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“Brendan?”
    He rubbed his eyes with his fists. “Carrie?”
    She breathed a deep sigh of relief. “I’m here. I didn’t know what was wrong, so I brought you into the building…”
    “Thanks,” he murmured.
    “Are you all right?” she asked. His eyes were open but he kept blinking, as if he were staring into a bright light instead of lying in semi-darkness. His expression was pained. At least he’s awake, she thought, that’s an improvement. Still, she chewed her lip as worry plagued her.
    “Yeah,” he replied, “it was just…the sun…” He grimaced.
    “The sun? So…it’s true then? Sunlight hurts vampires?”
    Brendan nodded. “It makes me sick and it hurts my eyes.”
    “Oh. Do you…do you feel okay now?”
    Brendan ignored her question. “Why’d you come here? That was stupid of you. You could have been killed. I only saw what was happening because I heard you scream.”
    Carrie frowned. Brendan seemed to be rapidly regaining his health—his grimace of pain had turned into a stubborn expression of disapproval. “I had to see you,” she said. “After last night, I—I just had to see you.”
    Brendan grasped one of her hands and squeezed. A slight tremor lingered in his fingers, one of the remaining traces of the sun’s wrath.
    “I didn’t think you’d ever want to see me again,” he said.
    She sighed. “I didn’t really want you to leave, but…” She quieted as her head throbbed with a fresh wave of raw emotion. How could she explain what she’d felt? Anger, jealousy, betrayal…and a desperate longing despite it all. She’d hated banishing him with the same words she’d used on the night of the fight that had separated them for a year, and yet she hadn’t been able to stop herself.
    “I’m sorry, Carrie.” Brendan’s apology resonated in the dark, mostly empty room. “I love you. I would do anything to take it back if I could.”
    Carrie drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I forgive you.” Her heart felt somehow both heavier and lighter as she spoke the words, resigning his betrayal to the realm of painful memories she’d try her best not to think about. It was one of many.
    Brendan sighed deeply. “Thank you.” Tears shone in his red eyes.
    “I’m so glad you’re alive,” Carrie said, “so glad.” Tears welled in hers, too.
    “Upstairs…” Brendan began, “upstairs, I have blankets…”
    A tingling started in her core, and her clitoris began to ache with need. She followed him up two flights of rickety steps to the room where she’d lain with him two nights before. He’d covered the hole in the wall with something, and the windows must have been filled in long ago as they were little more than faint outlines of off-coloured bricks in the walls.
    “I can’t see very much,” she said, gripping the railing as she stood on the last stair. “I’m afraid I’ll fall.”
    “That’s right,” Brendan said. “Sorry. I forgot you wouldn’t be able to. I mean, I can see in the dark.”
    “You can?” Carrie asked, surprised.
    “Yeah. Here, hold my hand. I’ll guide you.”
    She reached for his cool fingers, wrapped her own around them and followed him across the floor. The dust they kicked up tickled her nostrils.
    “Here,” he said after a moment. “The blankets are at your feet.”
    She could just make them out, and she sank down slowly, her knees settling on the layer of soft cloth that protected them somewhat from the hardness and chill of the floorboards.
    Brendan didn’t waste any time. He unbuttoned Carrie’s jacket, barely pausing to lay it aside before slipping his hands beneath her shirt. Soon, her clothes lay in a pile of their own next to the blankets. She shivered.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I forgot I can’t keep you warm. Do you want to put your jacket back on?”
    She nodded reluctantly as her skin pebbled. He must have seen, for he lifted her jacket from the floor and settled it over her shoulders. She slipped her arms