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here, Ella. He’s watching
me.”
    “Who is ‘he’?” she asked.
    I gripped the phone tighter and felt like crying. “Mr.
Restricted.”
    “What? Hannah, you aren’t making sense. Did you hit your
head?”
    “No!” Tears rolled down my cheeks. I brought my legs up on
the seat, bent them and curled an arm around my calves. “Someone’s been
stalking me, I thought it was a prank, but…it isn’t.” I rocked back and forth,
bouncing my gaze from the rear to the side-view mirrors. “I’m scared.”
    “Is he there now?”
    “No, I don’t think so.” I turned in a frantic circle and
checked out the back window, no longer trusting the mirrors. “He vanished…” But
if he were a vampire he could just as easily reappear whenever he felt like it.
Lizbeth had proven that.
    Male voices sounded in the background, Micah and Eli, but I
couldn’t make out what they were saying. Ella came back on the line. “I’m going
to try to phaze to you, hang on, sweetie, okay?”
    I nodded, switched the phone from one ear to the other, and
realized she couldn’t see me. “Yes, okay, hurry up.”
    Seconds later, out of the darkness, my sister popped into
existence. She took a single step and stumbled into the side of my car. I was
out of the door and in her arms before I could blink.
    Even though I was several inches taller than she was, Ella
held me close, pressed my face into her neck and stroked my hair. “Shush, it’s
okay, I’m here now. You’re going to be fine. I’m not going to let anyone hurt
you.”
    “Everything is so messed up!” I wailed. And then I
emotionally vomited all over her. My words came out in a jumbled, confusing
mess. “Lizbeth is haunting me from her grave. I’ve been doing drugs, drinking,
popping pills and sleeping with random frat guys. I’m a slut. I hate our house.
I hate Eli who, if you haven’t noticed, is fucking his way through the
district! Then, to top it off, I totally threw myself at Dante tonight and he
rejected me.”
    “Oh, honey.” Ella held me tighter and I cried even harder.
She sniffled and her shoulders trembled as if she were crying too. “I knew
something was wrong, but I didn’t know how bad it was. When you needed me the
most I wasn’t there for you. I’m a selfish bitch.”
    The knot of guilt and stress loosened its tight, suffocating
grip around my throat. I should have known Ella wouldn’t judge me.
    “It’s not your fault,” I blubbered. “I lied to you, kept
lying to you. I could have asked for help and I didn’t.”
    We clung to each other. The more I cried, the better I felt.
Some people cut to release the pain lurking in their veins. If I hadn’t been so
squeamish about blood, I might have tried it. Turns out, what I needed was my
big sister and her bony shoulder to cry my eyes out on.
    Our sisterly moment was officially ruined when some man
yelled out his car window at sixty-miles an hour, “Fuck ya, lesbos goin’ at on
the side of the road!”
    I looked at Ella and she looked at me. We both started
laughing.
    She wiped away the last of my tears. “You threw yourself at
Dante?”
    I stepped back to let her see the jacket I hadn’t managed to
button while driving and having a nervous breakdown. Through the gap in
material, my pale skin practically glowed.
    “Oh, my God!” She clutched the coat closed and buttoned it
quickly. “You’re totally naked under there.”
    “I feel so pathetic.” I swiped at a new tear. “He was in the
shower, so I got undressed and waited for him in his bed. At the time, it
seemed foolproof, ya know? What man doesn’t want a naked woman in his bed? He
saw me and you know what he said?”
    Ella shook her head and I sniffled.
    “He told me to put my jacket back on!”
    “He didn’t!” she said in outrage.
    God, I loved her. The tension in my shoulders eased just a
little bit. “He did! I’ve never been so humiliated in my entire life. I don’t
know how I’m ever going to look at him again.”
    The