“Why did you bring me here?” I had to shout over the impossibly loud music, causing an artificial beat in my heart. “What is this place, anyway?”

“A vampire hang-out.”

“But, they’re all human.” The sweat and smudged mascara a dead giveaway.

“Precisely. It’s a blood rave,” he called over his shoulder, our arms working as a chain to keep us together. We weaved through the middle of the dance floor—not the route I’d have taken— and came out on the edge.

“What the hell is a blood rave?”

With his arms folded, his eyes on the mass of dancing bodies, he smiled. “It’s where vampires go to feed.”

I felt cold then, despite the moisture sticking my hair to my brow, rising up from the humans and settling in a thick, moist cloud all around the edge of the room. “Is it like Karnivale—where they just attack at midnight?”

“No. And that’s why I brought you here.” Eric looked annoyingly perfect, even under the strobe that made me pale. He didn’t even have one drop of sweat on him. I was sure half mine belonged to other people.

“Okay, so, why do I need to come to a club where they don’t kill people at midnight?”

“I want you to see what it looks like.”

“Well, it’s very...” I considered the room; square, with a balcony wrapping the room, seedy things happening in the darkness beneath, ignorance occurring on the packed floor at the centre. “It’s very nice. Now can we go?”

“It’s not the club I wanted you to see, Amara.” He took my wrist. “It’s the kill.”

“What?” I stood a little taller, looking around with wide eyes.

“You saw that girl at Karnivale, right?”

“Yes, and I don’t need to see any more.”

“But you didn’t see her die.”

“I don’t need to.” My voice shook, my arms going stiff.

“It’s not so much the death I want you to see.” He looked up at the balcony. “Come on, we can see better up there.”

“No!” I drove the force of my wrist down and slipped it out between his thumb and finger, breaking free. “I don’t want to see this, Eric.”

“You need to, kiddo. You need to see what it does to us—how the kill affects us.”

“No, I really don’t.”

“I promise, just watch for one minute, then I’ll take you home—or maybe on a real date, like a movie or something, since you’re only friends with David.” A wry smile slipped across his lips.

“A date, I can do, but, Eric, please, humans aren’t like vampires. This stuff causes psychological damage, and I’m already pretty mess—”

“You’re fine, Amara.” He grabbed my wrist again. “You’ll be fine.”

I tugged, trying to break loose again, but he was all-too conscious of my methods now, and merely held tighter. “Please—let me go.”

“No. If you want to hang out with us, you need to understand us,” he stated calmly, talking loud enough for my human ears to hear him over the electronically-generated music.

“Eric. Please. I don’t want to see this,” my panicked voice broke against the tears, but he dragged me along, through the mess of heated bodies and barely-covered limbs, until we reached the top of the stairs. No one even looked up to the fact that I was crying and struggling against this man who was bigger and stronger than me.

“Sit.” He pushed me into a chair and sat beside me.

“Why are we sitting here?”

“Just watch.” He dropped his hands into his lap and sat back, smiling.

The balcony had cleared, the people rallying in the slums below, almost as if they knew something we didn’t. I felt out of place, like I’d entered the wrong room. Fear rose in me like a wave of heat, settling in my feet as determination. “No—I’m outta here.”

Eric grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the chair. “Sit,” he ordered in the harshest tone ever.

Swallowing, I folded my arms, making myself smaller.

“I don’t mean to be cruel, Amara, but I’m tired of playing these games with you.” He nodded to the dance floor. “It’s time you got a reality check.”

“Okay. It’s real. I get it.”

“Just humour me, please? Just stay for five minutes, then I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

“No deal. Take me home now,” I demanded. He went to shake his head at me, looking up quickly when I added, “Jerk.”

“You can say what you want about me, Amara. But I’m trying to save the last few weeks of your relationship with my council leader. If you keep this up, he will have to leave.”

“You think he’d really leave because I won’t let him kill?”

“Yes. If you think for a second that anything outranks our primal needs, you’re delusional, girl. It’ll start with lies, then he’ll just start coming back from ‘walks’ a little later than usual. Eventually, the pain of being without the bite, the kill, will be worse than being without you, and he’ll leave.”

“How...how long will that take—’til he gets that bad?”

“He left you in a pool of your own tears tonight, didn’t he?”

I folded my arms. “Fine. I’ll stay, but I don’t have to watch.”

“Oh, you’ll watch,” he noted in an annoyingly conceited tone. “You’ll watch because you won’t be able to help yourself.”

Don’t be so sure.

The room became darker then; the blue strobe stopped, giving way to a cloudy red spotlight that excited the crowd as it touched their fingertips.

“What’s happening?” I said, leaning closer to Eric.

“Diversion.”

“What’s that smell?”

He frowned. “You can smell that?”

“Yeah, what is it, it smells like...lavender?”

“That’s how the vampires know it’s time—to make a kill.” He unfolded his arms and sat up to look over the red handrail running the length of the balcony. “It’s laced with a drug, something that makes the humans a little more relaxed.”

My fingers tingled; I looked down, watching them kind of grow thicker and thinner, while small, clear circles ran over my flesh like winding vortexes. “It’s affecting me, too.”