“Bianca—” Lucas raked his hands through his hair, a gesture I’d learned meant he was trying hard to check his temper.

“You didn’t know the safeguards to take. Do you realize what happened because of that?”

Black Cross had been attacked, and Eduardo had been killed. In a small, miserable voice, I said, “I realize now. I’m so sorry, Lucas.”

Vic and Ranulf were both looking from me to Lucas to me during this, like spectators at a tennis match. “What happened?” Vic said. “You got spammed or something?”

“Spam is good with breakfast foods,” Ranulf said, proud to have remembered something about the current world. “I shall have Spam with my eggs.”

“Not Spam the meat, spam like the e-mail ads for Viagra,” Vic corrected him.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Lucas said shortly. His face was hard and tight as he stared out the window.

“Okay.” I hadn’t really come to terms with my responsibility for what had happened, and I knew I’d be dealing with that for a while. Obviously, Lucas was angry—and he had a right to be—but he didn’t want to hash it out in front of Vic and Ranulf. Nervous and newly guilty, I somehow managed to focus on the conversation at hand. “Vic, basically, we’re kind of on the run. Not from the law, but—nobody can find us. And, um, well, we need a place to stay and food, and it gets expensive….”

“My money is your money,” Vic said, like that was the most obvious thing in the world. “Name it, it’s yours.”

“Are you sure?” I knew that Vic came from an extremely wealthy family, but still, I hated asking for handouts. “We have a little already, and we’re going to get jobs.”

“Seriously, anything. And, oh, wait, hey, genius idea, inbound—” Vic snapped his fingers. “The wine cellar.”

“Wine cellar?” Lucas said, glancing away from that spot on the window he’d been glaring at ever since he’d found out that I’d betrayed the Black Cross cell. I wondered if he was thinking what I was thinking—that Vic was going to suggest we steal bottles for a party.

Vic drummed on the laminated menu. “We have this big wine cellar beneath the house. Enormous. It’s got climate control to keep it nice and cool in summer, and it’s not very crowded, because my dad doesn’t collect wine the way my grandpa did. There’s a bathroom on the basement level, too.”

Sleeping in a basement for the summer? On the other hand, it would be free.

“I swear, it’s nice down there,” Vic said. Ranulf nodded encouragingly. “I’d let you guys stay in the house, but my parents are going to put on the whole security system, with the lasers.” He interlaced his fingers to mimic the laser beams. “The wine cellar has a separate entrance and security system, but it’s just a simple four-digit code. I can give you the code, and you guys can stay there from the night of July fifth on. How does that sound?”

“That sounds—good.” Lucas nodded slowly. I could tell he was still tense and angry, but he was in control of himself. “Vic, you’re the best.”

“I’ve long suspected as much,” Vic said. “Glad to know the word’s getting out.”

“What about Ranulf?” I asked. Although we needed a place to stay pretty badly, I thought maybe Ranulf would need it even more. “What will he do while you’re gone?”

Ranulf smiled. “I am going to Tuscany as well. The Woodsons have invited me to travel with them. I have not visited Italy in many years, so I look forward to seeing what has changed.”

Just then the waitress arrived to take our orders. While Ranulf ordered his eggs and Spam, Lucas and I traded a look. If Vic had any idea that his buddy was a vampire, there was no way he would’ve extended the invitation. On the other hand, I felt sure that Ranulf would never hurt Vic, and probably Lucas had already picked up on that, too.

So we wouldn’t have said anything, if Vic hadn’t come out with, “So, despite the whole char-grilled factor the place has going on right now, I think I’m going back to Evernight Academy in the fall.”

Lucas and I both stared. I managed to stammer out, “W-what?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s Creepy Central, and the no-cell-phones thing gets incredibly old, but I guess I’m used to it.” Vic shrugged. “Besides, I never got to take fencing. Really wanted to try that.”

“Other schools teach fencing.” Lucas put both hands on the table, leaning forward for emphasis. “Vic, seriously, listen to me. Do not go back there.”

“Why not?” Vic looked completely bewildered, as did Ranulf, who really should’ve caught on.

It wasn’t like I could tell him the truth. I knew he wouldn’t believe me. But I didn’t want him anywhere near Mrs. Bethany. “There are really good reasons, okay? The night of the fire, the weird stuff that was going on…” My voice trailed off. How could I explain?

Lucas tried, “What happened at Evernight was more than just a fire. Can we leave it at that?”

Vic stared at us. “Wait, are you guys freaking about the whole vampire thing?”

No way had I heard that right. “What?” I said, sort of weakly.

“About it being mostly a vampire school. Is that what you’re on about?” Vic stopped and smiled easily up at the waitress as she slid our orders onto the table. Ranulf, unworried by this conversation, tucked into his Spam as though he could actually taste it. As soon as the waitress walked off, Vic continued, “I mean, come on, Bianca. You are a vampire, right? Or, like, half?”

I turned to Ranulf, outraged. “You told him?”

“I did not!” Ranulf insisted. “I mean—yes, I did tell him about you, when he asked. But not about the school. That, Vic already knew.”

“How did you know that?” Lucas said.

“I figured it out my first year. God, you two act like it was hard.” Vic started counting off points on his fingers. “Half the students don’t know really obvious stuff. Like, this one guy thought Grey’s Anatomy was a medical book instead of a TV show, and another time a girl wondered why they didn’t hang criminals anymore. Also, the whole thing where everybody eats in their rooms—secretive and weird—plus half the student body never showed to pick up any food orders. Dead squirrels all over the place. That creepy school motto. The facts add up.”

We were speechless. Lucas finally said, “You knew you were surrounded by vampires—and that didn’t bother you?”

Vic shrugged. “Judge not, man.”

I was so flabbergasted that I nearly put my elbows in my waffles. Somehow I managed to lean against the table without dousing myself in syrup. “You weren’t ever scared?”

“That first night after I put it all together—yeah, that seemed to go on for a really long time,” Vic admitted. “But then I figured, hey, I’ve been here a couple months. Nobody seems to have been eaten. So what’s the big deal? The vampires seemed pretty harmless, and I figured they just had a school where they could be sure people were leaving them alone. I can respect that.”

“It was a relief not to have to hide my nature from him,” Ranulf said.

Lucas completely ignored his corned beef hash. “You never told me about it.”

“Didn’t want to freak you out. Guess you learned to deal, though, huh?” Vic grinned. “Amazing how convincing a pretty lady can be.”

“I can’t believe you discovered the secret,” I said.

“So, my duller roommate,” Vic said to Lucas, “how did you find out about the fanged types?”

“I’ve always known about vampires,” Lucas said, finally noticing that he had food in front of him.

Vic said, “No, no, I don’t mean, like, in Dracula and stuff. When did you find out for real?”

“He’s always known for real,” I said. “Lucas was raised in Black Cross.”

Ranulf set his fork down with a clatter. He hung onto his knife. His eyes were wide as he stared at Lucas, and I could tell that he was this close to leaping over the table—either to escape or to attack.

“I’m ex–Black Cross,” Lucas said heavily. “I’m not going to hurt you. Take it easy.”

As Ranulf relaxed slightly, Vic said, “Whoa, what’s Black Cross?”

“A centuries-old group of vampire hunters,” I said. “The Evernight vampires are harmless—well, mostly—but there are dangerous ones out there.”

“They do not only attack the dangerous,” Ranulf said. His eyes were dark.

“I realize that now,” Lucas said. “Because when they discovered what Bianca was, they went after her, too. Now you know why we’re on the run.”

Vic nodded, already at ease with the new information. “You know, if this weren’t so dangerous, it would be really cool.”

When we finished our food, Vic suggested we drive out to his house with him. “You should see the place. I can show you where the nearest bus stop is, because you’ll need to know how to get into the city for these jobs you’re going to have. Hey, what can you guys do?”

“I’ve had to patch up cars and trucks as long as I can remember,” Lucas said while we walked out the door. Bells on the handle jingled. “There’s probably a garage that would take me.”

I didn’t answer, because I had no idea. What could I do? The only subject I knew anything special about was astronomy, and high-school dropouts didn’t get jobs at NASA.

“Here we are.” Vic pointed to his car, a sunshine-yellow convertible. Ranulf chivalrously motioned for me to take the front passenger seat, even though this meant he and Lucas would be sort of squeezed tight in the back. Given how tense—and angry—Lucas still was, I thought our being separated for a little while might not be the worst idea. On one hand, I felt proud that Lucas had finally mastered his temper enough to hold it in check. On the other hand, I’d never realized how ominous it could be, knowing somebody was furious with you but biding his time to speak.

Then Vic distracted me completely when he said, “Oh, and there’s definitely one more thing we should do at the house.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You guys should meet the ghost.”

Chapter Fourteen

“DO YOU EVEN REMEMBER LAST YEAR?” I SAID, AS we sat in the car on the long gravel driveway of Vic’s house. It was an imposing brick mansion, and I would’ve felt intimidated, if I weren’t so busy being scared out of my wits. “How the wraiths kept coming after me?”

Vic scrunched his forehead in confusion. “Wraiths?”

“That is the more common vampire term for ghosts,” Ranulf said. “May I please exit the backseat? I can no longer feel my legs below the knees.”

“Hold your horses,” Lucas said. He leaned forward, between the two front seats, so that he could talk more directly to Vic.

“There’s no way this is safe.”

“You weren’t even there last year,” Vic scoffed.

I interjected, “I was there, and I remember the attacks—blue-green light and cold and all that ice falling from the ceiling. So I’m not going into a house with a wraith. A ghost. Whatever.”

What Vic didn’t know—what very few in the world knew, even vampires—was that any child born to vampires was the result of a bargain struck between vampires and wraiths, and that the wraiths ultimately intended to claim me as their own.

During several terrifying incidents at Evernight, including one that nearly killed me, that was precisely what the wraiths had tried to do.

Vic sighed. At this point, we’d been parked in front of his house for more than five minutes, and we’d been arguing about this ever since we’d left the diner. The water sprinklers on the broad green lawn had cycled through three different speeds. He said, “We appear to be at something known as an impasse.”