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invitation to enter my home, true, but just the thought that more of these bloodsuckers could be lurking outside, posing as the pizza boy, or the postal woman…
    A low whimper in the corner. Thaksin swept past me, human once more. “He live. Good dog!”
    I blinked in amazement. Saja was already up and sniffing Thaksin’s blood-soaked hand. Yu Li and I locked gazes.
    Careful , she said. That dog should be dead.
    I know .
    “Hiroshi no live.” Thaksin’s lidless eyes blinked rapidly. For a moment, we all stared in silence at the man with the shadow of a bear.
    My neighbor’s door clicked. Yu Li stepped up neatly to press against it, while Thakshin and I carried the remains inside. She bolted in after us, and we all sat with hearts pounding, backs against the door, hardly daring to believe that we’d gotten away with it. The commotion outside swelled; now that there was no danger, my neighbors felt brave enough to shed their fear in favor of anger.
    Later, Thakshin left to go bring Hiroshi’s body back to his clan. Yu Li helped me clean up.
    “I can’t believe you found me so fast,” I choked out.
    “This is my district,” she replied. “I lost contact with Thaksin and Hiroshi. Then I received your message and knew where to find them.” She scrubbed at the bloodstains on the floor. “You didn’t expect me, did you?”
    My cheeks burned. “I thought Rafael would have come—”
    “The juin-nim is reevaluating Rafael’s relationship with you. You were in his charge, and he let harm come to you.” Her eyes flickered for the briefest of seconds to my missing finger. “You are easily swayed by his ideals. Rafael should have known better.”
    “He didn’t sway me. I wanted to go to Eve, too.”
    “You would be stupid to broadcast that.”
    “You’re helping me over your boyfriend?”
    Yu Li tossed the blood-soaked cloth in the trash bag. “My boyfriend. I love Rafael. More than love, I admire him. I want to strangle him sometimes, but there is no man I admire more. But I can’t control him. Now, he got himself into a big mess. He must get himself out. That will prove to me…if I can still be with him.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Foolish girl. Look at you. You thought he cared for you, and look at the danger he put you in.” Yu Li’s eyes challenged me to contradict her. The way she said it made me know she more than suspected my crush. “How do I know he won’t do that to me? To my son?”
    “We’re fighting a war!” I heard myself echoing Rafael’s words. “He didn’t ask anything of me that I didn’t sign up for! I can’t be locked up in a cabinet like the newest china!”
    “Does Rafael know how to live outside the war?”
    Her question followed me around the room as we finished cleaning in silence.
    “There.” I shifted the couch over one irritating blood spot that refused to come out. “They’ll never be able to tell the difference.”
    Yu Li hoisted up two trash bags full of unpleasant contents: dead vampyre. She still managed to make them look as fashionable as purses. “This time. You should leave them.”
    “Who?”
    “Your family. If you really love them, you’ll leave and go far, far away.”
    I stayed silent, stroking the head of a mournful Saja curled up in his dog bed. For once, he actually stayed still. I was fast losing my courage as Yu Li approached the door, but at the last second, I blurted out the question: “The vampyres said something about me not accepting an invitation. Do you know what that’s about?”
    She looked at me calmly. “Of course not. Do not listen to the vampyres entreating you with false promises of peace. You’re their enemy. Expect only lies.”
    I gave a shaky sigh after she left. I hadn’t said anything about peace promises.
     

Chapter 6: A Most Surprising Invitation
     
    My sneakers thudded on concrete as I made my way down the stairs to the pack’s usual hang-out: Jaehoon’s home school. Saja scampered ahead of me. The dog did