I hated his guts, and he knew it.

“Honey?” Mom. She was hovering behind Brandon, looking timid and nervous. “Better come inside. You know you shouldn’t be out there in the dark.”

Dad was nowhere to be seen. I bit my tongue and crossed the threshold, and when Brandon closed the door behind me, it was like the cell slamming shut.

“I was in an accident,” I said. Mom looked at me. We didn’t seem much alike, even when I wasn’t Gothed up…. She had fading brown hair and green eyes, and I took after Dad’s darker looks.

“Oh, yes, Officer Morrell called,” she said. “But he said you weren’t hurt. And you know, we had a guest, we couldn’t just leave.” She smiled at Brandon. My skin tried to crawl off my bones at the sight of that sick, eager-to-please look on her face.

“Three of my friends were killed,” I said. I don’t know why I bothered to say it; not like anyone here really cared. But just for once, I wanted to see my mother feel something for me.

And once again, I was disappointed. “Oh, dear,” Mom said. “That must have been terrible.”

Yeah, once more with feeling, Mom. I sometimes thought maybe this was some kind of play, and Mom was an actress, not a very good one. If that was true, she really phoned in her performance.

“Any of mine?” Brandon asked casually. I gritted my teeth, because I wanted to scream and hit him, and that wouldn’t have done me any good at all.

“N-no,” I managed to stammer over the fury. “Jane Blunt, Trent Garvey, and Guy—” What the hell was Guy’s last name? I wanted to cry now. Or keep on crying, because I wasn’t sure I’d ever stopped. “Guy Finelli.”

Brandon smiled. “Sounds as if Charles had a bad night.” Charles being a rival vamp. I knew he was the Protector for Jane’s family. I hadn’t known he’d been responsible for one or both of the others. Charles was just the opposite of Brandon—a bookish little man, soft-spoken and mild until you pushed him. Not a bad choice, if I had to go shopping for Protectors, I supposed.

God, I hated this. I wanted this over.

“Let’s just do it,” I said, and walked down the hallway to the living room. Predictably, Dad was parked in his recliner with an open beer, probably working on his usual six-pack. He was a bloated vision of my future—two hundred and fifty pounds, sallow and grim and full of rage and resentment he couldn’t fling anywhere but around here, in the house. He managed the biggest local bar, which of course was owned by Brandon. All nice and tidy. Brandon owned the mortgage on the house. Brandon owned the notes on our cars.

Brandon owned us.

And now Brandon was smiling at me, all sleek and horrible with those hungry, hungry eyes, and he was taking a folded, thin sheaf of papers out of the pocket of his long black coat.

“You only wear that thing because you saw it on Angel,” I said, and snatched the paperwork from him. I read the first few sentences. I, Eve Evangeline Walker Rosser, swear my life, my blood, and my service to my Protector, Brandon, now and for my lifetime, that my Protector may command me in all things.

This was it. I was holding my future in my hands, right here.

Brandon held out a pen. My father tore his attention away from the glowing escape of the television and took a sip of beer, watching me with angry intensity. My mother looked nervous, fluttering her hands as I stared without blinking at the black Montblanc the vampire was holding out.

“Happy birthday, by the way,” Brandon said. “There’s a signing bonus. Ten thousand dollars.”

“Guess I could bury my friends in style with that,” I said.

“You don’t have to worry about that.” Brandon shrugged. “Their family contracts cover that sort of thing.”

Mom sensed what I was thinking, I guess, because she blurted, “Eve, honey, let’s hurry. Brandon does have places to go.” She encouraged me with little vague motions of her hands, and her eyes were desperate.

I took a deep breath, held the crisp paper in both hands, and ripped it in half. The sound was almost drowned out by my mother’s horrified gasp and the sound of the beer can crushing in my father’s hand.

“You ungrateful little—” Dad said. “You disrespect your Protector like that? To his face?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty much just like that.” I ripped the contract in quarters and threw it at him. The paper fluttered like huge confetti, one piece landing on his shoulder until Brandon calmly brushed it off. “Fuck off, Brandon. I’m not signing with you.”

“No one else will take you,” he said. “And you’re mine, Eve. You’ve always been mine. Don’t forget it.”

My dad got out of his recliner and grabbed my arm. “You’re signing that paper,” he said, and shook me like a terrier shaking a rat. “Don’t be stupid! Don’t you know what you’re doing? What you could cost your family if you do this?”

“I’m not signing anything!” I screamed, right in his face, and took Brandon’s expensive pen and stomped on it with my Mary Janes until it was a leaking black stain on the floor. “You can be slaves if you want, but not me! Not ever again!”

Brandon didn’t look angry. He looked amused. That was bad.

Dad shoved me and sent me reeling. “Then you’re gone,” he said. “I won’t have you in my house, eating my food, stealing my money. If you want to go out there bare, then do it. See how long you last.” He turned to Brandon. “Our Protection stays intact if she leaves, right?”

Brandon inclined his head and smiled.

I was stunned, at least a little; Dad had never even threatened a thing like that before. I backed away from him, into Mom. She got out of the way, but then, she always did, didn’t she? She had all the backbone of a balloon.

She avoided my eyes completely. “You’d better go, honey,” she said. “You made your choice.”

I turned and ran down the hall to my room, slammed the door, and dragged my biggest suitcase out from under the bed. I couldn’t take much, I knew that; even taking a suitcase was risky, because it slowed me down. But I couldn’t wait for dawn; I had to get out of here now, before Brandon stopped me. He wasn’t supposed to use compulsion on me, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.

I filled up the bag with underwear, shoes, clothes, and a few mementos that I couldn’t leave, just in case Dad decided to fill up the barbecue with my belongings the minute I was out the door. I left the family photos, even the good ones, the ones from when I was a little kid and our family wasn’t a total freak show. I didn’t want those memories, and I didn’t want pictures of my brother Jason, who was better off in jail, where he was currently rotting. Seeing his face made me feel sick.

I went out the back door, since Brandon was still talking to Mom and Dad in the front, and dragged the suitcase as quietly as possible across the backyard to the alley. Alleys in Morganville are freaky at night and wildly dangerous, but I didn’t have much choice. I hurried, bouncing my suitcase over rough, rutted ground and past foul-smelling trash bins, until I was on the street.

And I realized I had no idea where to go. No idea at all. All the friends I’d had were dead—dead tonight—and I couldn’t even really grieve about that; I didn’t have time. Life-saving had to come first, right? That’s what I kept telling myself.

Didn’t help me carry that giant boulder of guilt.

Cabs didn’t run at night, because cabbies knew better, and besides, there were only two in the whole town. No bus service. At night, you either drove or you stayed home, and even driving was dangerous if you were unProtected.

I could go to the local motel for the night, the Sagebrush, but it was a good twenty-minute walk, and I didn’t think I had twenty minutes. Not tonight. I’d officially forfeited Brandon’s Protection when I’d ripped up that paper, and that meant I was an all-you-can-suck buffet until I got somebody to take me in. Houses had automatic Protection. Any house.