She moaned with relief as the cold, silent air caressed her face. It’d been so hot in her sister’s crowded little house. Hot and loud and bright.

She took a deep breath of the brisk night air, then walked carefully down the icy walk as she dug her keys from her purse.

She had her hand wrapped around them when suddenly she stopped walking, tilted her head, and listened. Her breath turned frosty, sending out plumes of white as she paused, concentrating on whatever it was that had made the back of her neck itch. From inside the house the muffled sound of laughter reached her ears.

She couldn’t have said what made her pause and glance back over her shoulder. Something. Some tiny noise, or furtive movement, or more likely, just one of the feelings she sometimes got when something was off. One of the first things she’d been taught in self-defense class was the importance of trusting her intuition.

The streetlights lit the snow-covered pavement and the cars that lined it. It was eerily still, but in the silent darkness she felt…something.

Something that didn’t belong there.

She became aware of sirens screaming in the distance, a sound she acknowledged and then discarded as she concentrated on what might have made her hesitate.

The fine hairs on her arms stiffened and she shivered, frozen. She couldn’t decide whether to ignore the feeling or to rush back inside and ask someone to escort her to her car.

But they’d have laughed at her. Little Trinity, scared of her own shadow. Afraid to walk across the street.

She became aware of the sirens again. They were louder, more intense. Closer, but still distant.

“I’m being silly,” she muttered. She’d walked out of her sister’s house dozens of times. She’d parked on dark streets, walked to her car, stood on porches talking with neighbors. She’d never been afraid in that neighborhood.

Embarrassed, she glanced at the windows of the house, then tightened her grip on her keys, lifted her chin, and walked resolutely on.

Her heels clacking on the pavement was the only sound as she hurried across the empty street to her tiny blue Honda.

She clicked the remote on her keychain, unlocking the car. The engine cranked to life, a comforting and familiar sound in the cold silence.

And the feeling of fear roared back to life with the car engine. She ran the last few steps to the car and yanked open the door.

She had to get inside that car. She’d be safe then, safe from whatever bad thing lurked in the shadows, waiting to grab her.

Chills raced over her body, gooseflesh pebbled her skin, and in that second, she could feel phantom hands grabbing her by the back of her neck.

Only they weren’t phantom hands, suddenly, and the block of ice in her throat cut off her terrified scream.

He whirled her around and then slammed her back against the car. His eyes were black and wide, and as though he were unable to control them, his teeth elongated into fangs, shortened, then elongated again. He snapped his mouth shut, but she’d seen. The point of his fangs looked sharp and somehow cold, like miniature icicles.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

He was…injured. Strips of bloodless flesh hung from his naked body, and cuts, wide and jagged, decorated his face.

She gaped at him, too shocked and horrified, for a second, to remember to be afraid.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” he said again, his voice barely loud enough for her to hear. Still, it scraped across her brain, that voice, that need. “It is a bad night for little humans.”

“You’re a…”

She didn’t say the word, but she didn’t need to. It echoed inside her mind, over and over and over, and she understood one very important thing at that moment.

She was in trouble.

Her breath left her lungs in pants and gasps, and her stomach clenched and tossed in turns—she wanted to throw up but her stomach was so tight it refused to release its contents.

She’d never once in her eighteen years held a conversation with a vampire. Not that she was aware of, anyway. They lived—and hid—amongst the humans, survived in the darkness, feasted on the homeless, the forgotten, the broken, and animals when they were forced to.

Her legs gave out and she dropped to the hard pavement, the exhaust from the car mixing with the scent of his agony. And despite his weakness, his obvious pain, his near death status, he encircled her upper arms with a strong grip and hoisted her up off the ground.

When she sagged against her car, he held her there effortlessly, and put his face level with hers. “I am dying.” And in his eyes was such agony and hopelessness that she had to look away.

“What can I do?” Her words came out thick and garbled. “I can’t…” She realized her palms were against his cold, hard chest, bloodless and dry and dead like the cat she’d been given in anatomy class to dissect. She snatched her hands off his body and rubbed them on her coat. “I mean…”

The vampire slid to the ground, his head hitting the car with a painful-sounding thump.

She should have bolted. She knew she should have. But she’d always been a soft touch, a romantic, a bleeding heart. And she wanted to save her very first vampire.

He was a vampire, and he was asking her for help.

It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t human.

She didn’t like seeing anyone mistreated or in pain—not even vampires, apparently.

As injured as he was, he’d be almost human slow. Human sick. He couldn’t hurt her.

His damage was too severe.

He sat on the cold, wet pavement, and for a brief second, the light blinked and went out of his dark eyes. Then it was back, dimly, and he smiled. “Shall I live, or shall I die?”

Her choice. Her decision.

Or maybe he wasn’t even asking her. Maybe he was asking himself.

She pulled away from him, and he didn’t try to stop her. He dropped his head and sighed, his hand to his chest.

She shut off the engine, then slammed the door shut, her heart hammering. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket.

Maybe she should have rushed back into her sister’s house, called the police, and watched from behind the safety of the window glass as he was hauled away.

But she didn’t. “Linda,” she said, urgently, when her sister answered. “I need help.”

Immediate panic lit her sister’s voice. “What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“I’m outside. There’s a…a very injured vampire at my car. He needs our help.”

“Oh my God,” Linda cried, and in the next second, she and everyone else in the house came pouring through the doorway.

“Trin,” Linda yelled. “Trin!”

“I’m here.” Trinity let her coat slide from her shoulders and handed it to the vampire. “Put this on. We’ll help you.”

She caught sight of her sister’s pale face and wide eyes as her family, stuffed full of Thanksgiving food, milled around her and the downed vampire.

“Linda!” Trinity reached for her sister. “We need help.”

Linda held out her hands but didn’t move forward. “Oh my God, Trin! What’s happening?”

“He’s…” Trinity gestured helplessly at the vampire. “He’s badly hurt.”

They all stood frozen, for one heartbeat, then Derek yanked his cell from his pocket. “Chad, get my gun. Bedroom closet. Top shelf. I’m calling the cops.”

“No,” she cried. “You can’t.”

Derek narrowed his eyes. “Why not, Trin?”

“They’ll kill him. You know they will. He’s too injured to hurt anyone. We have to help him.”

The vampire shivered, clutched his stomach, and then a low, tormented growl slid past his cracked lips.

He opened his mouth, deliberately showing them his fangs, which were once again elongating and then retracting, over and over, with a small clicking sound like they were popping through thick plastic.

“Trinity,” Linda yelled, “Get in the house. Get in the house!”

Derek grabbed Linda’s arm and stepped back. “I’m calling the fucking cops.” And once more, he lifted his phone.

“Wait,” Trinity begged, as it all began to spin out of control. “Just wait.”

But fear spread through them like a fire that had caught the curtains. Panic followed. The littler kids began to cry and their mothers snatched them up and backed away, some turning to run for the house.

Trinity put her cold hands to her hot cheeks, then turned to the vampire she’d tried to save. “We should go. I’ll drive you somewhere safe.” She put her hand on his arm. “Please. Come with me.”

He turned his head slowly to look at her, silent.

Chad returned with the gun, and when he hesitated, Derek yanked the weapon from his grip and turned it on the vampire. “In the house,” he told his family. “Get in the house. Now.”

The vampire smiled, and that smile shocked Trinity to her toes. It wasn’t the smile of an injured man needing sanctuary. It was the smile of madness. It was the smile of hunger.

Derek pulled the trigger and the bullet ripped through the vampire’s head. He didn’t appear to notice as half his face was blown off.

“I made a mistake,” she realized.

“I’m afraid so,” the vampire said gently, and suddenly he wasn’t the only vampire there.

As though he’d silently beckoned them, dozens of vampires, reeking of death and disease, raced from the shadows. And they went after her family.

“Hungry,” one of them screamed. “So hungry!”

Her family shrieked and scattered, but it was too late.

He and his vampires killed them. Killed them all.

Except for her.

She lay seizing on the street, blood spilling from dozens of bites, and as police sirens screamed through the night, he slipped away, leaving her alive.

And that was his mistake.