing when He took us away and filled us in. I guess they figured out we wouldn’t age and they wanted to, like, copy it from us.”
She struggled to find the right words, and Daggett met her halfway. “They were trying to extract the agelessness from you girls? To duplicate it for humans?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Shit. Did they?” Priscilla asked. She sounded a tad too excited, like she was ready to pour open her purse and throw all of her money at this potential anti-aging vampire face cream.
Melanie shook her head and replied, “No. They gave up on that idea, I guess, so they tried to find a way to be more like us. Only, they wanted to be able to walk in the sunlight.”
“And this guy knew they were coming up with this serum or whatever?” Max asked.
Melanie nodded. “It’s not even that they were coming up with the idea. They made it. They injected all of us with it to see if it’d take, and by the time he showed up, there was nothing left. Only the records of everyone involved in the experiment. He had me, Molly, Veronica, and Tiffany help him track down the vampires that got away. To see who it worked on.”
“What was he gonna do, drink the serum out of them?”
“Worse.” Melanie lowered her head and nothing more came from her lips. She didn’t want to say it.
So I did.
“He wants to do a ritual,” I said. “He has to…devour the heart of any vampire capable of walking in the sunlight.”
Priscilla wrinkled her nose. “Gross. He couldn’t do a blood transfusion or something?”
“Like Daggett said, this is beyond science.” I looked over at Melanie, who was already staring back at me. Her eyes still, sad, tortured. “This is where Magic comes into the picture.”
“Okay, this all very horrifying and all that shit, but does this really need to be our problem? Let the cops or the navy or whoever the fuck blow this guy away with a missile while we get the fuck out of here.”
“That might be easy to do if he weren’t after Melanie.”
“But why—”
“It worked on you, didn’t it?” Max interrupted. He had been staring at Melanie intensely throughout the entire conversation, his arms folded and his brow narrowed. “You can walk in the sun, so he needs you.”
She hesitated at first but then nodded.
It felt like everyone in the room took a collective sharp inward breath together, completely horrified at the idea of it. I had the same reaction when she first told me. I didn’t want to believe it. It made my stomach churn.
Priscilla’s red lips parted for
