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I finished before everyone else There hadn’t been a lot of suitable food choices on the et on the road Kevin ca the bill He walked ht outuntil he was sure ere alone

"Are you okay?" he asked

"No," I ad ed, you know, these past couple of years You’ve grown up Before the vampire bite, you’d never have been able to aze locked with mine, his expression more serious than I’d ever seen it "Emma tells me that two of the warlocks survived And that they escaped"

I didn’t want to think about that right now I knew I needed to, but I just didn’t have the heart for it I knew he could hear it in my voice when I said, "So they tell me"

"Do you want me to track them?"

Once upon a time Kevin had been a field operative for the Coets," the worst of the worst He was offering to do that again, for h to require an assistance dog He’d do it, too

I stared at him, dumbfounded Was it friendship that proran had told me that men will fulfill a siren’s needs, even to their doom Chris had flown me into the middle of a war zone and jumped out of that helicopter because I needed backup Kevin was offering to do for me what he’d done for the Coain,left on the beach Had my siren side been affected as well? I couldn’t knoithout checking with reat-aunt, orfor certain: I was a siren InfluencingI could do--but only if I let myself

"No, I don’t think so Not this tiy blond hair fell slightly over his blue eyes It was a boyish look, but his words weren’t boyish They were deadly serious "You screwed up their plans, Celia You Nobody else They’re not going to forget or forgive"

He was right I knew it That Davis and the otherto bite me in the ass hard somewhere down the line But it didn’t ainst these people Not now Not ever There had to be another way to stop them I would just have to find it

I cli old and tired My whole body hurt Worse, my heart ached So much had happened in the past few days I needed some time alone to think and absorb it all I rolled down theto ask Kevin one last question

"Are you really going to rimaced "It’s traditional If you turn so her until she can control herself When she’s ready, I’ll introduce her to a friend of mine who’s the leader of a pack" He could tell fro "Don’t feel bad It’s all right I don’t ht choice"

If I had, then why did I feel so crappy about it?

"You’re just tired Go hoht" I turned the key in the ignition and the truck’s engine roared to life "Good-bye, Kevin"

"Good-bye Be careful driving ho as I drove away

I thought about Jack Finn I’d let him live Had it been a ht I needed to, but he was a bad htly better than his father had been I thought about Connor Finn We’d had quite the dance, he and I I lived, he died, but his ghost was out there, a powerful, violent shade There is only so e every bit of it given the chance And there wasn’t one daht memories of my sister I missed Ivy On the drive ho drive she’d provide the air-conditioning, mess with the radio, and draw hearts in frost on the driver’s-sideThat would never happen again She ht be better off I wasn’t sure I was

I turned on the radio, determined not toin self-pity anymore We’d won, damn it Michelle was alive The prison wards were back up The bad guys’ plans were foiled We’d won I hit the search button The first channel it found was a disco station The classic notes of Donna Summer’s "I Will Survive" blasted out of the speakers

It hter was real, too Turning up the volu out the words I’d learned fro to the punk version After that I felt better, enough better that I had a brainstorm I hit the button to make a couple of hands-free calls, first to Dawna and then Emma

"Celia, I just left the restaurant," Emma said "I’m on my way to visit Matty in the hospital What’s up?"

"You’re ht? With your husband"