“What do we do with it?” Jess asked, prodding the exsanguinated corpse with her foot. Apparently she no longer wanted to have much contact with it even though just moments ago she’d had her fangs deep in the man’s neck. From the way she was looking down at the corpse now anybody would have thought she’d merely discovered it rather than having caused it.

Ben stared down at the pasty lifeless man with absolute indifference. He’d expected to feel a least a little guilt for his part, but there was nothing. Maybe it was because he had not been the one to take his life. Or maybe it was simply because Jess was right and the man deserved what he got.

“I don’t know, I’ve always left them alive before,” he replied. “Leave them alive and make them forget and there’ll be no mess to clean up.”

Ben fell down to one knee and examined the mess Jess had made of the man’s neck. She’d really chewed up the flesh on the initial bite leaving it mashed up and torn. It looked more like an animal had attacked the man, though there was no animal in England that would have done so. If they left the corpse for the police to find it would turn into a local urban legend by the end of the month. But it would also shine a light in Ben’s direction and since he lived so close that was not something he wanted. At the very least he had to move the corpse.

“We could make it look like a mugging gone wrong,” Jess suggested.

“That doesn’t explain how he lost every drop of blood in his body.”

“Oh yeah.” Jess was moving around quickly her fingers twitching as she ran through options in her head. Ben recognised the restlessness. She was feeling the surge of her vampiric powers for the first time, the rush of supernatural adrenaline. She wanted to be free to explore her new abilities but instead she was stuck here figuring out how to clean up the mess she’d made.

“Would they still be able to tell he was drained if we burned the body?” Ben said, thinking out loud.

Jess flinched and went still. “I don’t know,” her voice was hushed, but Ben barely noticed. He was too absorbed in his own thoughts.

“I’m just going to throw him in the river. At least when he’s found he’ll have floated far from here.” Hopefully the water would do plenty of damage before he washed up somewhere.

Ben scooped the body off the floor, repulsed at how cold and stiff it had grown already. Throwing the body over his shoulder, he sped down to the river and tossed it in. And that was the end of that.

“We’re going to have to find a better way of dealing with corpses,” said Jess as they both stood at the river’s edge and watched the corpse float away. The dead man had landed on his back and was drifting slowly away looking like a person doing the back float in the middle of the night. He floated for less than a minute before the water embraced him and dragged him beneath the dark surface.

“Maybe I should open a full funeral home,” Ben mused. Then he could buy a crematorium and burn all the bodies he liked. “Or maybe you could just not kill your victims.”

His phone buzzed and he pulled it out only for his heart to plummet to the very bottom of his abdomen. One name was on his screen and it was the very name with the power drag to him out of any place of moderate happiness and fling him into a corner of nauseating misery. Grace.

Maybe Kieron had lied. Maybe Grace had not chosen him.

No. Ben would not allow that seed of hope to bloom.

He opened the message and his eyes devoured the sickly words contained within.

I’m so sorry for what Kieron did. I hope you’re okay.

He guessed that something was going on between us and even though I denied it he wouldn’t believe me. I had to tell him that we slept together but I only said we did once. Please don’t tell him the whole truth.

I didn’t want things to end like this between us.

You don’t need to guard me anymore. Ostara is in a few days and then I’ll be married to Kieron. Tell Rik the deal is done. He’s out of the Coven. Mum says he can come to the house after Ostara for the Disillusion.

Thank you for everything Ben. I really enjoyed our time together. You won’t hear from me or see me again after this message, but please know that I will always carry you in my heart.

Ben stared at the screen for minutes on end, his tearful eyes fixated on the final line of text. The only line that held a glimmer of warmth. Even if it was superficial and meaningless.

A chasm of emptiness opened in the pits of his bowels and he felt it sucking everything into it leaving his body a hollow shell. The cold air pinched his skin for the first time in weeks but he didn’t care. He didn’t understand why he cared so much about such a short-lived thing.

“Everything okay?” Jess asked. Her voice sounded like it was a million miles away and it took Ben several beats to drag himself back to the real world.

“Hmm? Yes. Come on, we should get back to the apartment.”

Rik had returned home whilst Ben had been out with Jess and Ben tossed his phone to the warlock as soon as he entered the living room. Rik’s eyes flicked over the screen and absorbed the message from Grace.

“What a little bitch,” said Rik, handing the phone back.

“That’s a bit harsh.”

“None of that self-serving drivel is genuine. She just wants to make sure you don’t fess up the full truth to her husband-to-be. For as long as I’ve known Grace the only person she truly cared about was herself.”

“That wasn’t the impression I got from the message,” Ben said, but he was now reading it again to see if he’d got the wrong take. To him it had been a genuine apology.

“Of course not. You see what you want to see. We’re all guilty of it when we’re in your less-than-fortunate position. You’re upset because she chose him so see what your heart searches for—signs that she does want you really and she’s truly sorry for what her duty has forced her to do.”

Rik’s words hit Ben like he was standing on the wrong side of a firing line. He did not want to look at Grace in the same light that Rik saw her. Rik despised the Coven so his opinion was hardly unbiased. But that didn’t mean Rik’s words held no sway.

“Thanks for the insight, but I was showing you the bit about the disillusion. I’m sure she means disbarment or something like that, but you need to go and do it after Ostara.”

“Oh.” Rik flapped his hand through the air. “When I find the time. She wasn’t wrong by the way. It’s called a Disillusion Ritual because when a witch wants to leave a coven he has become disillusioned with its principles.”

“Sounds stupid,” Jess said. She hopped around Rik’s pile of old books on her way to the sofa where she sat cross-legged in the corner.

Rik nodded. “Yes, most Coven practices are stupid. The ritual severs my magical connection to the Coven, but it’s not too important yet. What is important is getting into the Coven library again.”

Ben sighed exhaling every bit of exhaustion that had been growing for weeks. More schemes. “Why?” he dragged his feet over to the table where they kept the alcohol. Since becoming a vampire he’d begun drinking a lot more. As a human he’d barely drunk at all, now he seemed to constantly be reaching for the whiskey.

“I need some information,” said Rik, uncharacteristically tight-lipped.

Ben watched the whiskey trickle into his glass and imagined the golden liquid washing all his troubles away. He supposed that was why people turned to drink, but he wanted it to literally cleanse him of his troubles, not just to make him forget them for an evening. Not that he ever drank enough to forget anything.

“Yes, that was fairly obvious, why else would you go to a library? This is for the secret project that you refuse to tell me about then?” Ben took a huge gulp of his drink before immediately refilling his glass. Not so long ago the liquor would have burned his throat, now he barely noticed it. Just like it took several glasses for him to feel even a light tingle.

“Far be it for me to state the obvious, but that is how secret projects work,” said Rik.

A flash of anger spun Ben around fast enough to slosh the whiskey from his glass all over his hand. Something in Ben’s face made Rik flinch and his attitude changed rapidly.

“I’m searching for something that will make all our problems cease to exist,” he said keeping his voice hushed to try and avoid winding Ben up.

Ben’s anger settled and he started to feel foolish. He shouldn’t have got so annoyed at Rik. He wasn’t angry with Rik really, he was angry with Grace, Kieron, Darius, and everybody else who had done something to upset him. Unfortunately, Rik had very nearly been on the receiving end of that pent-up frustration.

“Is it a genie?” Jess asked, pulling both of their heads in her direction. “It sounds like you could do with a genie.”

“It’s better than that,” Rik said, his lips curling into a mischievous smile.

“What’s better than a genie?” she asked but Rik didn’t hear her, he didn’t answer her anyway.

“But I need to get into that library and there is no way Christine is going to grant me another visit. We’re going to have to sneak in and Ostara provides the perfect opportunity.”

Ben wiped his hand on the cloth on the table before once again refilling his glass. When he was finished he dragged himself over to the sofa and sunk into the cushions, but he found no warmth or comfort in them.

“There’s enough going on right now as it is. The Coven is finally off our backs and now you want to risk making an enemy of them again,” Ben said. Since he’d entered the supernatural world his life had been a never-ending mountain of troubles that he had to climb. No matter how high he climbed he never even caught a glimpse of the peak.

“You’re not thinking logically.” Rik squatted down in front of Ben and looked into his eyes, imploring him to listen. “Once I’ve got my hands on this…thing we can use it to deal with Teremun and Darius and whoever else gives us trouble.”

“How?” Rik’s promise was too vague to be inspiring.

Rik shook his head as though Ben had asked something laughably inconsequential. “Never mind the details. Just trust me, this is in both our interests. You can play along with Darius’ schemes and hope everything goes to plan, or you can help me with this one scheme and I guarantee we will be free of all the menacing vampires and meddling covens in the world. And stealing from the Coven will be nice a fuck you to Grace, won’t it?”

“I don’t want that,” Ben said. Although now that he’d looked again at her text message he couldn’t deny that Rik’s take on it did ring somewhat true. He wondered if he had meant anything to her at all or if he had merely been a bit of fun before she tied the knot. One last conquest before settling down. “Fine. How do we get into the library?”

Rik jumped to his feet giddy with excitement. “It’s actually pretty simple. On the night of Ostara they’ll go out into the woods for the ceremony. That means the house will be empty. We creep in, find the old parchment I need, and then leave. Nobody even needs to know we were there.”

Jess piped up again. “You want to sneak into a witch’s house and steal from her library? Your plan is giving Hansel and Gretel.”

“Giving Hansel and Gretel—what does that mean?” Rik looked at Ben as though he might be able to shed some light on the matter.

Ben shrugged. “I don’t know teenage lingo.”

“Giving vibes. Your plan is giving off vibes of Hansel and Gretel,” Jess explained.

“Oh,” Rik brushed away her concern absently. “Nobody will get shoved in any ovens. Probably. Now, I need to figure out how I’m going to get past the defensive spells that Christine has all over her house.”

“But we’ve been in her house already,” Ben pointed out.

“Yes, when she invited us in. There is literally no chance that she did not defend her abode against us paying her another visit. It isn’t hard to do. It’s like the spells I put on this place. You can invite people in and when they leave I just need to touch the spells up to stop them from coming in again.

“It won't be too hard to break through her spells, but I’ve got a fair bit of scouring the grimoires to do.” He started shuffling around the collection of old books he’d cluttered the living room with.

“Okay, whatever,” Ben said, already having lost interest. “You do your spells, I’ve got a new vampire to train.”

“I want you to teach me how to do that mind control thing you did to stop people from running away or screaming,” Jess said referring to earlier on in the night when they’d hunted together. Ben had taught her how to feed properly and when to stop to make sure the victim survived, but he hadn’t taught her how to mesmerise.

“Of course you do,” Ben said. “It’s called mesmerisation and it’s pretty simple so no doubt you’ll pick it fast. We’ll pop into town to find somebody to practise on.”

“Can I choose my own victim?” she asked when they were both in the car and on their way to the town centre.

“Sure.” It hardly mattered who she chose since Ben would make sure they remembered none of it.

“Yay,” she said with an excited wave of her hands. “I choose my ex-boyfriend.”

Ben almost slammed his foot on the break in his surprise. “No, I didn’t realise you had a specific person in mind. That’s not a good idea.”

“Why? Rather than picking some random person and ruining their night why not just go after the bad people we already know? It saves time and does the community a favour.”

Ben was flustered by her logic and not for the first time. He was starting to wonder who was training who. “Going after people we know is risky. It can get too emotional.” Even as he said the words he knew what a feeble reason it was.

“That’s the point. And whatever happens, we have the power of mind control. Even if we mess up and the police come after us we can just mesmerise them too, right? So realistically, what do we really have to worry about?”

“We will be doing absolutely nothing to draw any police attention, I promise you that right now,” he said sounding every bit like a parent issuing their child with a warning.

“Fine. I won’t do anything to get the police’s attention,” she promised, putting her hand on her heart.

The niggling feeling in Ben’s gut told him not to go along with this but he could think of no reason not to. None that Jess wouldn’t scoff at anyway.

“Fine. Where does your boyfriend live?”

Jess gave Ben the directions to reach Callum’s house, or rather the park around the corner from his house since he still lived with his parents. Callum had jumped at the chance to come and meet up with Jess and had put his shoes on before the call had even finished.

“What did Callum do to make you want to practise on him?” Ben asked.

Jess took a moment before answering. “He used to hit me when he was angry. One time his team lost a football game and he punched me in the leg for it. After I dumped him he sent my nudes to all the guys in our year group.” She spoke in a totally detached way but the very fact that they were going after Callum was evidence that she had not yet moved on.

“Nice guy,” Ben muttered. “What exactly are you intending to do to him tonight?” Ben was under no illusion that Jess planned only to practise her new skills and then let Callum walk away with a freshly erased memory, but he could not allow her to murder a teenage boy, no matter what he’d done wrong.

She shrugged nonchalantly. “I haven’t decided.”

“He’s a scumbag for sure, but do you think you can take his life and walk away without a slither of guilt?”

Killing rapists who she didn’t know was one thing, but there was clearly some emotional attachment to Callum, and it didn’t matter if those emotions were good or bad, either way, they would leave their mark. The boy still mattered enough to her that he’d been at the top of her hit list and that was not likely to change after she killed him.

Lewis Pratt had beaten Ben up several times in their school days, but he had not killed Lewis after he’d been turned. He’d considered it. More than once he had considered it. Thinking about it now he had not spared Lewis due to any fears of lingering guilt, he’d done so because he knew that Izzy would have been disappointed in him.

“I don’t know if I’m going to kill him, but I’m sure as hell going to get some revenge.”

Ben hid behind the slide while Jess sat on the swings watching a small shape make its way across the field toward them. Callum remained nothing but a silhouette until he reached the streetlamp that stood just outside the park fence.

He was short for a boy, the same height as Jess who was about 5 foot 4. He walked with his head bowed and his hands in his pockets. His feet shuffled across the grass but his eyes held an excited light; he clearly had no inkling as to what was about to happen.

“You didn’t say he was ginger,” Ben said as the boy entered the park. Ben stepped out from behind the slide.

“I’m so sorry, I forgot how important that was,” she said, laughing through the words.

Callum looked up at their laughter and his eyes fell on Ben, widening with sudden fright.

“You brought your dad?” he said, hurling the accusation at Jess. Ben could hear the anger and the aggression in his voice and he had no doubt that the boy had a proclivity for violence.

“I’m not her dad!” Ben said, outraged. He was twenty-six he didn’t look nearly old enough to be Jess’ dad. There were literally seven years between them.

“Who are you then and why are you here?” Callum looked from Ben to Jess with suspicion. Ben saw the exact moment when the penny dropped and the boy realised that he had not been invited for a reconciliation. This was a reckoning.

He turned for the gate only to find Ben blocking his path.

“The fuck!?” Callum yelled as he stumbled back and landed in Jess’s iron grip. He tried to yank his arms free only to find he was held fast. He looked around rapidly, searching for anybody who could help him but there was nobody. “What’s going on?” he shouted, his voice turning shrill. So many questions were contained in those three words. So much confusion was written on the boy’s face. His whole world was unravelling and Ben had a front-row seat.

Ben looked past the trembling boy and addressed Jess. “Mesmerisation is simple enough. The first time I did it was completely by accident. It takes two things; eye contact, and force of will. You simply look directly into the subject’s eyes and exert will through your command.”

Callum was clearly not stupid because he clamped his eyes shut and brought his chin to his chest in an effort to avoid meeting Ben’s gaze. Ben grabbed his chin and forced his head back up.

“If you don’t open your eyes I’ll tear your eyelids off,” he said, oozing calmness as though he did this kind of thing on a daily basis. The threat had the desired outcome and Callum whimpered and opened his glassy eyes.

“You’re going to follow us into the woods and you are not going to attempt to run away or get help,” said Ben.

Callum grimaced as Ben’s orders took hold and when Jess tentatively withdrew her hands from his upper arms he made no move to escape.

“See, it’s that simple,” Ben said. “Let’s get him out of sight of any passersby.”

Ben strode for the woods at the back of the park confident that Callum would follow without issue. Jess, still unused to the wonders of mesmerisation, did not share in his confidence. She trailed behind Callum making sure that he couldn’t slip away, not that there was any chance of that even without mesmerisation. Both Ben and Jess possessed super speed. Whether Callum realised it or not he was caught and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Do you ever feel bad for sending my pictures to everybody in our year?” Jess asked her ex-boyfriend. Ben had his back to her but he could hear the roughness of old pain present in her voice, pain that had not been present back in the car. Her school days were not that far behind her and the old wounds were still fresh. Even after tonight, it would be some time before those scars faded. All the more reason not to do anything permanent.

The moon was snatched away by a clutch of black clouds that filled the sky. It looked like a storm was on the way. Ben wanted to be done with this business and snugly under his own roof by the time the first rain started to fall.

“I didn’t send them to anyone,” Callum argued, his voice heavy with incoming tears.

“Mesmerise the truth out of him,” Ben told Jess.

She grabbed Callum’s chin just as Ben had done and held him still as she stared into his eyes. Tears welled and his mouth turned downwards as he struggled not to cry.

“You will not lie to me,” she commanded him. “Who did you send my pictures to?”

“All our friends,” he confessed.

Jess’ lips curled into a snarl and she shoved him away from her. He tripped over a rock and crashed onto the grass almost spread-eagled.

“And they passed them onto everybody else.” Her own voice was choked up. It was easy to see why. Callum had said our friends. That meant her own friends had been complicit in distributing her nude photos around the school. Ben had a feeling that they would be visiting more people from Jess’ past very soon.

“Let’s get into the woods,” Ben said, ever aware that they were in the open and could be seen by anybody even in the dark. He grabbed Callum by the collar and flung him the last few feet into the cover of the trees.

“You okay?” he said to Jess who was standing with her hands balled into tight fists staring at the spot Callum had just been occupying.

“I will be.” She strode into the woods where Callum was halfway to his feet. One kick to the ribs sent him flying through the trees with a yelp. Ben heard one of the boy’s ribs crack from the impact. That would be the first wound of many.

Ben raised his eyebrows at the new side of Jess on display. He’d never have imagined such viciousness and aggression could exist in somebody so small and harmless looking. After watching her toss Callum around the woods for a few minutes he stepped in to remind her of the night’s lesson.

“You’re supposed to be practising mesmerisation not testing out your strength,” he said. He felt no pity for the boy but he didn’t want to be here all night. It was obvious that it was going to start raining soon and he did not want to be outside when it did.

“Fine,” Jess dragged him up off the floor and slammed Callum into a nearby tree. Old bark and dead leaves rained down over them. “Punch yourself in the face as hard as you can,” Jess ordered.

Callum was powerless to resist. His fist slammed into his cheek and he knocked himself to one knee. His face blazed red from the force of his blow. Jess had him repeat the action beyond counting and soon Callum had opened himself up and was bleeding freely. Still on his knees, shaking like a terrified dog, he continued to hurt himself again and again for Jess’ pleasure. Long after Ben’s discomfort had reared its head, Jess continued to watch with gleeful malice, but she had skin in the game and Ben had none. She used to be on the receiving end of those fists. Now she was turning them back on her abuser. It must have been a liberating feeling.

Ben’s phone rang giving him an excuse to look away at least for a moment.

“What’s up, Rik?” he asked, raising the device to his ear.

“You’ve got a visitor at the apartment,” Rik said. Judging by the tone he was not a fan of whoever it was.

“I’m a bit busy right now.”

“It’s Christine and she’s pretty peeved off about something. I haven’t let her in but I think it would be in both of our best interests if you came home to see what she wants.”

“Fine.” He hung up and pocketed his phone as he made his way back to Jess’ clearing of pain. “Finish up, we need to go.”

“I’m not done,” she said, looking up from her work.

“We need to go.”

“Can’t you come back for me later?” The dark determination in her eyes told Ben that he was not going to convince her to come with him, and if he was honest with himself, he did not want her to. She needed to work through whatever this was. She needed to get this bitter chip off her shoulder and put her past behind her or she would carry it forever, and forever for her was going to be an awfully long time. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to leave her. He didn’t know what she might do unsupervised.

“I’m not leaving,” Jess said.

“Fine,” he muttered. He took two strides over to Callum and lifted him off the floor. One side of his face had been reduced to pulp and his eyes were rolling around vacantly. He’d beaten himself senseless. One sharp slap to the good side of his face and his eyes focused on Ben’s. “You will not leave these woods or do anything to harm Jess in any way.” He’d already told him not to try to escape but he thought it was worth reiterating the command. Just in case.

“Call me if anything goes wrong,” Ben said. He waited for her confirmatory nod before he hurried back to his car leaving her to settle the score.

By the time Ben arrived back at Kingfisher Meadow a disgruntled wind was starting to pick up beneath the now black and cloudy covered sky. He sat in his car, hands still clutching the steering wheel wondering what Christine wanted. The answer was obvious; she’d learned the truth about him and Grace and had come to…well he didn’t know what she’d come to do exactly. Tell him off? Punish him?

She had warned him not to venture beyond his chaperoning duties, although by the time she’d delivered that warning he had already slept with Grace. He did then proceed to sleep with her so many more times over the following weeks that he’d lost count.

A more important question came to mind — had Christine come alone?

The thought of Grace being right here at his home again was enough to send his heart jumping up into his throat. But Rik would have said if Grace had been there too.

A sharp rap on his car window jolted him out of his thoughts and he turned to see Christine staring impatiently through the glass at him. She’d pulled her hair into a beehive that made her look far more imposing than the last time he’d seen her and her narrowed eyes pierced the glass that stood between them.

“Will you be coming out or am I to wait in the cold all night?” she said curtly. She took a step back to allow him the room to open the car door and step out. He was relieved to find that she was alone.

She held a closed umbrella in one hand that made her look like an older, more menacing Mary Poppins. The wind howled around them promising that she would be using that umbrella soon.

“I won’t be naive enough to expect an invitation into your home and nor do I particularly desire to receive such an invitation, so let’s go and take a seat on that bench.”

Ben had no intention of inviting Christine inside since Rik was currently putting together a plan to break into her home and steal from her library. He followed her to the edge of the car park where there was a small patch of grass with a tree in the middle. The architect who’d designed Kingfisher Meadow had probably intended for a full courtyard but that had not come to pass. The two apartments at the very end of the street were the only ones of any real quality and the rest of the place had settled for cheap and cheerful.

Christine leaned her umbrella against the end of the bench before lowering herself gracefully onto the metal. She folded her hands in her lap and then waited for Ben to join her. Only when he was seated as well did she speak.

“I’ve lived in Maidstone for my entire life and in all that time very few vampires have settled here. It has always been a witch town and that alone has been enough to dissuade most vampires from choosing our town as a place of residence.”

“I’ve lived here my whole life too,” Ben said. If she was suggesting that he leave now she’d got all the use she could out of him then she was going to get a rather rude shock.

“I wasn’t finished speaking.” She turned to face him and her eyes held an intense dislike that almost made him recoil. “Those few vampires who have settled here over the years have done so discreetly. Those who lived too openly were moved on in one way or another.”

Flecks of rain began to fall from the dark sky and Christine opened her umbrella. She held it over her own head and didn’t invite Ben to share in its cover. He would have said no anyway but that didn’t stop him from being offended.

“Can you get to the point,” he said coldly.

She tutted and gave him a small shake of her head. “You have been indiscreet. A body washed up from the river this morning. The police could make neither heads nor tails of it, it was in such an appalling state that a proper autopsy was quite impossible. However, I know the signs of a vampire attack when I see one.”

“How did you see it?”

“Do not interrupt me again,” she warned. The rainfall grew heavier matching the mood of the conversation.

“I didn’t agree to speak to you so you could give me lectures and talk down to me. I’m not a member of your coven and I’m not going to be spoken to like this.” Ben stood up and began walking back to his car.

“If you leave bodies so openly the Coven will be forced to take action and mine is not the only coven in town that will take issue with this behaviour.” She spoke as softly as always but her voice still carried perfectly over the ever-increasing wind.

“Are you threatening me?” Ben turned to see her walking casually toward him, spinning the umbrella between her fingers.

“No, Benedict, I’m warning you. I see no reason why we can’t all live together peacefully. However, if you risk exposing your kind then you risk exposing us all and that is not something I can tolerate. Nor is it something any of the other covens will tolerate. There is a reason witches and vampires alike have remained secret for centuries, it is for our own safety. I implore you to pay heed to what I’m saying and go about your business with a little more discretion.”

What she asked was not unreasonable and something he intended to do anyway. There was no way he was going to leave corpses all over the town. “Fine.”

“Oh, and one more thing. If you dare to sully my daughter again I will bury you somewhere nobody will ever find you.” Christine strode away through the heavily falling rain. The first thing she’d said may have been a concerned warning but her last words were nothing less than a threat.

By the time Ben had filled Rik in on the impromptu meeting with Christine and then returned to the park the storm was in full swing. Rain hammered down from above and thunder rolled across the sky, briefly illuminating the town with flashes of brilliant white lightning. Ben moved with his full vampiric speed to stay as dry as possible. Because of the sound of the storm it wasn’t until he reached the treeline that he heard the screams coming from within.

He sped through the trees until he found the clearing. Jess was leaning against a gnarly old tree, sheltered from the rain by the thick branches overhead. She was staring contemptuously at Callum who was writhing around on the filthy ground. His body twisted and contorted as he screamed again and again. Sweat and rain had soaked him through but he didn’t seem to care; he was in far too much pain.

“What have you done?” Ben said in a whisper. But he already knew what Jess had done. The blood smeared around Callum’s mouth told him that she had turned him into a vampire.