Fade Out

“Hey!” She felt something, a flash of heat against her skin, and opened her eyes to see Shane’s face inches away. He looked scared. His hands were on her cheeks, trying to force heat into her. “Claire! Don’t close your eyes. Stay with me. Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered. “Tired.”

“I see that. But don’t you go away from me, you hear me? Don’t you even think about it.” He stroked her skin, her hair, with hands that shook almost as much as she had before. “Claire?”

“Here.”

“I love you.” He said it quietly, almost a whisper, a secret between the two of them, and she felt a burst of what was almost warmth travel through her chest. “You hear me?”

She managed a nod, and thought she smiled.

Michael brought the car to a quick, sliding stop, and was out of the car before Claire could register that they’d arrived at their destination. “Hey!” Eve protested, and scrambled out after him. Shane opened the back and lifted Claire out in his arms—or rather, lifted the bundle of laundry that Claire felt like, wrapped in half a dozen blankets.

Moonlight fell blue-white over grass, trees, and headstones.

They were at Morganville’s official cemetery—Restland. “Crap,” Shane breathed. “Not my idea of a great night out, you know? Claire? Still with us?”

“Yes,” she said. She actually felt a little better, and didn’t know why. Not good, of course. But not going away anymore.

Ahead, she could see that Michael and Eve were making their way together through the maze of leaning tombstones, crosses, and marble statues. A big white mausoleum dominated the hill at the top, but they weren’t going that way—they veered off to the right.

Claire thought she knew where they were heading. “Sam,” she whispered. Shane pulled in a breath, let it out, and headed in that direction, too.

It had been months since Sam Glass, Michael’s grandfather, had died . . . given his life to save them all, really, but most especially Amelie. He was, as far as Claire knew, the only vampire buried here in the cemetery; he’d had a real service, real mourners, and he was maybe the only vampire Morganville had ever had who was universally liked and respected by both sides.

But he’d been loved, too—by Amelie. By vampire standards, Amelie and Sam’s had been a whirlwind relationship; he’d been born in Morganville, hadn’t even been a hundred years old when he’d died, but from what Claire had seen, it had been an old-style, intense love affair, and one they’d tried to deny themselves more than once.

They found Amelie kneeling at his grave.

From a distance, she looked like one of the marble angels—pale, dressed in white, unmoving. But her long, pale blond hair was down, falling in waves around her face and down her back, and the icy wind lifted and fluttered it like a flag.

As cold as Claire felt, Amelie looked far colder. There was no grief in her expression. There was nothing—just . . . nothing. She didn’t seem to see them as the four stopped near her; she didn’t move, or speak, or react in any way.

“Hey,” Shane said. “Stop it, whatever you’re doing. You’re hurting Claire.”

“Am I?” Amelie’s voice came slowly, and it seemed somehow distant, too, as if she were miles away but speaking through the body in front of them. “Your pardon.”

She didn’t move. She didn’t say anything else. Shane and Michael exchanged looks, and Michael clearly got the message that if he didn’t do something, Shane would, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

Michael reached out for Amelie, to help her up. And she turned on him, suddenly and completely alive and viciously enraged, eyes flaring bloodred in her stark white face, fangs snapping down in place in sharp, lethal angles. “Do not touch me, boy!”

He stepped off, holding up both hands in surrender. Amelie glared at him—at all of them—for another few seconds, and then returned her stare to the grave in front of her. The red swirled away, leaving her eyes pale gray and once again, distant.

Amelie’s surge of rage had burned through Claire like summer, driving off the chill for a moment. She squirmed in Shane’s arms, and he let her down. Claire shed blankets, except for the last one, and crouched down across from Amelie, facing her over the grave.

Amelie looked right through her, even when Claire lifted her wrist and showed her the bracelet. The gold was frosting over again, already, and Claire felt the insidious chill coming back.

“You’re a coward,” Claire said.

Amelie’s eyes snapped into focus on her. No other reaction, but that alone was enough to make Claire want to shut up and take it all back.

She didn’t. Instead, she took a deep breath and forged on. “You think Sam wants you to sit here and wish yourself to death? I mean, I get that you’re hurting. But it’s just so high school.”

Amelie frowned, very faintly—just a tiny wrinkle of her brow. “What happened to your face?”

Oh. The burns. “Forget about me. What’s going on with you? It feels—so cold.”

While she was talking, she realized there was something strange about Amelie’s hands. She was wearing gloves . . . dark ones. No, that wasn’t it. There were spots of white skin showing through the . . .

The blood. Her hands were covered with blood. And there were slashes on her wrists, deep ones.

Those should have healed, Claire thought as her skin tightened all over her body, and she shivered in panic-shock. She had no idea why Amelie’s wounds stayed open, and kept on bleeding; vampires just didn’t do that.

But Amelie had found a way. And that meant she was trying to kill herself, for real.

This wasn’t some melodramatic cry for help. She hadn’t expected help, or looked for it.

That was why she’d been angry.

Claire felt a burst of absolute terror.

What do I do? What do I say?

She looked up at Michael, but he was standing behind and away from Amelie—he couldn’t see what she saw.

Eve, though, did. And unlike Claire, she didn’t hesitate. She flopped down on her knees on the cold grass next to Amelie, grabbed the vampire’s left arm, and turned it so her wrist faced upward. There was something sticking out of the cut, and Claire might have gone a little faint when she realized that Amelie had stuck a silver coin into the wound to keep it from healing.

Eve pulled it out. Amelie shuddered, and in seconds, the cut sealed itself, and the blood stopped flowing.

“Idiot child!” she snarled, and shoved Eve back as she reached for the other arm. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“Saving your life? No, I pretty much get the concept. Now behave. Bite me and I swear I’ll stake you.”

Amelie’s eyes swirled red, then went back to their normal, not-quite-human gray. “You have no stake.”

“Wow, you’re literal. Maybe I don’t have one now, but just wait. You bite me, and it is on, bitch. . . . I don’t mean you’re a bitch; it’s just an expression. You know?” Eve’s chatter was only meant to distract. While she was talking, she took Amelie’s right arm and pulled the silver coin out of that cut, too.

The flow of blood from Amelie’s hands into the dirt of the grave slowed to a drip, then stopped.

And Claire felt the chill inside her own body fade, too, as Amelie healed. Finally, she could feel her life again—the heat in her body, the beating of her heart. She wondered if that was how Amelie felt all the time—that icy winter silence inside.

If it was, she understood why Amelie was here.

The night rattled through the branches of the trees and swirled Amelie’s pale hair around her face, hiding her expression. Claire watched the wounds on the vampire’s arms fade from red slashes to pale lines, then to nothing.

“What the hell were you doing?” Michael asked.

Amelie shrugged. “It’s an old custom,” she said. “Offering blood to the lost. It takes will and ingenuity to do it properly.”