"What did you say?" Holly asked.

"Nothing," I replied and stood up so quickly I knocked the teacup to the floor. It snapped into two and splashed my jeans with hot tea. "Ouch," I muttered. "Oh, crud, I'm going to go to the bathroom to clean this up."

I ran out of the main cabin before they could stop me. In the bathroom, I stared into the mirror above the small sink. Here, everything smelled sterile and clean. That irksome fragrance was finally gone. I stared into my hazel eyes in the mirror and gulped down some deep breathes of the stale restroom air. It was still me in that mirror. I recognized my lips even though they were dry and cracked at the moment. There was my nose that my parents always told me was a cute as a button but which I thought looked a little like a pig's snout. At that moment, all I could think of was how glad I was to see my reflection in that mirror. It was as though, for a second back there, I thought I was inhabiting someone else's body.

I placed a hand up against the cold glass and watched the mirror steam up with the heat of my sweaty skin. I desperately wanted to touch my reflection — to hold onto the girl in the mirror.

"Tahil," I repeated, and as I did, I saw a flash of another face in the mirror. It was a woman with a narrow face and eyes full of anger. I saw a flash of a smirk on her thin lips and then a pulse of blue in her eyes — no — my eyes. I jumped back and nearly hit my head on the cabinet above the toilet.

I was breathing hard as I turned my face to look at the mirror again. It was just my reflection in the mirror, my patient but weary brown eyes, the light smattering of freckles on my cheeks. I was still wearing my filthy t-shirt and ripped jeans. The woman in the mirror with the midnight blue dress was just a nightmare —a waking nightmare. Her blond hair was the same shade as the little angelic boy I saw while I drank in the smell of that jasmine tea.

Who are these people? I didn't know the answer to that question. As I caught my breath in the bathroom, I realized the more sensible question might be — who were these people? I had a feeling that these memories were not my own. Yet whose were they? What were they doing in my head?

Did Jadueriel know who all these people were? Was he the only one who could tell me why my brain circuits were suddenly showing me ghostly memories?

When I went back outside, both Livet and Jack were gone.

"The weird Livet guy went to the cockpit," Holly said.

"Where's Jack?"

"Taking a leak or something."

I wondered how Jack would be using the restroom when I was just there. That was unless there was more than one restroom in this private jet. It bugged me, but I decided to force the questions out of my head.

I reached out from my seat and took Holly's hand from across the aisle. Down there, the world was overrun with vampires, but up here, we were prisoners of these insane strangers.

I wondered what was the purpose of being immune to the waters when everyone I loved was dead. After humanity was gone, would I be the only one left? That was if the vampires didn't eat me first.

"Did they say where this damned plane was heading?"

"Bermuda, I think," Holly replied as she twirled a strand of her caramel hair between her fingers. "They said there is a base there that's safe from the storm. I'm starting to think that you're right. They're interested in you. I think this plane is here to keep you alive."

"I don't want to survive this if it's by myself, without yo—I mean all of you guys."

"Well, you don't have a choice in the matter. It's destiny. Cheer up, Ailith, maybe Livet and his friends have found others like you with those KoRi cells in their bodies. Maybe you'll make a friend or two after the apocalypse."

"Stop it!" I snapped. "I don't want to go on without everyone I've ever known or loved."

"Hey, when I turn, will you kill me quickly?" Holly asked. "I don't want to walk around decaying all over the place."

"Stop it!"

I don't know what came over me. Maybe it was the sight of the tears welling up in her large eyes. I crossed the distance between us and sat down in her chair. We were both boney-assed girls from Windflower Springs. The two of us easily, snuggly, fit into one luxurious armchair. I caught her tears in the palm of my hand. The warm droplets traced the crevasses of my skin like water in a desert.

If Black Waters was what made humans into monsters, maybe the tears of one's loved ones were what made monsters human. I did something I never did before. I pressed my lips against hers without being invited to do so.

I don't know what gave me the courage to violate her mouth. Maybe the Blight Rain had changed me as well, in other ways than it had changed Grace. It made me recklessly give in to my desires for Holly. I wanted to know every inch of her, from her glossy cherry lips to her perfectly square lavender-purple toenails.

My hand found its way to her voluptuous hip, and I squeezed her there over the thin fabric of her suede miniskirt. My other hand trailed up her muscular thigh and then up to the curve of her bottom. Big, mean Holly seemed so small and fragile in my hands. It was as though I could snap in her half with the strength of my love.

How many times had I been exposed to Black Waters in the past couple of days? I hadn't turned. No, I am suffering from hallucinations now but I didn't turn into a monster. An eery thought appeared in my head — now I was the stronger one with my resistance to this virus on humanity.

My lips continued to press up against Holly's, and she parted her lips to let my tongue into her mouth. She was finally relenting, submitting to me. In her eyes, I finally saw understanding — all this time, poor weak Ailith who hid in her oversized sweaters and sat on the bleachers in the gym — was, in fact, the strong one. It was a strange feeling that overcame me right then. It was as though the woman whose face I saw in the mirror was edging me on. I could feel her coldness running through my veins as I continued to explore Holly's girlish form.

I had the only strength that mattered anymore. I was the one who had to be saved.

I was the Ayah-Isafi — the divine one.

What did that word mean? Where did I even get it from? I didn't know. My mind was swimming with so many fragments of thoughts. That winter's jasmine, it must have been full of dark magic. These thoughts could not possibly belong to me. I was always the shy, timid one, the wallflower no one noticed. I was too afraid to breathe lest someone hear it. Now I was squeezing Holly's right breast in my hand until she whimpered.

No, the tea was not magic, something else, something more ancient.

It woke something deep inside me that had always been there.

Those white chrysanthemums meant something. Something or someone, I had to remember.

I promised to remember.

But what?

"I love you," Holly whispered in my ear, interrupting my thoughts.

The aching between my legs intensified to an unbearable degree. I wanted Holly inside me — all of her.

"I love you too," I gasped back and kissed her again with a renewed fervor.

It was an all-consuming sensation — the feeling of her sensual tongue exploring the inside of my mouth. It blotted out all my other thoughts. I pressed my body against Holly, my breasts against her chest, my knee between her thighs, my arms around her neck. As I forced her mouth into submission, another part of me started to awaken. As I continued to explore her body, it made me feel as though I was the conqueror. The pale woman from the mirror appeared in my memory again. Her eyes were like the waters in the lake from whence the winter jasmine grew.

The specter's mysterious anger fueled my resolve to kiss Holly, to claim her for my own.

For a second, I forgot about the dead and in Holly's arms, I felt what it meant to be alive.