Myrtle holds my gaze. We’ll probably never be friends, but we have one thing in common—we are both survivors, hopefully wiser for the pain.

“Take care, Daisy.” She points to a bit of dried blood on my thumb. “You missed a spot.”

“Shit. Thanks.”

I hurry back to the bathroom to wash my thumb, then I run out to the car.

“You took a while,” Jordan comments as I swing in and shut the door.

“I was talking to Myrtle.”

Her eyes widen. “No way.”

“Yup.” I lean back against the headrest. “And now, I’m done for the day.”

“You need something to help you sleep tonight?”

“I’ll be fine. Mom’s got wine in the fridge if I really need to knock myself out.”

“Don’t give yourself a hangover, though. You never know when Jay might need us tomorrow.”

“I don’t do hangovers.” I yawn until it feels like my cheeks will split. “Any idea what the party theme is for tomorrow night? You always seem to know that stuff.”

“Jay posts it on his party Instagram. He puts pictures on there too, like the ones from the Met Gala night.”

“Seriously?” My hand dives into my bag and comes out with my phone. “What’s the handle?”

She tells me, and I do a quick search. The account has rows and rows of gorgeous images and suggests several hashtags people can use to tag their own photos from Jay’s parties. Right at the top is a post with a stock photo of a regal, dark-haired woman in a fur-trimmed robe, wearing a crown. The theme is Royals, the caption reads. Put your own spin on it. We’ll take everything from Lorde to Game of Thrones.

“I don’t think I have anything to wear,” I groan.

“Really, Daisy? That’s your big concern?” Jordan side-eyes me.

“No, no it’s not. I just… I fixate on small things when I’m worried. Sorry, that sounded super shallow, especially after people died tonight. Ugh, I’m the worst.”

Jordan sighs. “No, it’s fine. I get it. It’s hard to take it all in. At least, that’s how I felt after the thing with George. I didn’t really feel sad, you know? Just kind of distantly sorry. He was someone I didn’t really know. But the people being threatened now—these are my people, other vampires, and they’re being massacred by someone who doesn’t think they should have a choice about their own mortality, their own bodies.”

Her words hover in my mind even after she drops me off. Sometimes the world feels so exhausting, so full of pain, like a great chorus of agonized souls all crying together, and I can’t stop it, and if I try to feel it all, I’ll crumble into nothing. But shutting it all out isn’t the answer either.

When I enter the kitchen to make some tea for my throat, Mom and Dad are there, sitting next to each other at the island, holding hands.

“Are those your clothes?” Mom arches an eyebrow.

“No, they’re Jordan’s. Mine got dirty.”

She doesn’t ask how, which is a relief.

“So…” I drag out the word. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Your father explained about his gift and how he used it.”

“Oh.” My heart thumps harder as I set the Keurig to heat some water. Are they going to give up Dad’s job and the house? Is he going to try to go back, to rewind and untwist the past, to undo the choice he made?

What will I have to give up?

God, I’m so selfish. I need to be better.

“We’ve decided to let the past be the past, and move on from here,” Mom says carefully.

Relief surges through me, mingled with guilt. “Okay. That’s good.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Dad asks.

“I’m pretty exhausted, honestly, so I’m going to bed.”

“You sound hoarse, sweetie,” says Mom.

“It’s nothing. I’m making tea.”

“Be sure to add some honey.”

They continue talking in low voices, but I don’t try to decipher the words. When the tea is ready, I give them each a side hug before heading to my room.

My brain isn’t capable of navigating moral complexities right now. My main takeaway from all this is that bad decisions, once made, result in a whole bunch of effects—like dominoes falling in rippling rows, like cracks spiderwebbing through glass. You can’t unbreak what’s been shattered, and you can’t go back.

You can only go on.

25

I wear my red dress to the Royals party.

I bought it a few Halloweens ago, hoping to be Juliet to Tom’s Romeo. He hated the gown—said it was too stuffy and not sexy enough. He said red looked better on people with dark hair. So we went to the costume party as half-naked Batman and slutty Catwoman instead, like he’d wanted, and he spent the night hooking a finger into the choker around my neck and pulling me around with him.

My only excuse for putting up with that is… Well, I have no excuse. At the time, I was so enamored with him and anxious to please that I sublimated my own self-esteem.

I never have to do that with Jay. So tonight, I’m rocking the Juliet dress like a freaking queen. The gown is a big, heavy, rich thing, all bustles and embroidery, scored secondhand from a theater near Asheville. What can I say? You can’t take the bargain-hunter out of the poor girl, even after she’s got money.

I don’t have a tiara, but Mom does my hair and puts pretty crystal combs in it. I’m not even sure where she got them. They look old, and they’re heavy, too. Might make decent weapons if it comes down to that. Weird that a few weeks ago my only summertime worries were chlorine damage and sunburns.

After the hair and the combs and some dangly earrings, I hunt through four different drawers before I find the little charm bracelet Jay gave me when I was fourteen. A couple of the charms are worn through the silver coating to the cheap brass underneath, and it doesn’t go with my outfit.

It’s perfect.

Jordan and I barely speak when she picks me up. She’s dressed in some flamboyant purple thing with a slit up her thigh, showing off an actual knife sheath, with an actual knife in it. It looks very hot and dangerous. Senior year of high school, Jordan took knife-throwing lessons from a guy so she could do a couple stunts with daggers, and I’m betting she could still do some damage if she had to. Not to mention that, as a vampire, she now has her own set of ten retractable knives on the ends of her fingers.

We stop to collect Nick, who looks every inch the dazzling prince in a royal-blue suit. I notice a tiny hole under one of the arms and a little fraying around the cuffs, but I don’t mention it. He deserves to feel like royalty.

I took the back seat so as not to wrinkle my dress, and Nick turns to look at me as he slides into the front passenger side.