The weight registered first.

  Not the heaviness of a sleeping child carried from the car to the bed. That was a pliable weight. This was heavy. Dead weight. The terrible, unyielding gravity of meat that no longer held a soul.

  Leilani sat in the back of the van on the metal floor. She sprawled her legs out; they were numb from the waist down.

  Frankie’s head rested in her lap.

  The piece of oak was still there. Sticking up from the red slip. A jagged tombstone.

  Leilani wrapped her arms around Frankie’s shoulders, shielding her from the bumps in the road. Every pothole Ted hit sent a jolt of panic through Leilani—careful, you’ll wake her—before the absolute stillness answered.

  She wouldn’t wake.

  The van smelled of old carpet and copper. Outside, the world was a gray smear. The fog pressed against the windows, hiding the monsters, hiding the town that was dying along with her daughter.

  “Almost there,” Ted’s voice quavered from the front.

  Leilani didn’t answer.

  She licked her thumb. She wiped a smudge of dirt from Frankie’s forehead.

  Wiped a streak of blue blood from Frankie’s cheek.

  Clean. She needed to be clean.

  Damon sat opposite her. Hunched over, elbows on knees, head in his hands. He hadn’t made a sound since they left the house. Vibrating, a silent engine of grief.

  The van lurched to a stop.

  “We’re here,” Ted whispered.

  The back doors swung open. The damp air of the basement driveway rushed in.

  “Mrs. Rivera,” Dee Dee whispered. “We need to move her.”

  Leilani looked up. Her eyes were dry and scratchy.

  “I’ve got her,” Leilani said.

  “You can’t,” Dee Dee said. “Your wrist.”

  Leilani looked at her left hand. Her left hand was swollen and purple and hung at an odd angle.

  “I’ve got her,” Damon croaked.

  He stepped into the van. He moved with brittle stiffness. He slid his arms under Frankie’s knees and back.

  “Careful,” Leilani whispered. “The wood.”

  “I know,” Damon said.

  He lifted her.

  Leilani scrambled to her feet, stumbling as her bruised legs protested.

  Down the driveway. Into the house. Through the kitchen that smelled of coffee from a morning that felt like a century ago.

  Down the stairs.

  Many items cluttered the basement. Monitors. Books. Tools. It looked like a bunker.

  Dee Dee swept a pile of schematics off a large workbench in the center of the room.

  “Here,” she said.

  Damon lowered Frankie onto the table.

  He stepped back, his hands covered in his girlfriend’s blood. He stared at his palms, then wiped them frantically on his jeans.

  Leilani walked to the table.

  She pulled a stool over.

  She took Frankie’s hand. It was cold. That terrible, marble cold that shouldn’t belong to a seventeen-year-old girl.

  “A blanket,” Leilani said.

  “What?” Ted asked, hovering by the stairs.

  “She’s cold,” Leilani snapped. “Get a blanket.”

  Ted scrambled. He returned with a wool throw.

  Leilani tucked it around Frankie, covering the torn slip, covering the legs. She hesitated at the chest. The wood was in the way. She couldn’t cover the wound.

  She pulled the blanket up to Frankie’s armpits.

  Then she sat back down. Holding the hand. Rubbing the thumb. Trying to friction warmth back into the skin.

  The room was quiet. Too quiet. The only sound was the hum of the computer fans and the distant thrum of the alien signal, vibrating in the concrete foundation.

  Leilani studied Frankie’s face. The slack jaw. The dull eyes she had closed with her own fingers.

  “She wasn’t herself,” Leilani said into the quiet.

  No one spoke.

  “In the house,” Leilani continued, her voice hollow. “When she fought that… thing. She changed. Her eyes turned red. She moved so fast I couldn’t track her.”

  She looked up at Damon.

  “She threw a refrigerator door like it was cardboard.”

  Damon didn’t look up.

  “Tell me,” Leilani commanded.

  Damon swallowed. He looked at Dee Dee, then at Ted. They looked away.

  “It was two years ago,” Damon whispered. “The summer before junior year. When she got sick.”

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  Leilani remembered. Frankie had been bedridden for a week. Fever. Chills. She had refused to go to the hospital. She said it was just a bad flu.

  “She wasn’t sick,” Leilani said, the pieces clicking together.

  “She was hungry,” Damon said. “Ted, Dee Dee, and she found a strange chest on the beach at the hidden bay. When Frankie opened it, a vampire bat flew out and bit her. That’s how it all started.”

  Leilani’s hand tightened on Frankie’s icy fingers. She pushed the blanket down slightly, exposing Frankie’s neck.

  Two small scars. White. Faded.

  “It turned her?”

  “A little,” Damon said.

  He took a shaky breath.

  “She didn’t turn into a vampire. Not fully. Because the bite was small and quick, she gained the speed, strength, the sun weakness, and the need to drink some blood.”

  Leilani looked at her daughter. The secret life. The bruises she claimed were from surfing. The exhaustion. The way she ate rare steaks.

  “She lied to me,” Leilani whispered.

  “She didn’t lie to you,” Damon said fiercely. He looked up, his eyes red and wet. “After she killed the monster who turned her, she spent every night for the last two years patrolling. Killing the things that came into this town. She wanted you to have a normal life. She wanted you to worry about college applications, not stakes.”

  Leilani touched the acceptance letter in her pocket.

  The University of Hawaii.

  “She wanted to go,” Leilani said.

  “I know,” Damon said. His voice cracked. “We made a deal. No more monsters.”

  He looked at the wood sticking up from Frankie’s chest.

  “I failed her,” he whispered. “I was supposed to watch her back. And I let her walk into that house alone.”

  “She locked the door,” Ted said softly from the corner. “She stole the van. You couldn’t have stopped her, man.”

  “I should have broken the window!” Damon shouted. He slammed his fist into the wall. “I should have run faster! I should have been there!”

  He slid down the wall, burying his face in his hands again.

  Leilani didn’t comfort him.

  She looked at Frankie’s face.

  A turned vampire.

  Now dead.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Leilani said. “She’s gone.”

  The words hung in the air.

  Leilani rested her forehead on Frankie’s hand. She closed her eyes. If only this were a nightmare.

  But the smell of the basement—earth and iron—anchored her.

  The light in the basement didn’t change, but the feeling of the world outside did. The thrum grew louder. The air pressure dropped. The fog was thickening, pressing against the small hopper windows near the ceiling.

  Leilani didn’t move.

  Dee Dee sat at her desk.

  She wasn’t crying anymore. She had put her glasses back on. She had opened the black book. The Tome of Shadows.

  She had been reading for hours. Mutters of Sumerian. The rustle of dry, ancient paper.

  Leilani ignored her.

  Until Dee Dee stopped.

  The silence changed texture. It wasn’t the silence of grief anymore. It was the silence of a held breath.

  “Mrs. Rivera,” Dee Dee whispered.

  Leilani didn’t lift her head.

  “Mrs. Rivera, please.”

  Leilani slowly sat up. Her neck creaked.

  Dee Dee was standing by the table. She held the black book open in her hands. Her face was pale, lit by the bulb.

  “There might be a way,” Dee Dee said.

  Leilani stared at her. “A way to what?”

  “To fix this.”

  Damon looked up from the floor. “Dee, don’t.”

  “I found a ritual,” Dee Dee said, ignoring him. She looked straight at Leilani. “It’s in the chapter on the Unfinished. The ones who die before their purpose is fulfilled.”

  Leilani stopped crying. She looked at the book.

  “A ritual,” Leilani said.

  “It’s not… it’s not like CPR,” Dee Dee stammered. “It’s necromancy. It’s summoning the soul back to the vessel.”

  “Stop,” Damon said. He stood up. “Dee, look at her. She’s got a stake in her heart. She’s gone. Don’t give Leilani false hope.”

  “It’s not false!” Dee Dee insisted. “The text is specific. ‘Blood is life to all dark ones, even in death. When the fallen reclaim their blood, their soul shall rise again.’”

  She turned the book so Leilani could see. Jagged, terrifying illustrations covered the page. A body rising from a pool of black water.

  “Frankie is not a full vampire,” Dee Dee said. “But she still has vampire blood in her body. She just needs more to come back.”

  Leilani stood up. Her legs were stiff, but she walked to Dee Dee.

  “Read it,” Leilani commanded.

  Dee Dee took a breath.

  “The Resurrection of the Vengeful. Requirements: Boiling water. The blood of the bonded. And the Anchor.”

  “The Anchor?” Leilani asked.

  “Someone who pulls her back,” Dee Dee said. She looked at Damon. “Someone she loves.”

  Damon walked to the table. He looked at Frankie’s gray face.

  “And the cost?” Damon asked. “There’s always a cost, Dee. You said it yourself. Magic takes.”

  Dee Dee looked down at the text. She bit her lip until it bled.

  “The price is life,” she whispered.

  Their faces turned pale.

  “What does that mean?” Ted asked from the corner.

  “It means energy. To jumpstart a heart that has stopped… to knit bone and tissue that has been destroyed… it requires a massive transfer of vitality.”

  She looked at Leilani.

  “It will take years off the giver’s life. Maybe decades. Or… it could kill them instantly.”

  Damon stepped back. “We can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Leilani asked.

  Her voice was calm.

  “Because we don’t know if it will work!” Damon shouted. “We could kill you, and Frankie could still be dead! Or worse… she could come back wrong. The book says ‘Vengeful.’ What if she comes back as a monster? A real one?”

  “She’s already a monster,” Leilani said.

  She looked at Frankie.

  “She was a vampire who fought for this town. She was a girl who took a spear to the heart for her mother.”

  Leilani reached out and touched the book. The leather mimicked warm skin.

  “If,” Leilani said. “Even one percent. I am taking it.”

  “Leilani,” Damon pleaded. “Frankie wouldn’t want this. She died saving you. If you die to bring her back… she’ll never forgive herself.”

  “She won’t have to forgive me,” Leilani said. “Because I’ll be dead. And she’ll be alive.”

  She looked at Damon. Her eyes were hard, dark stones.

  “I had my turn,” Leilani said. “I had a husband I loved. I had a business. I raised a daughter. Frankie hasn’t started yet. She hasn’t gone to Hawaii. She hasn’t surfed the North Shore. She hasn’t lived.”

  She grabbed the book from Dee Dee’s hands. She slammed it onto the workbench next to Frankie’s body.

  “I am not letting her story end in a dirty living room on Seashell Avenue.”

  She pushed up the sleeve of her flannel shirt, revealing her arm. The veins stood out, blue and strong.

  She looked at Dee Dee.

  “You said you need blood?”

  Dee Dee nodded, tears spilling over. “Yes.”

  “And boiling water?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then start the fire,” Leilani commanded.

  She walked to the utility sink in the basement's corner. She turned the handle. The water sputtered, brown then clear.

  She looked at the frozen teenagers.

  “We are wasting time,” Leilani snapped. “Ted. Get the tub ready. Damon. You’re the Anchor. Get your head in the game.”

  “Leilani…” Damon started.

  “Don’t you dare,” she cut him off. “Don’t you dare tell me it’s too dangerous. That is my daughter on that table. And I am going to bring her back.”

  She picked up a utility knife from the workbench. She tested the blade with her thumb. Sharp.

  She looked at Frankie one last time.

  Ride the drop, Frankie always said.

  Leilani tipped her head back.

  “Take it,” she whispered fiercely. “Take my blood. Take my years. Take it all.”

  She turned to Dee Dee.

  “Bring her back. Now.”