The moment I awoke, I knew that we were out of the dead zone. I might not have noticed when I had entered it, but the feeling of being back to my old self was like a physical rush bubbling in my blood.

I sprang up, wincing at the blessed silver injuries that were still painful, and looked at my surroundings. Not much to go on. The room was sealed against light and, more tellingly, looked as if it had been designed to be sealed against light - that told a story of its own. Beyond that, it was almost hotel-like in its blandness. The bed was comfortable and dressed in highly colored sheets, the walls were monochrome, the carpet was beige, the artwork on the wall was mass-produced. Everything screamed that this was not a place where people lived.

Despite the appearance, a hotel seemed unlikely. So perhaps a safe house? That made sense. And would explain the sealed window; a safe house designed for vampires. That was the sort of thing that the Lawkeepers were bound to have access to.

That word ignited a fire in my mind. Lawkeepers. That's what they were, what they had always been. That's what Kael had been when he had taken me in the alleyway; what he and Milo had been when they had saved my life outside The Dark Bar; what Gage and Milo had been when we had spent an afternoon in bed together. And now, all those activities were called into question. Kael had known who and what I was, so what were his motives when we fucked? He and Milo had not killed any of my attackers that night - was that because they knew who they were and the whole thing was staged to make me trust them? Had Gage and Milo just been keeping me occupied while Kael made his move on Max to get himself into my apartment? I didn't know if one or all or none of these guesses were accurate, but they were in my head now.

Presumably, the guys were somewhere in this safe house. I could kill them now. I had my strength back, there was nothing they could do to stop me. They'd certainly given me reason enough in lying to me, using me, perhaps even being complicit in Layla's disappearance.

But, if they had wanted, they could have killed me as I slept. They had not.

And they had given me an explanation. They had said they believed me now and that they wanted to help me find Layla. So the question remained; did I believe them?

The only answer I had right now was; I don't know.

But, whether they were lying or not, whether what had passed between us was real or not, whether or not I was their partner or their pawn, they were more use to me alive than dead. If I was ever going to find Layla, then I had to stop killing my damn leads, and where better to start than with the leads who might yet prove to be on my side. I wasn't ready to forgive them yet, and I didn't like being lied to, but, for once in my life, I was going to play it smart. At the very least, I would wait and find out what they knew before I killed them.

I headed for the door, limping slightly as I went - the dead zone had meant that I had not yet had time to heal.

The three guys were all seated in the living room beyond, and all stood up as I entered, looking at me, their expressions unreadable.

"We're out of the dead zone," I said, wanting to let them know that if they were planning to try anything, then they would be taking their lives in their hands.

"Yeah," Kael nodded. "How do you feel?"

"Where are we?"

"We're in a safe house," said Milo, confirming my suspicion. "Outside the city. Way outside. You'll be safe here."

"Will I?" Maybe I would be safe from the outside but I still wasn't sure about who I was in here with. "Does someone want to tell me who those people were?"

"We didn't know they'd be there," said Gage.

"That doesn't answer my question."

"We don't know who they were," said Kael. "For a while, I thought they were Lawkeepers, but Lawkeepers aren't allowed to use blessed silver. It makes us mistrusted in the vampire community."

I gave a humorless laugh. "I gotta tell you; Lawkeepers aren't trusted in the vampire community. Go ahead and use whatever weapon you want."

Kael accepted this calmly. "We'd like to change that. We're not the enemy."

"You lured me into a trap."

"The trap wasn't mine."

"You lured me into a dead zone."

"That we did do," admitted Kael. "At the time, we thought you were a rogue vampire who had killed dozens, and that is not the sort of person you meet on an even footing. We wanted you weak. I admit that."

"What else would you like to admit?" As I finished the sentence, my leg gave a little beneath me, the pain from the blessed silver injury becoming unbearable. I managed to keep my feet but the guys looked worried.

"You should sit down," said Gage.

"I'm fine."

"That's clearly not true. You need rest and you need food."

"I need an answer to my questions," I growled, managing to keep my feet.

"And you'll get one," Kael promised, and the way he said it made me believe him. "But if you don't have something to eat soon, then you won't be able to kick our asses when you want to. How are we set?" he asked Gage.

Gage shook his head. "Need to get some supplies in. It's been awhile since anyone's been out here and it's not been stocked up."

Kael nodded and turned to Milo. "Gage and I will head out for supplies. Get her some food - whatever's there. Dress her wounds. And see if you can get her to rest."

Milo nodded. "Everything but the last part is no problem."

"Keep talking about me like I'm not here and I really will kick some ass," I growled as I hobbled to a chair and lowered myself into it. Irritated though it made me, they were right; I really did need some rest, or at least to take the weight off my injury so it would heal faster.

Kael and Gage headed out and Milo busied himself about the kitchen. "One great thing about taking care of a vampire; you don't have to worry about the quality of cooking. You guys are nice and easy to please when it comes to food."

He returned with a sealed bag of blood, the bag still wet from where he had heated it in water on the stove.

"It's not like fresh," I said, eyeing the reheated meal.

"Try it," said Milo.

I sank my fangs through the plastic and drew in the life-giving fluid. Regardless of the various products on the market, there is no substitute for fresh blood, which is why voluntary donors are so sought after amongst vampires, enabling us to satisfy our need without breaking the law. Refrigerated or frozen blood, reheated later, tastes like crap and always has. It's the difference between meat and that bland substitute that vegetarians eat - they can replicate the nutrients but not the taste.

But this was pretty good. I drained the bag.

"Maybe it's just that I'm starving, but that was alright."

“It's been flash frozen," Milo explained. "It's a new process we've just started using. Nine out of ten vampires can't tell the difference between this and fresh."

"How come it's not on the market yet?"

Milo shrugged. "My guess is politics. In situations like this, it's usually politics. Now, let's have a look at that leg."

I tugged off my jeans to reveal the gash in my thigh, now more or less sealed with clotted blood, but still hurting like hell. In fact, it seemed to hurt more since I had sat down, which didn't seem fair.

"Nasty," said Milo, examining the wound.

"Unless someone has applied a blowtorch to your nipples, then you do not know the meaning of the word 'nasty'," I replied, tartly. Humans don't get the blessed silver thing.

Milo nodded. "Sorry. We have tried hard to outlaw blessed silver, but if someone has the money then what can you do?"

"If it was a threat to humans, then I'm sure you'd find a way."

"Perhaps," he admitted, with disarming candor. He crossed the room, opened a cupboard, and took out a first aid kit, then returned. "Hold still. This will sting."

"When you say 'sting'?"

"I mean, you may want to bite down on something."

The spray burned almost as bad as the blade had and I grabbed the arms of my chair so hard that my fingers went through the soft covering and into the woodwork beneath.

"Sting? Seriously?"

"How does it feel now?" asked Milo.

"It..." Actually, it felt a hell of a lot better. The pain of the spray had vanished almost as soon as it had arrived, and as it left it had taken with it the pain of the wound. I looked down at my leg to see the accelerated vampire healing process, that blessed silver stunted, back in action.

"Feels better, right?" asked Milo, unwinding a strip of bandage. "It works best under pressure and out of fresh air. Sit on the couch so you can put your leg up for me."

I did as he said and he began to wind the bandage about my thigh.

"What is that stuff?" I asked.

"It basically undoes the effects of blessed silver."

"Where can I get some?"

Milo pulled a face. "Not available to the public. Yet. Maybe not ever."

"Politics?"

He nodded. "There's not much money in curing vampires. The feeling is that it's already hard enough to hurt you."

"Didn't feel that hard last night."

Milo tied the bandage. "Anyone who's rich enough to own blessed silver weapons is rich enough to make sure an antidote to them doesn't get anywhere near the marketplace. Were you injured anywhere else?"

I rolled up my sleeve to show my other cut.

"I'm afraid it will sting again."

It did.

"You need to find a word other than 'sting'."

"Maybe," agreed Milo, as he bandaged my arm.

How was I supposed to figure out if I could trust this man or not? Everything he had done told me I shouldn't. But everything he did told me I should. Above it all, was the fact that I desperately wanted to trust him, clouding my judgment. So many lies, but so much kindness. Could he be treating me well to win my trust? Of course he could - but that didn't mean he was.

"There," Milo finished up, "you can put your pants back on."

"Thanks."

He cleared up the first aid stuff and put it back in the cupboard then turned to me.

"I'm sorry about what's happened to Layla."

"I don't even know what happened to her," I spat bitterly.

"Nor do we." I believed him. "How did you meet her? She's nowhere near as old as you."

"In the gutter," I said, grimly. "Where you meet all the best people."

"But of course."

"Some vamps had attacked her, turned her, but didn't finish her off. They just left her to die there."

Milo shook his head. "One area of vampire crime we've been unable to put any real dent in."

I bared my teeth in something that looked like a smile but wasn't. "Not illegal enough. Killing a human is illegal. Turning one is a grey area. Layla fell into the crack between the two."

"And you saved her."

Had I? "I gave her my blood, allowed her to turn fully into a vamp. I'm still not sure if I saved her or not."

"Better than letting her starve." Starvation for vampires is an ugly process that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

"Could have killed her outright," I replied. "That was an option. Funny thing is; that would have been breaking the law, but it might have been the best thing for her. You can't know how it's going to go - how they're going to take to being a vamp. I found Max - my other blood sister - in exactly the same way, but she's taken to it and Layla didn't. You can't tell until it's too late."

"But you cared enough to want to do the right thing."

I looked at him sidelong. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Not all vampires would."

"And not all humans would, either. My species hasn't got the monopoly on doing the wrong thing."

Milo nodded. "True. I apologize." He sat down on the couch beside me. "We forget sometimes how loving vampires can be. We're your prey - it's very easy to see you as monsters. But I know you feel the loss of a loved one every bit as much as we do."

I held back. I don't share my heart with anyone, and certainly not a Lawkeeper. "If I just knew for sure whether she was dead or alive, it would be easier. Some certainty."

"Be careful what you wish for."

There was something about the way he said it that made a shudder go through me. Somehow, I knew what my next question had to be. "How'd you end up a Lawkeeper?"

Milo said nothing for a while, as if deciding if this was a story he was willing to tell. "I saw them in action once. From there, becoming one seemed... obvious." He took a breath, focusing his mind and controlling his emotions. I realized that he had almost as much trouble opening up as I did. "My older sister was a vamp lover. Even when she was a kid it was all our parents could do to stop her from running off after school to find someone to bleed her. You know the law - eighteen is the limit - but Kerry used to dress up to look older than she was and it's not like any vamp stops to check IDs. Young blood is the best, they say."

Actually, young blood is the same as any - varies from person to person. What people mean is; young blood is forbidden. And whether it tastes better or not, something forbidden is always desirable.

"While she was under eighteen," Milo went on, "our parents still had some say over her. They'd bawl her out blue murder when they found bite marks on her neck, her arms, her thighs. And she got it - you know? She knew they were right and she knew she was doing herself harm and she did - she did - try to control herself. But she loved it. And when she hit eighteen, she went off the deep end. Couldn't control herself. A proper addict, you know?" He took a long pause, the sadness hitting him in a tide of memory. "We all spoke to her. We all tried. But I think we all knew how it was going to end. Like you said; in a gutter." He stirred in his seat. "At least they bled her dry. Didn't leave her like your Layla. And she died happy. Doing what she loved."

He was silent a long while and so I spoke. "Did they find the vampire who killed her?"

Milo nodded. "Oh, yes. Lawkeepers got him. He tried to plead willing donor but, for all her track-marks, she only had one fresh bite." He swallowed. "They thought maybe she'd been trying to get clean. This was a relapse. Anyway; one bite, one vamp, he made the choice to drain her."

"And?"

He looked at me. "He saw the sun rise." The slang term for executing a vampire. "Do you find that barbaric?"

I shook my head. "I find that justice. Nobody drains by accident."

He seemed to accept this. "When the Lawkeepers came to tell us, I remember one - he seemed about twelve feet tall to me at the time - just taking my mother aside. I don't know what he said to her, but on the worst day of her life, he seemed to make things... He let her know that whoever had done it wouldn't get away with it. This was in the days before bio-enhancement, mind you, they were tough men back then."

"I think you'd be pretty tough even without your enhancements."

He half-smiled. "Still pretty glad to have them."

"I'm sorry."

"For what."

"Your sister."

Milo shook his head. "I don't blame all vampires for the actions of one. I used to. But not anymore. Funny, really, I joined the Lawkeepers to keep them in line, to prevent what happened to my sister and my family from happening to anyone ever again. But being a Lawkeeeper taught me that vamps had as much to fear from us. When I see humans ganging up on a vampire, knowing they can't fight back for fear of reprisals, then it makes me sick. I've seen what a cruel human can do to a vampire using just the sun and a magnifying glass. And I've seen what a vampire will do to a human, too. No such thing as a bad species; only bad individuals."

It occurred to me that there were more reasons than one that I liked Milo and his friends. "That's a very broad-minded point of view."

Milo looked at the ground guiltily. "I'm not pretending to be any better than I am. There are times when I see a girl of Kerry's age going down an alleyway with a vamp - a willing donor - and I want to stop it. I don't trust the vampire one inch. Prejudice like that dies hard. And I feel..." I heard a catch in his voice. "I feel like if I let that die then it's a betrayal of Kerry's memory."

I could see the weight of effort it had taken for him to tell me this. It was true, every word of it, of that I was in no doubt. No one could have faked that. Was he telling me so as to get my sympathy? I didn't think so. Not because I necessarily trusted him, but because I didn't think he would use that memory as a weapon or as a tool of any sort. He wouldn't do that to his sister. Maybe he was trying to get closer to me, but I couldn't think it was for any malign purpose.

I didn't feel any need to respond - like I owed him something. I wanted to speak because I had wanted to for the longest time, and only lacked someone to speak to.

"It was my fault."

Milo said nothing, but I could almost feel him listening.

"I pushed her towards him. Towards Gray. I thought he would do her good. That she should try dating someone with a bit more edge. She was always ending up with willowy romantic types who got one taste of what it's actually like to be with a vamp and ran off leaving her heartbroken. Gray was tougher, he'd been with a vamp before, he knew the score. I just thought... I just didn't want her to be moping about the place anymore! I wanted her to get out there. Be a vampire, goddamn it. Fifty years and she still hated what she was. Like a permanent rebuke at me - I did this to her. I didn't think Gray would have made her happy, but at least he got her out and she could have gotten good and laid and maybe that guilt wouldn't be on me for five minutes. Maybe I wouldn't have to deal with those accusing eyes staring at me. Blaming me."

"Did she say any of this?" Milo asked quietly.

"No. She would never say that sort of thing."

"She loves you too much."

I burst into tears. I've never done that before. I mean, I've cried before, but never like that; zero to bawling in no seconds flat. And never in front of another person. Now, it wouldn't damn well stop.

"It's my fault."

"It really doesn't sound like it is."

"What the hell would you know about it?"

"Just what you're telling me."

"I pushed her towards him."

"She's a grown woman who makes her own decisions."

"I just wanted her out of the house."

"That doesn't sound like you at all. That sounds like something you've made up after the event so you can be guilty about it."

"I should have gone to meet her at Lawkeeper Central, not gone to Gray's apartment."

"Well, now you're changing tack. At least make up your mind why it's your fault."

"Why are you being like this!" I practically screamed.

Milo took me by the shoulders and held me still. "You're only blaming yourself because you've got no one else to blame. I've been there. Believe me. I don't think you pushed her towards Gray because you wanted her out of the apartment. Nor do I think she blamed you for her life as a vampire. I think she loved you very much, which is harder, because you blame yourself."

He leaned in, and gently kissed the tears from my hot cheeks.

"I should have gone to Lawkeeper Central," I muttered.

"Well, maybe. But my gut tells me they'd have gotten her anyway. There's more to this. And none of it - none of it - is your fault."