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shifted back to my human form so I could rant. “What the hell , Ash? She’s just a girl! That’s fucked up. Is it because of the way she looks?”
    She turned away from my nudity, pulled off her pack, dug out my jeans, and threw them at me. I pulled the wet pants over my soaked skin.
    “I didn’t plan it! I would have never…! It just happened!” She stifled a sob.
    “What the fuck were you thinking? She’ll never grow up. It’s… it’s obscene,” I growled, and pulled my muscles to keep from shifting.
    Her head snapped toward my direction. “Don’t you think I know all of this? You want to talk about obscene… you don’t know how I found her.” Her face fell and a black tear rolled down her cheek.
    She’d caught me off guard. The hurt and anger rippled through her, reflecting in me. I hated to see her in pain. I stepped closer, but she backed away. No, I thought. I want to touch her, to hold her, to fuck her.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to clear my head. “What happened?”
    “I smelled blood,” she whispered, looking up at the sky. “I made my way down to Portland. I was just kinda roaming, but trying to stay close to big cities so I could eat. I was in a really crappy part of town and it was late. I was hiding in the shadows, listening to people, trying to find the right person to rid the world of. You know how I am.”
    She turned to look at me and the moon lit her painfully thin face. I saw the anguish in her eyes as she collected her thoughts.
    “I knew what was happening, I could hear it in that monster’s head. I just didn’t know she was a child. I crept through a broken window. My hands were tingling like mad. He was probably dead as soon as I touched him, I was so furious. I pulled him off of her and snapped his neck. He had her all drugged up and out of her mind and… she was dying, Jason.” Ash looked away from me. She was crying again. “That sick fuck was cutting her while he raped her.” She took a deep breath and composed herself. “I was just going to kill her quickly and put her out of her misery, but she looked at me. I don’t think she really saw me, she was so out of it.” More tears spilled. “You know what I saw. The smell of the blood was too much, I was so hungry. I started to feed from her, but I couldn’t bring myself to kill her. If I did, I would have to smash her head… it would destroy her face. I knew I couldn’t do that… not when she looked so much like him. I figured it was too late anyway. She was going to die from her wounds and wake up like one of them and then I would have to destroy her. I filled her mind with things to comfort her from the pain. But she didn’t die. I watched as my bite healed and faded white quickly. Every wound on her slowly started to repair and fade white. Within a few days she had become what she is now.”
    Ash wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “It made it that much harder to kill her. She looked so much more like him. Believe me, I feel horrible about it. I feel so bad it’s killing me. She’s a bigger reminder of what I don’t have than the apartment, his clothes, his music, or you…” She hesitated. “I keep her fed, but I can’t bring myself to eat. Not when I’m reminded of him every day. She makes me want to be with him more than ever.” Ash touched the stone necklace Verloren had given her. She chuckled. “She has fangs similar to mine and she doesn’t have the sensitive eyes. She inherited the mind reading from me.”
    I struggled for the right words. “I don’t know what to say, Ashley. This is the reason you didn’t come home? Because of her? What were you planning… if you killed yourself who was going to take care of her then?”
    “She may be a child, Jason, but she’s not stupid or weak. She can easily take care of herself.” She watched me. “I told her I was sick. I showed her the way to the house and figured—”
    “What about her virus? Does it create…?” I asked.
    “No,”