Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository by Melissa de la Cruz

blame for her misery. After al ,
    maybe if her mother hadn’t been such a hard person to live with, her father would never have left her for Delphine, the Temptress Art Dealer. Who
    knew.
    But whatever sorrow the divorce had brought to her life paled in comparison to what this boy was going through. He radiated fear, trembling in
    her arms. She didn’t real y understand what he was tel ing her, but she could tel that he was running out of time.
    Something thumped on the window hard, making them jump away from each other. Hannah took a sharp breath. The glass vibrated, but held and
    didn’t shatter. That vampire thing was back. It was out there. It was close. It wanted to feed.
    And so did he.
    The boy needed her blood, the strength and life force within it. He needed her to survive. He would die without her. Maybe not the kind of death
    humans experienced, but an emptiness nonetheless. A defeat. He would give himself up. He was growing weaker and weaker, and one day he
    wouldn’t be able to resist the monster’s cal . He would walk out to meet his doom.
    Al he needed was to sink his fangs into her skin and drink her blood.
    Hannah felt a shiver of revulsion at the thought. He was a monster, too. There was a monster in her bedroom. She moved away from him, her
    eyes wide and frightened as if seeing him for the first time. A stranger. A dirty, incoherent, and unwelcome stranger.
    She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I think you should leave now.”
    “It’s al right,” he said mournful y. “I didn’t expect you to. It’s a lot to ask.”
    The light blinked off, and he was gone.
    Hannah’s mother got up early the next morning to make her breakfast. Banana pancakes with maple syrup that came from the can with the Canadian
    flag on it. Hannah twirled the syrup around before taking a bite.
    “Not hungry?” Kate asked. Kate had been the kind of person who ordered the housekeeper to make breakfast, who had made lists on Post-it
    notes, a litany of orders for the staff to take care of for the day. Hannah had never seen her mother cook anything aside from the random scrambled
    egg or the rare serving of pasta. Kate made one dish and made it wel —spaghetti with meatbal s. Now she cooked and cleaned, and her hands were
    dry and cracked from wiping down the bar at work. In the winter, Kate was a souschef at the attached restaurant, chopping carrots and boning
    chickens.
    “Not real y.” Hannah shook her head. She had never wished for the kind of relationship with her mother that meant they could talk about boys and
    crushes; she was almost glad that her mother didn’t jibe with the current intense befriending of her children. Kate was Mom. Hannah was Daughter.
    There was no girlfriend gossip between them, and that had suited them both fine.
    “You look tired, hon. Please don’t read with that dim light up there. It’l ruin your eyes.”
    “My eyes are already ruined.”
    Her mom drove her to the school, a few blocks away. Hannah trudged in the snow. The whole day she thought about him. She remembered his
    words, his desperation to get away from the creature in the night that was hunting him. How alone he had looked. How scared. He looked like how
    she had felt when her father had told her he was leaving them, and her mother had had no one to turn to.
    That evening, before going to bed, she put on her cutest nightgown—a black one her aunt had brought back from Paris. It was silk and trimmed with
    lace. Her aunt was her father’s sister and something of a “bad influence” (again, her mom’s words). Hannah had made a decision.
    When he appeared at three in the morning, she was waiting for him, sitting in the armchair next to her bed. She told him she had changed her
    mind.
    “Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t want you to do something you don’t want to do. I’m not that kind of vampire.”
    “Yes. But do it quickly before I chicken out,” she ordered.
    “You don’t have to help