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attack.
    “Don’t flatter yourself,” she replied, faintly mortified. “Does she know what you
     are?”
    “Do
you
?”
    She frowned, momentarily bewildered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    He sighed. “Never mind. What the hell were you doing in there, anyway?”
    “Socializing.” She quoted his words back at him.
    “Since you have the social skills of a rabid skunk, I almost believe you.”
    Unfortunately, he wasn’t the first to say so.
    “You were a little obvious in there, weren’t you?” she asked. “I thought your kind
     was supposed to be subtle?”
    “My kind? You can say it, you know. ‘Vampire’ isn’t a dirty word.”
    “Depends on who you ask,” she pointed out. “Do you even know her name?”
    “Why bother? I just thought I’d drain her dry and then dump her body in the recycling
     bin at the end of the alley,” he said sarcastically.
    He couldn’t know she and Yen had found a girl just like that once.
    Something must have showed in her face because he took a step closer. “Hey, take it
     easy. I was kidding.” His fangs retracted. He looked concerned. Human.
    She stumbled back out of his reach, her heart speeding up. “Don’t.”
    “I wasn’t—”
    “Just don’t.”
    She broke her sister’s cardinal rule and fled.
    * * *
    Aggie bit down hard on her lower lip to keep it from wobbling. Yen always got mad
     when she cried. “I want to come with you.”
    “I know,” Yen said sympathetically as the chaos of Grand Central Station boiled around
     them. She wore combat boots, a parka, and jeans. Her hair was pulled back, even though
     it exposed her neck, which she rarely did. “But you can’t. This isn’t a vacation.
     You heard what Napoleon said, there’s a battle brewing in Violet Hill. Anyway, we
     can’t afford another ticket.”
    “We could steal it. It’s nearly Christmas, everyone has full pockets.” Aggie was dangerously
     close to pouting.
    “Ag, I’m not taking my eleven-year-old sister to a war zone. End of discussion.” She
     softened her tone. “It’s only a few weeks. I’ll probably be home by Christmas. We
     can go ice-skating again.”
    “I guess.”
    “And Mrs. Boneta is letting you use the storeroom to sleep in. So don’t you dare sleep
     outside. It’s not safe.”
    “What if something happens to you?”
    “I’ll be fine.”
    “But what if?”
    “Aggie, I know it’s scary, but you have to be strong, okay? I’ve left you all the
     extra money. You can do this.”
    Aggie forced herself to nod. “Be careful.”
    “I’m going to stake a few vamps and come right home.” Yen hugged her hard. “And if
     we’re lucky, I’ll find a way to get us into that school they have over here. You’ll
     see. It’ll be great.”
    * * *
    Aggie didn’t sleep.
    Paige snored peacefully, wrapped in Christmas and a three-candy-cane mochaccino sugar
     crash. Aggie sat with her back to wall by the door. She’d flipped the lock and checked
     it more times than was strictly healthy.
    She distracted herself on her laptop, which wasn’t much of a distraction since most
     of the sites she bookmarked were underground vampire hunter sites and Google alerts
     on animal attacks in the Violet Hill area. When an alert pinged, it led her to a secret
     website she could only access because she had three different codes. Whitethorn was
     run by someone in the area, but no one could figure out who.
    A photograph flashed onto her screen. She’d seen countless victim photos, helping
     to sort out which were vampire attacks and which were actual animal attacks. Violet
     Hill was still pretty wild and rugged, even just a few miles outside the border of
     street lights.
    This photo was different.
    It was the girl from Conspiracy Theory, with blood on her throat, running down her
     collarbone and into the snow. There were puncture marks from fangs.
    Cal’s fangs.
    She’d actually believed him when he said he wasn’t feeding on her. He’d almost had
     her. A small