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watched me like he’d just seen me walk on water. And Bram … Bram hadn’t moved. Lily, who’d been calling out his name, pushed through the crowd and fell to her knees beside him, heedless of the blood pooling beneath Bram’s perfect head where it had landed on a jagged rock. Gavin shoved through the crowd a split second behind her, yelling “Don’t!” as it looked like she might hug Bram to her. “Call the paramedics, but don’t move him!”
    “But we have to stop the bleeding!” she answered.
    “You,” I said, pointing at the jerk I’d talked to first, who’d lowered his phone now that he’d gotten whatever sick shots he’d wanted, “call an ambulance. Lily, listen to Gavin. You might paralyze him or something if you move him now.”
    To my horror, I spoke with a lisp. I’d forgotten the fangs. With all the blood, they weren’t retracting any time soon. But only Ulric was watching me. The others … they were focused on Bram or Bella. I fought for control over myself.
    “If I hadn’t twisted as we fell, he’d have landed on me,” Byron said into the stunned silence. “I’d have broken his fall.”
    Kids were already melting away, not wanting to deal with the paramedics or the cops who might come with.
    “Or maybe it would have been your head on the rock,” I said, no patience for the blame game. The adrenaline or whatever had kicked me into a frenzy was starting to wear off, leaving me snappish … and hungry. The thirst warred with horror over the cause … my friends’ blood. I should go, before Ulric’s gushing nose started to look like a champagne fountain. Ewww, definitely well before that. But I couldn’t leave, not with Bram so helpless and with no idea whether the violence was magically inspired or whether it would start up again the second my back was turned. Something was going on. The electrified feeling that had zipped through me when my knees hit the ground was proof of that.
    • • •
    It seemed like forever and a day before the ambulance came, and by then all but the fallen had bugged out. One of the paramedics made a call while his partner got right to work. I suspected that given the damage, the underaged victims, and the party paraphernalia, they wanted some back-up. Probably police. I nearly cried as I watched Bram being loaded onto a backboard to keep him stiff and avoid spinal injuries like Gavin had been worried about, and then tucked away into the ambulance. But I kept the tears in better than my teeth. I’d learned months ago that I wept blood, and that wasn’t a sight anyone needed to see. Guilt sucked at me like a Hoover. I should have been able to protect Bram and Bella. I should have been keeping an eye on them all rather than wandering off with Ulric. The fact that they’d wandered off first didn’t make me feel any better.
    “Where’re your shoes?” Lily asked, having, like me, slid off to the fringes to get out of the way of the medics.
    I shrugged. “Dunno.”
    “Hear you kicked serious ass.”
    “Is there any other kind?” I asked, working hard to hide my pointy teeth. “You didn’t see?”
    It was her turn to shrug.
    “I don’t know,” I answered. “I was so extra crispy I just kind of went nuts when I saw the jocks picking on Bella.”
    Sirens sounded in the distance. “We’d better blow,” she said, grabbing my arm in an iron death-grip.
    Byron was watching us, and some kind of sign passed between them. He got the others moving.
    The paramedics looked like they would have stopped us, but had their hands full. We bolted for the totally conspicuous hearse.
    If I was lucky, being so new to the group and all, no one would immediately think to give up my name when the cops traced the car … unless that whole butt-whupping thing stuck in people’s heads as, you know, it kinda might.
    Everyone was subdued on the drive back to the school lot to drop me off at my car. And it wasn’t a peaceful silence. By the pulse-point on her neck, I