And stayed there. For hours.

Not everybody had to stay put, of course. The Black Cross people from New York, whose names were hardly more than a blur (ZackElenaReneeHawkinsAnjuliNathan), trained in the mornings, then set out on patrols after the night shift came in. They had maps of New York City up in the patrol area, with different routes marked out. Somebody was watching virtually every neighborhood of the city day and night. I knew that Lucas, Dana, and the others from our group were sometimes on those patrols, but not me and Raquel. No, we were expected to become fighters or die trying.

Me, I might’ve been happy to die trying. Dying seemed easier than trying to do a chin-up, much less five of them like they wanted.

“Come on, Olivier.” My trainer for the day, a red-haired woman named Colleen, held my feet as I struggled through my sit-ups. “Go for sixty.”

“Sixty?” My face was flushed, and I felt like I might vomit at any second. I’d just done forty. “I can’t.”

“You can’t until you can. Push for it.”

Sure enough, within a couple weeks, I could do sixty, though the last ten felt like raging hot death. Sadly I was still way short of having six-pack abs, which I felt like I was entitled to.

Other times, we were on the climbing wall, which was scary as hell—no, it wasn’t a cliff, but you could fall five or six feet, and that would definitely hurt. Or we ran—not laps, because there wasn’t a track—but up and down the long path they’d created on the old railway line. That I was better at, because I could get in the groove, shut down my worries, and sort of tap into the vampire side of myself—the unearthly strength and power that lurked down deep inside. I didn’t run superfast, because I didn’t want them to ask themselves how I could do that, but I could go and keep going, and that was usually enough to keep my trainer off my back.

This wasn’t just fitness camp. That I could’ve dealt with. Only mornings were for exercise. Afternoons were for something else.

Afternoons were about learning to kill vampires.

“The stake paralyzes,” Eliza said. She stood in the center of the room they called the sparring chamber, but I thought of as the Murder Zone. Raquel and I sat together near the front, while about ten others gathered around us. This kind of training apparently never stopped for the hunters. “You all know that. But a lot of hunters have been killed because they thought they’d staked a vampire, when all they’d done was get that vampire really mad. Tell me, Bianca, what did those hunters do wrong?”

I shrank, as if I could somehow duck the question. It didn’t work—Eliza fixed me with her stare, and I had to reply. My voice sounded strange to me as I said, “They—they didn’t pierce the heart.”

“Exactly. If you want to hit the heart, you have to know the right angle. Miss by a millimeter, the vampire is fine—and you’re dead.”

The other way, the vampire’s dead, I thought.

I wasn’t the naive girl I’d been a couple years ago, before Lucas entered my life. I no longer believed that all vampires refrained from killing humans, the way my parents and Balthazar did. Since meeting Charity, and seeing Mrs. Bethany in action, I’d been forced to learn that many vampires were deadly, even uncontrollable. That was part of why I’d decided never to make that first kill and become a full vampire.

But some vampires didn’t cause any trouble for humans. A lot of them, actually. They just wanted to be left alone.

Lucas had learned that truth; I trusted him not to fight any vampire who didn’t need to be fought. The rest of the people in this room believed that all vampires were pure evil and would kill them on sight—no questions asked.

Not that Black Cross hunters didn’t know anything about vampires, because they understood a lot, so much that it shocked me. They not only knew about Evernight Academy but also about other vampire sanctuaries around the globe. They knew about our sensitivity to churches and consecrated ground of any faith. They even knew some facts that many vampires believed to be legend—for instance, that holy water burned us. (Most vampires who had been doused with holy water were just fine, but it turned out that was only because most holy men weren’t committed enough to their god to transform the water. Black Cross had found true believers, who could make true holy water that seared vampire skin like acid.)

But for every fact Black Cross had, there was another bit of misinformation. They thought all vampires were evil. They believed that all vampires belonged to violent, marauding tribes; although tribes were real, only a small minority of vampires ever joined one. They thought our consciences died along with our bodies. So they had no problems with the idea of killing us. It was beyond strange to watch them practicing: stabbing the dummies with the stakes at different angles, with different holds.

What was even weirder was practicing the moves myself.

I tried imagining that my assailant was Charity—that she was attacking Lucas again, and I was the only one who could stop her—and then I could shove the stake straight into the target, earning a puff of sawdust and applause from the other hunters. That didn’t make it any less creepy.

The best part of the day was the evenings right before night patrol set out, because that was when I learned about loading and repairing weapons—and was the only time I was able to spend with Lucas.

“It’s like we’re prisoners,” I whispered as he showed me how to reload a crossbow. “Do you get out?”

“Only on patrol.” Lucas handed me the crossbow, so I could try for myself. After a quick glance around the room to make sure nobody was listening, he said, “Are you okay for—well, for food?”

“I could use a big meal—seriously use one—but I’m hanging on.”

“How?”

I sighed. “They let us hang out on the rooftop of the parking garage sometimes, for breaks. Most days I can grab a couple minutes alone.”

Lucas didn’t get it. “And?”

“All I’m going to say is that there are tons of pigeons in New York, and they’re not very fast. Okay?”

He grimaced, but in a way that made a joke of his disgust, and I giggled. The laugh echoed back from the curved ceiling of the tunnel. Lucas’s expression softened. “There’s that smile. God, have I missed seeing you happy.”

“I just miss you.” I put one hand over his, so that they were both folded over the crossbow. “I see even less of you than I did when we were forbidden to be together. How long do we have to put up with this?”

“I’m working on it, I promise. Coming by the money is hard, but I’ve set aside a little over the past few months. Not enough to get us started, but I’m close. Once I pay my dues and get more free time, I can pick up some work around town. Odd jobs for cash under the table.”

“What does that mean, cash under the table?”

“It means they pay less than minimum wage, but in return, neither you nor the boss reports it on your taxes.”

That would be hard work, then. Dirty work, like hauling boxes or garbage. I hated that Lucas had to do that—but I kind of loved that he would do that for us.

“This doesn’t look much like practice to me,” Kate said, strolling in our direction.

“Give us a break, Mom,” Lucas said. “Bianca and I hardly get to talk anymore.”

“I know it’s hard.” Her voice sounded softer than I’d heard it before. “When your father and I first met, it was in the New Orleans cell. They were such tight-asses they made this place look like a free-for-all. If I saw him five minutes a day, that was a good day.”

Lucas was very still. I knew that Kate didn’t talk about his real father much. With barely concealed eagerness, he asked, “So you guys—you went on patrol together sometimes?”

“Sometimes.” Kate half turned from us, stern again, and the moment seemed to have passed too soon. “Eliza says you’re shaping up, Bianca. How about you join us on patrol soon?”

“Really?” Lucas looked psyched, because we’d finally have a few minutes to be alone. I wanted to be as excited as he was—I missed him so much most nights I felt crazed—but the thought of joining a vampire-hunting patrol scared me.

Kate didn’t notice our reactions. She simply said, “How about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Lucas repeated.

I hugged him quickly, but I didn’t shut my eyes. Instead I watched the hunters around us, sharpening their knives.

It wasn’t like I didn’t have any way out of it. I could’ve claimed I had a headache or felt nauseated or something like that. But I needed fresh blood, and, even more than that, I needed to spend some time with Lucas.

So that meant I pretty much had to begin my career as the world’s first-and-only vampire vampire hunter.

Eliza said our first time out should be a standard patrol, someplace all the regulars already knew by heart. Given my movie-based knowledge of New York, which owed a lot to romantic comedies, our patrol location made no sense to me. “Vampires in Central Park? The place with all the carriage rides?”

Lucas smiled a little. “It’s a bigger place than you think. And the farther north you go, the wilder it gets.”

We got off our transport (a repurposed tour bus) and spread out in the park. The summer night felt warm, but comfortably so, a slight breeze stirring the air like a sigh. I looked up hopefully for a glimpse of the stars, but the city lights completely obliterated them.

“I’m with Bianca,” Lucas said as everyone started to scatter.

Eduardo frowned. “This is not an excuse for you two to sneak off.”

For once, Eliza and Eduardo seemed to be on the same page. “Is this going to be a problem with you two?”

Lucas’s temper flared, making his eyes blaze. “If you think I’d distract Bianca while we’re in a known vampire hunting zone, you’re crazy. I wouldn’t put her in danger. Period.”

Kate cut in, “Let them go. Come, we need to move—it’s getting late.”

Raquel gave me an excited wave as she and Dana headed south, disappearing into the park. The rest of the team mostly headed in that direction, too, but Lucas and I remained just within the park.

We stood quietly, using our enhanced hearing to judge how far away everyone else was and when we were really and truly alone. Then we looked at each other, and the rush of exhilaration hit me. These were the moments I hung on for, the ones that made all the hard work and loneliness worthwhile.

Lucas embraced me as he kissed my hair, then my forehead, then my lips. His warm scent made me feel as if we weren’t in a park but in the center of a vast forest, as alone as if we were the only people in the world. I opened my mouth beneath his, eager to deepen the kiss, but he pulled back. “Hey. What I said to Eduardo and Eliza—I wasn’t kidding. We can’t afford to get distracted around here.”

I breathed out in frustration. “Are we ever going to ‘get distracted’ again?”

“God, I hope so.”

A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “Because I could really, really use some distraction around now.”

Lucas’s hands tightened around my shoulders, and he got this incredible look on his face, like he could eat me up that second. I knew the danger was real, but that only intensified the thrill.

His voice rough, he said, “Soon.” Then he let go of me, jaw clenched, like he had to force himself to do it.

Sighing, I took a few steps back. I was more elated than let down; as badly as I missed being alone with Lucas, we’d been forced to learn a lot of self-control. Seeing how much he wanted me was exhilaration enough.

Well, not quite. But close.

“So, how do we start looking for vampires?” I asked. I could hear that there were others in the park, not all that far from us, but the footsteps sounded normal. Were we waiting for a scream?