"And you’re sure you didn't hit your head?" Melanie asked for the fourth time, a perfectly manicured brow raised as she stared at me from across my kitchen. I'd just finished relaying the events of the previous 24 hours to her, but she didn't look convinced.

"I'm sure," I said, holding up my palms to show her the scrapes, as if that proved the existence of vampires.

Melanie rolled her eyes, but nodded. "Okay, sure. Let's do it then, but just so you know, I think you might be experiencing post-traumatic stress or something from the date with Freddie. It sounds like it was terrible."

"It was, thanks for that, by the way. Revenge will be had, but that has nothing to do with this," I told her, scratching at my chin in thought. “I have an idea.”

I rushed to my laptop and tugged it open, quickly finding the internet browser. With a few keystrokes, I had the local news up on the screen. Behind me, I heard Melanie’s low gasp as a headline rolled by.

The body of a fifty-five-year-old male was found in an alleyway off North Street who was apparently mauled by a wild animal. More on that on our nightly news.

Macabrely satisfied, I shot a glance over my shoulder.

“See?”

My sister nodded dumbly and wet her lips. “Okay, you’ve got my attention.”

“Where do you think we should start?"

Her eyes skimmed across my kitchen and landed on the cabinet where I kept my herbs and spices. "We should probably chuck your garlic. If I know anything about vampires, it's that garlic is a no-no."

"Good idea."

Melanie mimed buffing her fingernails on her chunky woolen sweater and gave me a smug smile. "That's the only kind I have, little sis."

I shot her the dead eye. "You know I hate it when you call me that. Also, remember that time you tried to convince me that if we knotted towels around our necks, we would be able to use them as parachutes to jump off the roof? I could carry on with the Melanie Mitchell bad idea bonus cuts, but I think you get the point."

We both chuckled at the memory, then went to work on clearing out my kitchen. "Holy shit, Star, how much garlic do you have?"

I shrugged. "Garlic forms the base of any good dish, you know that as well as I do."

"True that. But did you really need to clean out the store?"

"I didn't. I ran out once and kept forgetting to pick up more, so I figured I'd just stock up when I finally remembered." Holding open a black bag for her to empty my stash into, I spotted a bottle of Italian blend. "You'd better get that, too. Actually, let's just get rid of everything remotely Italian."

A couple of minutes later, after even my tomato sauce had joined the garlic in the black bag, Melanie sifted through the cabinet and gave a satisfied nod. "Okay, I think that's it. I can't see anything else. What now?"

Rubbing my fingers along my chin, I tipped my head toward the ceiling and tried to think of what our next step possibly could be. "I'm not sure. Maybe we should hide any crosses or mirrors?"

"Well, look at that, you have good ideas, too," she teased lightly, smirking. "Do you want to start in your bedroom and work our way back here?"

I considered her suggestion and nodded, not able to keep a small smile from lifting the corners of my lips. As unlikely as the task was that we were performing, I loved spending time with my sister. We were always teasing and laughing and though I knew that she was skeptical about my sanity, I appreciated that she was helping me, few questions asked.

My place wasn't big, a single-story two-bedroomed cottage-style house. The kitchen opened to my living and dining area, from where a short hallway connected to the two bedrooms and my only bathroom. Some of my walls were still made of the original stone that the house had been built from, gray and pockmarked, while the others had wooden-paned windows.

It was decorated in bold colors and floral prints to counteract the darkness of the stone and, unfortunately for our purposes tonight, had quite a few mirrors to help make it look bigger. Melanie and I had also gone through a phase of mosaicing crosses, all of which I'd kept and were hanging above my fireplace.

Melanie sighed as we walked past them and muttered, "This is going to take awhile."

"Yeah. I was just thinking the same thing," I agreed, crossing into my bedroom.

At least there were no crosses in here, so Melanie and I took to hiding the mirrors with my spare sheets and covered the one on my jewelry box with a blanket we'd crocheted when we were younger. Mom allowed us two hours of television time at night, but not to sit still while we were watching. As a result, there weren't many arts and crafts that we hadn't done.

Melanie clapped her hands together, sweeping her eyes over the room. "That's that, I think. Let's get to the actual work."

She threw me a look over her shoulder when she reached the bedroom door, a mischievous gleam in her eye as she smirked.

"You know, I'd bet that if you did get your vampire in here, he wouldn't be looking at the mirrors."

I shook my head as I swept past her back to the living room. "You may have a point, but if I did get him into my room, I wouldn't want to risk having him disappear in a puff of smoke or whatever happens to them if he did accidentally look into the mirror."

Melanie echoed my laughter and followed me out. "Right? If he's as hot as you said he was, that would seriously suck."

It took much longer to clear the rest of the house of crosses and hide the rest of the mirrors, but we got it done and eventually worked our way back to the kitchen. "I think we're done."

As I said it, my eyes landed on the Red Cross magnet on my fridge from the one time I'd donated blood. "We should probably get rid of that, too."

Melanie followed my gaze then paled slightly at whatever thought crossed her mind. "Do you think that's why the Red Cross made that their symbol?"

I felt as aghast as she sounded as the implications of the question dawned on me. "You think it's to scare away vampires?"

Melanie nodded. "Yeah, to, like, keep them away from their cache."

At this point, it was hard to deny that anything was possible. Provided, of course, that the Red Cross knew vampires existed, but since blood banks were probably a vampire’s equivalent of Whole Foods, it was probably a good bet that they did.

I made a mental note to ask my vampire… if you get him to come back, dummy.

Because there was no denying that, beneath my optimism, he might not. In fact, I might be in the midst of some psychotic break.

My mind instantly supplied an image of his perfect face and my resolve strengthened once again.

Melanie crossed the room to the fridge, tossed the magnet into the bag with the garlic, and poured us each a glass of water. "Now that your house is rid of anything overtly anti-vampire, we should probably figure out how to lure him."

Carrying our water over to my couches, Melanie fired up the laptop again while I went to find a blank, white banner, some glitter pens and markers, and sat down cross-legged on my purple throw rug. Thanks to Mom's rule about never sitting around with idle hands, Melanie and I both had trouble not doing anything to keep ourselves busy while we watched television, so we both kept an impressive collection of random art materials.

"You're making a Welcome sign?” she asked, proving how well she knew me and how alike we were sometimes, if her nod of approval was anything to go by.

"I am. I was thinking about it earlier, and can't they not enter houses that they are not invited into?" Melanie's eyes grew contemplative as she thought, then replied.

"I think you're right. Maybe just add in brackets underneath Welcome, ‘yes you can come in’." I wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not but I followed her suggestion, adding the words and then drawing a smiley face before closing the bracket.

"We should probably open all your windows, too, you know, to make the house look inviting." I took her advice and opened all my windows, despite the chill in the air. I wouldn’t go to sleep with them open, but surely I could stand it for a few hours, anyway.

When I was done, Melanie set the laptop aside and stood up. "I'm still skeptical about this, but if we're doing it at all, we might as well go all the way. I'm down with whatever. Let's go find you a good vampire-luring outfit."

I looked down at the sweats and bunny slippers I'd changed into once I got home from the library and she was right. No man, human or vampire, would be lured by this outfit.

"What are you thinking?" I said, following her back to my bedroom.

"I don't know," she answered, then waved a hand in my general direction while she started rummaging through my closet. "But that ain't going to work."

A minute or so later, she pulled out a white nightdress I'd forgotten I had and handed it to me. "This. The chicks in romance and horror movies who run into these beings always seem to be wearing something white and flowy, maybe there is a reason for it."

I shrugged and quickly changed into the dress. It was completely inappropriate for the freezing night and goose bumps pebbled my skin, but that was okay, I was willing to endure the discomfort caused by the cold if it meant getting answers I wanted.

The bodice of the dress had a low-cut front, but Melanie narrowed her eyes slightly as she surveyed me. "I think we need to get some more cleavage going."

“I can only work with what I’ve got, Mel,” I said with a frown.

With that, she bounded from the bedroom and called to me. We met back in the living room, Melanie wielding a carving knife and a large smile. "We’re going to slash it to fix the boob problem."

I wasn't so sure about this, but in for a penny, in for a pound, so I stepped forward and let my crazy sister cut the top of the dress until its neckline was just about even with the outline of my bra.

When she was done, I turned in a slow circle, holding my arms out to my sides. "You think that will do it?"

Melanie nodded slowly, then her eyes snapped to mine and I already knew that whatever idea she'd had, I wasn't going to love it. "Maybe you should cut yourself a little, you know, use your blood to lure him."

I winced at that. It seemed like asking for trouble after what I’d witnessed him do, but she did have yet another point. Vampires definitely liked the scent of blood. My vampire had confessed as much to me. And I couldn’t forget, he could’ve eaten me already if he’d wanted to…

“All right.”

I was reaching gingerly for the knife she'd used to cut the dress, but she caught my wrist to stop me. "You should probably wait until I leave."

"Why?"

"Just in case the blood sends your nightwalker into a bloodlust. We don't want Mom to have to bury both daughters on the same day." Her grin was salty, but there was a hint of concern in her eyes and I realized she was only mostly kidding. I could also see that she wasn't going to try and stop me. She knew that my mind was made up and that once it was, it was nearly impossible to change it.

"That's pragmatic."

“Honestly, vampire or not, your friend is a hero in my eyes. I have to believe he only wants you to be healthy and safe, or I’d be fighting you every step of the way. Plus, I trust your instincts.” Melanie grabbed her bag and pulled me in for a tight hug. "I think we’re done here. You call me if or, as soon as, anything whatsoever happens. And stay safe, would you?"

"I'll do my very best, I promise. I'll text if it's too late if something happens, else I'll call. Thanks for all your help, Mel. I love you."

"Love you, too. We'll talk later, yeah?" After giving me another squeeze, she headed for the door.

I waved as she stepped outside and closed the door behind her.

Preparations made, I was as ready as I was ever going to be, so I reached for the knife and stared at it for a second before bringing it to my palm, trying to decide where to make the cut. The metal was cool against my skin, but I couldn't bring myself to press down yet.

Taking a few calming breaths, I gave myself a quick pep talk and then yelped at the pinch of my skin when I finally made the cut. Looking down to survey the damage, I saw that despite the fact that it’d felt like a massive cut, there was barely anything there.

Too squeamish to make a bigger cut, I squeezed the one I had between my thumb and forefinger, trying to coax some drops to form. Once I was satisfied that there had to be enough there to be able to lure him if I played my cards right, I walked to the window and waved my hand in front of it a little.

I repeated the move out all of my windows, then opened my door to do the same, peeking out to see if I could spot him yet. I couldn't, however. The street outside was empty, the only sound a dog barking in the distance.

It seemed I was going to have to settle in and wait, so I crossed back to my couch and collapsed onto it. Minutes ticked by so slowly that I swore that if time slowed down any more, it was going to start going backward.

But still there was nothing. Or rather, no one. I wasn't going to give up, though, but a crick in my back told me that my hunched position on the couch wasn't going to do.

Mentally flipping through my options, I decided to drape myself in what I considered to be a relatively sexy position and waited. Then I waited some more and some more, a quick glance at the clock revealing that it was now after 10 PM and so far all I’d managed to summon was a body full of goose bumps from the chill in the air.

Still, I waited, but eventually my habit of waking with the sun and the stress of the night before finally got to me, and though I tried to fight it, my eyes drifted closed…