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so easy to melt into the night.

    The thoughts were strong. I stood outside my house, seeing a place that was all I knew and yet so different, so strange.
    Finally, I went inside. It was still home for now.
    â€œMom and Dad are out. I’m in charge,” Angelina said instead of hello.
    Home sweet home.
    Rory came running up to me. “Tell me a story,” he demanded.
    â€œNot now.”
    â€œPlease.” He tugged at me.
    â€œGo away.”
    â€œI hate you!” he screamed as he rushed from the room. I heard him race upstairs and slam his door. He must have been really angry to shut himself in. Deep inside, faintly, a part of me felt bad. But mostly, it was just something that didn’t really matter.
    â€œNice going,” Angelina said.
    I ignored her and left the room. I stopped in the bathroom and checked the mirror. If I could become a bat or a wolf, could I become a human? There was just the faintest hint of my reflection. I willed myself to become human.
    Nothing changed.
    For half an hour, I stood there, trying to become what I once had been. It would have been such a simple and wonderful solution, if it had worked. If anything, my ghost of a reflection grew even fainter.
    I went to my room, pulled the poster from the window, and gazed out into the beautiful night.
    I was less human.
    And I was hungry—almost unbearably hungry. I was like that thirsty little kid, sitting in bed, needing a drink but afraid to leave the safety of the blankets for the terrors that lurked in the dark hallway.
    And I knew that once I started, I could never stop. I was sure that the first drink would pull me forever from the human world.
    That’s how it would have to be. It was my fate.
    I put my hand against the window. This would be easy. I could fly until I found what I craved. Perhaps Lud was still curled up by the park. If not him, there would be others. Someone would be out there for me. I thought of what Miss Clevis had said about blood. You can get used to anything. Yes. She was right. Anything. I raised the window, wondering whether to hunt as a bat or a wolf or a boy.
    Rory’s call broke my thoughts. “Sebastian! Help! I can’t get out.”
    Even now, though I was more a monster than ever, his voice had some effect on me. I went down the hall to his room. I tried his door. It was locked. “Just unlock it,” I said.
    â€œI can’t. I tried. It’s stuck. Get me out.” He was starting to sound scared.
    I could easily break the door with my vampire strength, but that would be hard to explain. “Look, I can get you out,” I said, “but you have to promise to close your eyes. Okay?”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œJust promise,” I said.
    There was a pause. Then he said, “I promise.”
    â€œAre they closed now?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œFor real?”
    â€œYes!”
    I became fog and moved beneath his door. Then I became me. He was standing there with his hands over his eyes. “Okay, you can look.”
    He dropped his hands. Then his mouth fell open. “How’d you do that?”
    â€œMagic,” I said. He’d slammed his door so hard that the latch got jammed. I fiddled with the knob until I got it working. Then I opened the door.
    Angelina was waiting on the other side for me. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide, as if she’d witnessed an unimaginable sight. She must have seen me pass beneath the door. Finally, she spoke. She only said three words. But those words struck me like a stake in the heart.
    â€œWhat are you?”

 
    Twenty
    KITCHEN CHEMISTRY
    So I told them. It didn’t much matter. I was pretty sure I would be gone soon. I told them everything. Rory thought it was a story. He just kept grinning and asking me to tell him more. I expected Angelina to run screaming from the house. I expected her to faint or start crying. I expected her to do almost anything but what she did.
    â€œMaybe I