Chapter 1

Life is made up of a series of choices, and every single tiny decision you make can change everything for the rest of your life. Seriously, like, even something as simple as whether or not you get up to go to the bathroom right this very second or continue to hold it for a minute or two could impact the rest of your life. Don’t believe me? Okay—let’s say you’re at a Starbucks, sipping your latte, and you really need to put your book down and go use the facilities, but you decide to wait until you get to the end of the chapter. The next thing you know, some crazy person who doesn’t know the gas from the brake comes flying through the front of the store, sending shards of glass, bits of scone, and a bucket of coffee your direction. Now, if you’d been in the bathroom, maybe your shirt wouldn’t smell like espresso. Or maybe you’d be dead because the car actually careened into the first stall before coming to a stop a few feet away from a terrified barista. Yeah, choices matter. And if you waited too long, coffee might not be the only liquid you’ll be wearing home that day.

Okay, so maybe that example is a little over the top, but when you spend your life fighting Vampires for a living, you tend to think the impossible is more like the mundane than most people do. Still, when you’re in the sort of position I’m in where every single decision you make has the opportunity to make or break you—or leave you haunted for the rest of your life—you tend to dwell on their significance a little bit more than the average teenage girl, I’m guessing. Although, it’s been a while since I’ve been average at much of anything.

My sister got married the second week of September. The weekend after her fiancé fought his way out of the same Blood Moon Portal that swallowed up my boyfriend, his dad, and a couple of other guys. One of those other guys happened to be my good friend Alex who didn’t make it out. Almost a week into Cadence and Aaron’s two week long honeymoon, I was so consumed by my feelings about Alex’s death, I was looking for anything and everything to keep my mind off of him. Except for Brandon, apparently.

He didn’t know. My boyfriend had no idea that the final message Alex had left for me, the one Brandon had delivered to me on his behalf, actually included a confession that Alex had feelings for me. Never in my wildest imagination would I have guessed that could be the case. In the past, I had admitted, at least to myself, that I had a slight celebrity crush on Alex. I mean, without him, we probably wouldn’t have a Constitution, after all. For a history nerd like me, that’s significant. Anyway, Alex was more than just the dude everyone’s singing about on Broadway. He was a really nice guy, a great friend, the sort of person who at least pretends to be fascinated at anything a person says. I liked how I felt about myself when I was with him. I liked him. And he was gone.

Before he died, I’d had no idea that Alex was actually interested in me. Even if I had, I probably wouldn’t have done anything about it. Brandon and I had been dating for a while, and I loved him. There’d never been a question in my mind that I was in love with Brandon, not since we first made it official months ago, back when I first became a Hybrid and was completely lost in the world without him as my anchor. So, no, I don’t think I would’ve given up a good thing with Brandon to see how it went with Alex, especially since Mr. Hamilton had made it very clear he was looking to get out of here as soon as he could, if it were ever possible. And by here, I mean the world—life. He wanted to die. He’d been around for so long, and having gone through the Blue Moon Portal, he had been told he’d never die again. He missed his family—including his wife. So why would I hitch my wagon to a fading star?

I wouldn’t. At least, I don’t think I would. But since he’s dead, and there was no longer even the option to find out what might’ve happened, I found myself thinking about him any time I didn’t have anything else to occupy my mind. I wasn’t just missing him or wondering if we could’ve made a good couple; thinking of Alex had me thinking of other things. What if I met someone else someday that made me feel the same way and that person didn’t wait until he was dead to tell me? Would it make me want to leave Brandon? Could I even consider doing something like that to Brandon? I had no idea, but I knew it would devastate him if I broke up with him. The pressure of that threatened to crush me, so I had to find something else to occupy my mind.

The world seemed to be fresh out of Vampires, too, which didn’t help. Normally, if I was bored, I’d just pop into someone’s IAC and watch a hunt, see if I could help by leaping into a Vampire’s head, or at the very least put myself in their position and decide what I would do. But since Holland and Hines were gone, there really wasn’t a lot going on in that area. We’d basically taken out every single Noncompliant Vampire in the known universe. If a hunt happened at all after my sister’s wedding, I didn’t know about it. I was starting to get antsy and bored, and being left alone with my thoughts was certainly not the answer.

I bought a treadmill, a good one, and I set it up in my living room. I know that’s not really the best place for workout machinery, but it wouldn’t really fit in my bedroom, and there was a nice empty space between my sofa and the kitchen passthrough. So that’s where I put it. I was still going to the gym to workout, as well as to help Aurora with the new recruits several times a week, but having a treadmill in my living room was one way I could get some energy out when I found my thoughts drifting to topics I’d just as soon avoid.