“Poor Dawn.” Eva stood, her thin dress surrounding her like a nimbus. “I promised I’d leave the heavy explanations to the Master. He’s looking forward to welcoming you.”
“Hey, I think you’re not getting it—I’m not going to be a vamp.” The words sounded so sure, but they were only cardboard, fake background scenery misdirecting the audience.
“Yes, you will be.” Eva said it matter-of-factly. “He wants you with him, just as much as I do.”
Dawn’s mind spun, a carnival ride that was only starting. Or maybe it’d just picked up speed, making fragments out of what used to be real and blurring it all into a mass of colored disorder.
Eva moved closer. “He loves every one of his progeny, and when we take you into our family, you’re going to feel that adoration.”
For an indulgent moment, Dawn amused herself by pretending she was open to these ridiculous promises. “And what kind of vamp would I be? Aren’t there a few…subspecies?”
“Sure—we’re evolved to the point where different members fulfill different niches Underground. With the Master’s bite, you’d be like me, Dawn. He thinks that much of you. You’d be just like me.”
Dawn shivered, not in fear but in need.
Just like her mother.
Eva seemed to understand, walking even closer. “You’re too good to be a Groupie, one of the lower-level vampires.”
Without even realizing it, Dawn had unshuttered her mind, and Eva flowed inside, filtering into every brain cell. Within a few bent seconds, Dawn knew how the beautiful ones—the Elite—had always come to be: the arranged deaths that made a regular superstar into a legend, the transformation as performed by Dr. Eternity, the final stage of becoming an ethereal being who lingered Underground until the comeback Above.
No ugliness, Eva thought to Dawn. Just paradise. I’m what you’ve always wanted to be. I’m your mother, come with me….
Absorbing more, Dawn also saw how an Elite could walk in the sun and feel it on their face as long as they didn’t expose themselves too intensely. She saw many other answers, like how blessed objects were just that—objects—and that garlic was just a nuisance because the Master had been born with this immunity, too, and the Elites had inherited a good measure of what his blood carried.
She told Dawn so much…but not everything. It would all come, Dawn knew, if she only allowed Eva to continue.
In her dream state, Dawn felt her mother touching her hair, weeping at the privilege of finally being allowed in. A roar grew in the back of her mind, a gathering wave of something Dawn should be remembering—
The good guys, Eva interrupted, we’re the good guys. Come to our side.
But the wave collected more liquid thought, gathering in strength. RememberJonahrememberBreisirememberKiko….
When it crashed, it sopped Dawn in cold reality, pushing Eva out with a thunderous heave.
Her mother stumbled back, teary eyes wide. Frank was at her side in a heartbeat, holding her, his chains clattering.
“What’re you doing?” he said.
Dawn stared back at him, asking him the same thing.
When he didn’t answer, she deprived him of her attention, but that only meant she was back to square one. Just because she was having a crisis of conscience, that didn’t mean she trusted The Voice now. She needed to think about everything, needed to glue it all together until it made sense.
As Frank held Eva, she touched his chest. “It’s okay. This isn’t an easy choice for her.”
His face didn’t show any emotion as he nodded, then stepped away from his captor. Damn it, why wouldn’t he clue Dawn in on what he was thinking? Or didn’t he want her to know because he realized she’d hate his decision?
“Anyway,” Eva said, running her shaking hands down the front of her dress, “I have to go.” She wet her lips with her tongue. “Julia will have a late dinner down soon.”
With the way she said it, Dawn wondered if Eva was going out to feed from her master—from what Eva had shown her, Dawn knew this was how she survived.
“You realize,” Dawn said, “that my absence is going to tip off my coworkers and the authorities? Don’t you think they’re going to come looking for me here? Kiko’s smart enough to tell them that your house is a possible location for me.”
“That’s been taken care of.” Eva smiled like Jac used to—light and pretty. She pointed to herself. “Actress?” Then pointed to the door, altering her voice. “Your phone?”
She sounded like Dawn. Holy crap. She’d pretended to be Dawn to Breisi, or Kiko, or…God, she hoped The Voice had answered. Maybe he’d be able to read what was going on or do whatever he did.
Looking oddly discomfited with her own sly games, Eva turned to go, hesitated, then said one last thing. “When it comes to who the good guys are, think of who just offered the information you wanted and who’s been withholding from you.”
The rest of it was implicit: would you trust a boss who used your dad as bait or the mom who was taking such a chance to get her family back?