new laws. Just so you have a clear understanding of all your options.” She agreed and waved Tina over. Honestly, at this point I was feeling a bit like an evangelist. I answered their questions and explained the new laws, in layman’s terms. Both girls were absolutely stunning but not the sharpest pencils in the box. They were more concerned with how many parties the sorority would have and the male to female ratio of the college than about assimilation into Vampire society. Despite her nefarious reasons, in a way, I was grateful Cookie had taken them under her wing. They could have come to a much less appealing existence if the wrong type of vampire found them. All in all it took less than an hour to convince Tina and Sage to pack up and leave with me on the next flight. I left the Tribunal’s paperwork on the refrigerator so Cookie would eventually find it but it wouldn’t be the first thing she saw. No use tempting fate and risking a confrontation. Tina was easier to convince with Sage already on board with the idea. She mentioned it would be a good time since she just broke up with her boyfriend and he wasn’t taking it very well. I was a humanitarian on all levels and couldn’t wait to get back to Seattle. Sure, Thomas would be a bit pissed that I’d completed the mission without him—and with such stellar success—but he’d get over it. I helped load up the car with their luggage. I suggested leaving behind the unnecessary stuff. After all, the beach house was still their home, technically. No reason to get them completely freaked out by saying they could never come back again. By the time we reached the airport, I had a tiny pinprick of pain throbbing behind my left eye. A sure sign a migraine was coming on. You’d think being Undead would spare me from such things, but two hours in a car with Sage and Tina apparently superseded the dead/Undead boundaries of a common headache. Tina lamented her failed relationship with Lance contemplated reestablishing her previous vegan lifestyle. “Don’t you think that may be a bit difficult?” I questioned. “You’re the one who told me I could live my existence the way I wanted to. That I didn’t have to do what other vampires told me,” she argued. “But Tina, if you don’t drink blood, you’ll die. That’s kind of the requisite of being a vampire, half-blood or not.” “But I don’t want to live off of animal by-products,” she wailed to no one in particular. “It’s against everything I believe in.” Tina patted her shoulder reassuringly and I bit my tongue to keep from saying some pretty unflattering things about her flawed thinking. It was one thing to be a vegan as a living human but living off of blood was a vampire’s only option. She couldn’t just suck carrot juice and go about her life doing the happy dance. This was just one of many conversations we had and by the time we touched down at Sea-Tac, I had a headache the size of Washington State. Gone was my illusion of a plane ride filled with polite conversation. No one asked me questions about Psi Phi House and or the new laws. I expected a certain reserve between total strangers, you know what I mean? But no. Apparently, Sage and Tina’s lives were an open book. And an open audiobook at that. Tina filled me in on the details of her tragic breakup with Lance, a vampire surfer no less. “I mean, did he really think I was going to hang out on the beach all night and watch him surf? Hello?! Like I don’t have a life of my own or something?” They sat on either side of me. Tina regaling me with Lance’s selfishness and Sage parroting everything Tina said back to me. “He thinks he is so cool because he surfs at night,” Tina would say and then Sage would interject, “He totally does.” I was beginning to think that Cookie had hoodwinked the entire Tribunal by holding out and keeping these two until we came in and took them by force. Thereby ridding herself of the