The silence between us stretched out, but it wasn't awkward. Sometimes there are people you can be quiet with, and you never feel the need to fill the gap with meaningless chit-chat. I'd only become that close to a couple people in my hometown, and I'd always thought it took years. Lucas and I were already there.

All of my best friends are dead people. Someday I've got to figure out how that happened.

Thunder rumbled. My heart beat faster. I turned away from Evernight for the last time and looked back at the flower as it trembled upon its branch. A single petal was torn away by the wind. Pushing my hands through the thorns, I felt lashes of pain across my skin, but i kept going determined. But when my fingertip touched the flower, it instantly darkened, withering and drying as each petal turned black.

It wasn't badass. I don't really do badass.

Lucas seemed to have realized our prediciment at the same moment I had. "I haven't got my credit card with me. Kinda left in a hurry. We just spent the only cash I had in my pocket." Too-bright signs from the few open stores made mee squint. "We'd have been better off with a slingshot and Oreos.

Poor Lucas, always trying to protect me from danger. He’d never guessed that I was the dangerous one.

That buy is totally cracked out," Vic said one day, as we walked past Balthazar in the great hall. I don't think he's on alything." I didn't mean, for real. If he was cracked out for real, he'd probably be having more fun, right?" Vic shrugged. "Balty looks like he's not having any fun. He looks like he never had any. Like he wouldn't know fun if it started dancing around yelling 'I'm fun' in his face.