The first time I became the beast I took two lives.

The second time, I took three more.

After that, I ran away from my home and cowered in the jungle killing animals and drinking their blood until the beast was sated. It took seven days. The animal blood kept me alive throughout the curse, even though all I wanted was to die.

I was nine years old that first time. Nine, when I killed five people.

I spent the next five years in seclusion, living in a hovel I constructed, learning to survive in the wet, miserable Puerto Rican jungles. I only saw one person during my self-imposed banishment: my brother. He alone had seen what I had become. He alone knew the truth.

And he helped me. Together, we prepared for the day when the beast would return and I would be tested yet again. He feared me, though. I could see it in his face when our eyes met—he wasn’t convinced I could control the beast. But I knew one thing for certain: I would die before I hurt another person.

One year to the day after the beast first appeared, I was taken again. And there was no more me, no more brother. No more control.

There was only blood.

 

***

 

Emily calls me during AP Calc.

I surreptitiously ignore the call with a tap of my thumb, keeping my eyes locked on Mr. Miller’s lecture. The vibrating stops after five seconds, but Michael, who sits beside me, grins coyly.

“What’s in your pocket?” he whispers.

“My vibrator,” I say and smile triumphantly as his mouth drops open. I whip my hand into the air.

“Yes?” Mr. Miller drones.

“I need the bathroom,” I say, already getting up. He waves me on and I shoot past him without grabbing the pass from the desk.

In the dank, freezing bathroom, I pull out my cell and am shocked at the caller I.D. Emily. My sister and I haven’t spoken in close to three years, not since I left Puerto Rico to come live with Jeff and Marie. If she’s calling me, something bad happened.

I hit redial and lean against the icy pink-tiled wall.

She answers on the first ring.

“Hola?” She’s speaking Spanish and it takes me a moment to switch gears. I haven’t spoken in my native language in some time.

“Hey,” I say. “You called?” I can’t keep my tone from sharpening.

“Eva,” she whispers. Her voice is thick, choked.

“What happened?” I ask. “I don’t have a lot of time. Spill it quick.”

“R-raphael is dead.”

Something cold slides through my veins, freezing me. I can barely get out the word, “What?” but I manage to make an inquisitive sound.

“Murdered,” she says. “Something killed him, Eva.” She’s crying hard.

I shake myself as I murmur to her, trying to calm her down. Her husband was murdered. He’s dead. It won’t stick in my head.

“Are they sure?” I ask. The police aren’t exactly the best in her tiny village. I hate to say it, but I don’t totally trust their judgment. Especially knowing what I know.

 “His body was l-left in pieces,” she says, hoarse. “Nothing but bones.”

“Couldn’t it have been an animal attack? A coyote?” It’s happened before. The coyotes get lured into the village by the scent of the farm animals and some unlucky bastard gets eaten.

“It wasn’t like that,” Emily rasps. “This was … Eva, this was different. That’s why I’m calling you. This wasn’t normal.”

My body ices over again, but this time my mind turns sharp, muscles tensing in anticipation. “You’re sure?” It’s sick that I sound excited, but what can I say? I love this stuff.

“Yes. I need you to tell Marie and Jeff to come. They have to kill it.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“N … no.”

I suck in a long breath. I don’t want Marie and Jeff to take this case. They promised me a solo case months ago, but keep blowing me off whenever an opportunity comes up. They use school as an excuse because I can’t miss too much. But I know they don’t think I’m ready.

“Jeff and Marie are out of town,” I lie. “I’ll come.”

“Are you sure? You can do this alone?”

“Absolutely. I’ve done it a thousand times.” One of the great things about training with Jeff and Marie is they teach me to lie like a champ.

Emily breathes deep for a moment and then says, “Okay. Come, Eva. Come and kill whatever murdered my husband.”

 

***

 

I headed straight for the village, smelling the rich scent of human life, my mind set only on feeling it slide down my throat and thrum through my veins. I needed blood. I needed it and that was all that mattered.

But as the lights of a farm burst into view, I felt a sharp pain in my flank. I yelped, rolling across the field, stopping face-up. My breath coiled in a fog in front of my face, creating a haze across the stars.

A voice told me I had to stop. I was going to kill someone.

But I wanted to kill. I needed to kill.

A face appeared, blocking the sky.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to stop you,” said the boy. “You know I will.”

I growled, but the pain in my flank stopped me from attacking.

“We can kill the goats,” the boy said. “Kill them all if you have to. Just leave our family alone.”

I was confused. What family was he speaking of? To the beast, there was no family, no friends, no life beyond blood.

The boy left and I tried to stand again, only to feel the pain in my leg intensify until my vision went dark.

I quit struggling when I smelled the blood.

The boy returned, dragging something behind him. The knife in his hand was wet with blood, the body behind him leaking in a long river. He dropped the animal’s warm body beside my head and I consumed it, sucking the blood, taking everything but the bones.

More. I needed more.

“We have hundreds,” the boy said. “Stay quiet. I’ll bring you another.”

 

***

 

The next morning, I’m in Puerto Rico, back in the tiny house I grew up in—the house Emily now occupies with her baby. I wake before dawn, pumped to start my investigation. If I can pull this off, Jeff and Marie will have to let me start hunting with them after I graduate this year. No more excuses. If I do this, I’ll be a pro like them.

In the miniscule kitchen, I pocket the biggest knife Em’s got, since I wasn’t able to bring my weapons on the plane ride. I just hope the cleaver will be enough to get the job done. I turn to find Emily watching me, my nephew Isaac in her arms.

“Hey,” I say, striving for casual. No, I didn’t just swipe your kitchen knife, why do you ask?

She pins me with a shrewd look and sets Isaac down in a cradle by the only window in the house. “What do you need to know?”

“Everything,” I say and lean against the concrete countertop. “Specifically, the when and where.”

“It was two nights ago on the solstice. Raphael was working late.” She sucks in a deep breath. “But in the morning he still didn’t return so I went into town and told the police. It wasn’t more than an hour before they found his r-remains.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “Where was he found? Exactly?”

“The Rodriguez’ farm. It’s the farthest from town.”

“Rodriguez,” I say, frowning. “Not Diego and Carlos?”

She nods.

“Yikes … do you think they … ” I cut off at Emily’s face. She’s flushing. Something was going on there. Definitely.

“We were having an affair,” she whispers as if reading my thoughts.

“Diego?” I half-choke. He and I went to school together. We kind of … loved each other once upon a time.

“Carlos,” she says, and I sag in relief. I don’t know why, but the thought of Em and Diego getting it on is more sickening than some demon picking Raphie’s meat off his bones.

“Did Raphie know about you and Carlos?” It’s awkward to be talking so intimately after not speaking for over two years. I can tell Em feels it too, because she won’t meet my eyes when I look at her.

“Yes,” she says, stony.

“So … do you think maybe Carlos, I don’t know … did something to get rid of him?”

“Carlos isn’t a suspect.”

“How do you know?”

“He’s dead.”

Lots of people turning up dead lately. I can’t keep the suspicion out of my voice when I ask, “Did Raphie have anything to do with that?”

She turns and looks at Isaac. “I can’t prove anything. But I think so.”

Interesting.

“Let me get this right,” I say. “Raphie killed Carlos because you were sleeping with him. And then Raphie shows up dead in front of the Rodriquez’ farm? Seems a little convenient, don’t you think?”

She nods. “But I know it wasn’t any of the Rodriguez’.”

“How?”

“The body had been … eaten. Alive.” Her eyes go dark and I can’t suppress a shiver. I only know of a few creatures that consume human flesh, and none of them are easy to kill. Especially with a kitchen cleaver. “No human could do something like that.”

“I guess not,” I say. “But why was Raphie at the Rodriguez farm then?

“I can’t say. But I know—know in my bones—that they have information they’re keeping quiet.”

I move around the counter and head for the door, grabbing an apple from a basket on the sofa as I go. “Sounds like I should start there, then. I’ll be back by dark, Ems.”

She turns and meets my eye, finally. “I know things have been bad between us,” she says. “But thank you … for coming to help me.”

I crack my teeth into the skin of the apple. “It’s what I do.”

 

***

 

I arrive at the farm twenty minutes later. My sister’s car is run-down and I don’t want to chance using the crappy old thing, so I hoof it, following a cruddy asphalt road until it morphs into dirt.

The Rodriquez’ place is exactly as I remember it. They grow fruits and vegetables in vast fields that fade into tropical jungles and raise livestock in pens behind the ramshackle barn.

The house is typical of any around here. Faded white-painted walls, a small window out front and a teeny porch where some old lady rocks on a chair, her eyes focused on a tangle of yarn balled in her lap.She looks up at me with muddy brown eyes as I stand in front of the door and greets me in Spanish, switching languages smoothly when I respond in English. Unlike Em, she doesn’t use Spanish as a weapon to remind me of everything I left.

“Is, uhm … Diego here?” I ask. My cheeks flush. I don’t know why I asked about him except that he seems a likely lead if I’m to believe Em’s story. Then again, maybe I just want to see him.

Her face shadows and she shakes her head. I swear I see fear in her eyes.

“Know where I can find him?” I ask.

She points silently to the field. I suppose that means he’s working, so I drop it.

“Do you remember me?” I ask, watching her sagging profile carefully.

“Eva,” the old lady rasps. “Diego never stopped mooning over you.”

My blush burns deeper. So much for professionalism.

“Carlos just uhm … passed didn’t he?” I ask.

She nods slowly.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “He was a sweet kid … from what I remember.”

“Your sister seemed to like him, anyway.” Bitterness now. So the old woman knew about the affair. I wonder how many others knew—it could widen the suspect pool considerably.

“We both did,” I say.

“Didn’t see you at the funeral, though,” she grumbles. Her eyes, though thick with cataracts, pierce through me. “Your sister didn’t show neither. Not that she’d have been welcome.”

“I’d have gone if I’d known about it,” I lie smoothly. “My sister didn’t call me until yesterday, after her husband was murdered.” I search her face for tells, but if the old lady knows anything, she hides it well.

“And you’re just now stopping by to pay your respects? Two years, and you’d think a sister would visit sooner.”

Now I’m frowning. “Wait … Carlos died two years ago?”

“Just about. It was July of last year.”

I’m violently annoyed that Emily didn’t mention this huge gap in Carlos’ and her husband’s murders. It’s kind of vital. If the Rodriguez family was responsible in some way for Raphie’s death it seems like they would have struck a little sooner.

So Carlos was killed a year and a half after I left Puerto Rico. I was sixteen, and Em had only been married to Raphie for maybe a year (and already cheating). Carlos had to have been around nineteen years old. So freaking young … and Diego … my chest constricts. First me. Then his brother.

I am total scum. I never even called him.

“How did Carlos die?” I ask to distract myself.

“Suicide,” she barks, as though the word is a slap.

“Bullet?” I ask. A bullet wound could have been easily staged.

“Wrists,” she says quietly. “No blood left in him at all … not a drop. And he’d been moved, cause the house wasn’t bloody where they found him.”

Freaky.

“But Carlos wasn’t violent,” she says. “He’d never kill himself.”

“So you think … he was murdered?”

She nods.

“And I take it you think Raphie did it.” She hates him, obviously, so it’s not a stretch to imagine. And with Raphie dead, there’s no risk of compromising him anymore.

She shakes her head, though.

“No man could take blood the way Carlos’ was taken,” she says. Her voice is haunted, giving me chills.

“What do you mean? You said he slit his wrists.”

She turns on me. “Not one drop left.”

My chest goes cold. Looks like I’m getting somewhere, finally.

“What did it, then?” I ask, low.

“The chupacabra.”

I stare.

And stare.

I can’t stop my lips from splitting in a grin. This old bat is screwing with me. The chupacabra is a stupid myth about a half-coyote, half-dragon that sucks goats dry and leaves their bones. It’s a bedtime story used to scare little kids. I grew up listening to my dad whisper about the chupacabra in the darkness as I attempted sleep, heard my own grandmother tell “true” stories around the dinner table.

For years, I was terrified of this thing, fully believing it was out there, feeding on livestock. Glowing eyes. Scaled body. The whole shebang. I even went so far as to ask Marie if it was real when I discovered the truth about their world.

She laughed in my face.

So, yeah. As much as I want to believe in the chupacabra, I’m not going to be stupid. Marie tells me it’s fake? I believe her.

Now, do I believe someone staged Raphie’s death to look like the chupacabra’s work? Sure. I’ll buy that. But how annoying is that, because I really wanted Jeff and Marie to be proud of me for once. To trust me to hunt on my own.

I roll my eyes pointedly at the old lady. “Thanks for the info, ma’am.” I can’t believe I’ve wasted my morning talking to her. She’s obviously been playing me since I showed up, and I fell for it. Chupacabra my ass.

She curses me out in Spanish as I walk away, like doing it in another language makes it less insulting, or something. I ignore her and start back toward Emily’s house, working out what I’m going to say to her. Sorry your husband died, but I’m pretty sure it was some kind of sick prank gone wrong, not a demon or Carlos’ vengeful spirit. Can’t help ya.

My eye catches on a flash of light as I start down the dirt path and I turn toward the field. A man is standing among the crops with a hoe slung over his shoulder, the metal glinting. He’s looking at me. Dark hair. Caramel skin. I can’t see his features, but I know it’s Diego. And he knows it’s me.

Except he doesn’t start toward me. Doesn’t even wave.

I keep walking ’till I’m out of sight and run the rest of the way to Emily’s.

 

***

 

I reentered my life when I was fourteen. My family thought I’d been brought back from the dead and I played along with it. Told them I had been kidnapped. Blocked it all out. Was just happy to have “escaped” and come back.

My brother and I went to school together—I was way behind since he’d only managed to steal a few textbooks from the school for me to study during my isolation. But I was a swift learner and I picked things up with ease. Except math. I was abysmal at math and eventually, my teacher recommended I get a tutor.

That’s when I met Eva.

She tutored me every day after school, never laughing at me when I screwed up (which was often), keeping her voice level and soft even when I could see her fists tightening on the table in frustration. I was embarrassed by my sluggish brain, but if she pitied me, she never let it show. And after years of my brother’s wide sympathetic eyes, having someone look at me like an equal made me feel whole in a way I’d never experienced before. To her, I was normal. We studied in the hayloft of my family’s barn, warm afternoon light streaming across our faces, turning us golden. I remember thinking that I had never known peace until those moments.

And then winter struck.

My brother and I staged a sickness for which I needed to be quarantined, refusing to tell even our parents where I hid. They still did everything possible to find me. But for a week after the solstice, I couldn’t let myself be found. And when the beast took me, my last thoughts were of Eva’s gentle smile and the way her lips curled around her cheeks and the way her hands sifted through her dark hair as she leaned into me, and how she always smelled of rain, even when the land was bone dry. Right before I was lost, I prayed to whatever God was out there, that she would be spared.

 

***

 

It takes me until I get to Em’s house to realize what an idiot I am. I was so worked up over seeing Diego that I failed to connect a major piece of info the old woman gave me. Something that links both Raphie’s and Carlos’ murders: neither of them were found with any blood in their bodies.

Granted, Raphie had been “eaten,” and Carlos simply drained, but the lack of blood thing is something to go on. I only know one creature that sucks blood and that’s a vampire. Without any other leads, and with my time in Puerto Rico running low (Jeff and Marie get back from their own hunting trip on Friday, giving me just two more days), I’ve got to go with my gut. First, however, I need to confirm grandma-liar-pants’ info.

I walk into Emily’s house, trying to phrase my approach in my head. Em, however, beats me to the punch.

“Marie just called,” she says.

I do my best to appear innocent. “You tell them I’m getting close?”

Her frown falters. Distracted. “Are you?”

“I may have something. First, I need confirmation—”

“No. You lied to me. Jeff and Marie have no idea you’re here. You’re not supposed to be working alone.”

“Okay, so it’s my first case. But I’ve got this, Em. Trust me.”

“You lied.”

“So what? They want me to come home?”

“No, they’re coming here. I told them about Raphie and they agreed to find the thing that killed him.”

I let my mouth drop, displaying my outrage. “I can do this, Em! We don’t need them to help.”

“It’s too late. They’ll be here tomorrow.”

Which gives me just tonight to kill the vampire—if that’s what this is. I have to finish this before they get here. If I do, they’ll ease up on the whole I-ran-off-without-telling-them thing.

I try to shuck off my anger, but it’s difficult, becoming a living thing inside me that I have to stamp out. Like a roach. The size of a minivan.

“I spoke to the Rodriguez’,” I grunt. “One of them anyway.”

“And?”

“She said that both Carlos and Raphie’s bodies were left totally bloodless. Is that true?”

“Yes, but Raphie was … mutilated and Carlos wasn’t. They claimed it was a suicide.”

“And, ah … and you didn’t mention he died over a year ago.”

She simply shrugs, looking off into the distance again.

“Do you think Carlos would have killed himself?” I ask tentatively.

“No. Never. We were … in love.”

“And Raphie knew you two were together? Do you think he had the smarts to stage a suicide like that? Without any blood?”

She opens her mouth to answer, but I blabber on over her.

“And why would he do that?” I ask, pacing. “I mean, if you’re going to murder your wife’s lover, why do it that way? Making it look like a suicide is smart, but then why siphon out all the blood?” I stop pacing, rounding on Emily. “Unless … ”

She glares at me, clearly knowing where I’m headed. “We met at high noon, Eva. Raphael was not a vampire.”

I cock an eyebrow at her and resume my pacing. “Just checking. Without much more to go on—and little time to find out more—I’m going to work under the assumption that there’s a vampire in the area. It still doesn’t account for the fact that Raphie was —as you so nicely put it—mutilated, but maybe the vamp is getting sloppy. Maybe something else found the exsanguinated body and gobbled it up afterward. Either way, this looks a lot like vampire work to me, and if I can find the sucker tonight, I can kill him.”

Emily looks pale when I turn to her. “Shouldn’t you wait for Jeff and Marie to get here?”

And let them steal my kill after I did all the hard work? No way.

“This vampire could kill again at any time, Em,” I say with false urgency. “It needs to be destroyed stat. If you need me, I’ll be at the Rodriguez’ tonight. I won’t have my cell on, but you can leave a message if you have to, and I’ll try to check it.”

“You’re going back there?” Em asks, shaky.

I nod. “It’s struck there twice now. Best believe it’ll show its face again. If I give it some bait, that is.” I grin to myself. Looks like that cleaver is going to come in handy, after all. Just not in the way I envisioned.

 

***

 

The first and only time I kissed Eva was in my dreams. It felt impossibly real, and as I awoke after the beast left me, I remember clinging to my subconscious creation, desperate to keep her. We had grown closer than ever over a year despite my two seemingly random week-long disappearances. I was painfully in love with her. But unsure of her feelings for me, we remained only friends.

Before the beast took me that year, I had made plans to make her mine. I created elaborate scenarios in my head where I kissed her on the stroke of midnight with her hands in mine, or underneath the golden sun in the hayloft we visited every afternoon. I planned a million kisses, a million embraces, a million I love yous I would never speak.

But after I changed, it became clear that not only was I too shy to do anything as bold as a kiss, but it would be wildly irresponsible to be with her. Not with the beast and its craving for blood. If something ever went wrong, I couldn’t be around Eva when it happened. I needed to be as far away from her as possible.

I planned on distancing myself upon my return to the village. I planned on breaking our friendship forever.

She beat me to the punch. Before the school year was out, she left. We said goodbye and I saw myself kissing her, just so I’d know what it was like. Instead, I watched her drive away with her relatives, bound for Miami where she would have a better future.

To this day, I wish I’d kissed her goodbye.

Little more than a year later, my brother was murdered.

Six months after that, I killed another human for the first time since my childhood. The taste of human life was thick on my tongue again. And this time, my brother wasn’t around to keep me in check.

 

***

 

The Rodriguez’ farm is nothing more than a black splotch against a navy sky. No lights penetrate the darkness, no sounds come from within. I’m the only thing making noise out here tonight. Me and my squelching footsteps as I creep across the muddy field toward the barn.

I don’t want to go in the barn. And not because I’m afraid there’s a vampire inside.

This place holds too many memories.

Flashes of wide hazel eyes invade my mind no matter how hard I try to focus on the task at hand. I’m furious with myself, because this is not how Jeff and Marie taught me to work. I’m supposed to be hard, mind sharp, reflexes coiled for anything.

Instead my heart is slamming against the inside of my ribcage, and my palms are sweaty as they grip the cleaver, and I can’t stop seeing his damn beautiful eyes. Stupid eyes. Stupid face. Stupid lips that never touched mine.

I want to cry standing here in the barn where I first started loving Diego. But I’m better than that. I’m not crying over him anymore. It’s useless. And it could very well get me killed.

Sheer force of will keeps me from climbing into the hayloft and weeping for everything I left, and instead I circle the barn, my left hand clenched on a penlight I aim around the premises. Horses. Cows. Jugs to hold milk. Sharp tools hanging on the moldy wall.

Exactly as I remember it.

Only everything is dark blue instead of gold.

And I’m going to be bleeding soon, which isn’t fun.

Sucking in a deep breath, I find myself a nice secluded, shadowy spot near a horse’s stall and crouch down. Vampires can smell blood for miles, and if it’s hungry, bloodlust will compel it to the source. No matter what.

I can only hope the thing is starved. I can’t allow myself to bleed too much, after all. Especially since I’ll need my strength to kill this thing.

As I wait, I marvel briefly at my calmness. I suppose I should be more nervous doing this on my own and all, but I’ve seen Jeff and Marie at it so many times I feel ready. False sense of security? Maybe. But I need to do this to prove myself. Fear will not stop me.

The barn, however personally painful, is the perfect spot for a trap. Secluded. Dark. And the animals will give me sound coverage if needed. One sharp poke in the hindquarters and the horses will whinny and buck around. If the trap disintegrates into a fight, I’ll use them to cover the noise.

Now, it’s just a matter of setting the bait. And waiting.

With a hiss, I slice my arm open and let it bleed.

 

***

 

She came back because of me. Somehow, I know this, even when I know nothing else. Eva returned home because of what I did.

She looked different, when I saw her. Taller. Leaner. Her hair was long, tumbling in a great black wave down her back. Had I not sensed her presence like a piercing through my heart, I wouldn’t have recognized her. She stared at me from across the field like I was a stranger. But she knew me, too.

And when she turned and ran from me, I knew she had come to kill me.

Not surprisingly, considering the direction my life has gone since the beast consumed me, I was going to let her.

My brother was gone. I had taken human life again. And I knew, deep in my marrow, that I would do it again. The beast could not be tamed without my brother’s help. And no matter how I longed to live, to walk the path of another, kinder life, I was destined to be a killer.

So I would let Eva end it.

She had been the one to bring me out of the stupor of hell I’d been living in when I was younger. She had been the one to give my life meaning all those years ago. So it felt right, fitting even, that she be the one to kill me. To set me free, once more. Only this time, in the most permanent of ways.

Inexplicably, however, I wondered if this time … she would let me kiss her goodbye.

 

***

 

It’s an hour till dawn when I hear a shuffling outside the barn. At first, I think it’s my imagination getting the better of me. I want this so bad, I wouldn’t be surprised if my exhausted brain conjured up a vampire from the shadows just to satisfy itself.

I stand, hoping I’m still concealed, as I listen to the shuffling move around the exterior of the barn. Heading for the door.

My heart is a flag whipping in a wild wind, my hands and feet numb and not from blood loss. This is it. My time to prove myself.

The barn door creaks open and a shadow enters. The animals around me, probably sensing the evil, start fidgeting. Which is good cover. As the shadow creeps into the barn, I start to squint, because something isn’t right. Vampires look like humans, except deader. But this thing—whatever it is—this isn’t a vampire.

It’s huge. At least two heads taller than me and its spine is curved in a “C” shape, making it look hunchbacked. The sound of its breath snuffing through its chest makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on edge. No vampire has lungs that large. No vampire’s eyes glint like that when the moonlight catches them. No vampire on earth could possibly make the sounds—growls and vicious snarls—this creature is making.

I realize all at once that I’ve made a horrible mistake.

It lunges suddenly and I’m pinned to the wall by its enormous claws. Hot, fetid breath clogs my lungs and oozing saliva runs down my neck, dripping down my shirt.

The knife clatters to the floor and all I can think about is how spectacularly I’ve screwed this up.

“P-please,” I whisper. “Please … ”

I don’t expect the beast to listen—how could it?—but somehow it does. The nails slide out of my flesh, leaving rivulets of blood that pour down my shirt, and the creature leaps back, whining. Like a dog in pain. I catch a glimpse of a scaled body hunched in the moonlight, seeming to drag itself backward, away from me.

I dip slowly to the ground, searching for my fallen weapon. Unable to find it, I force my eyes off the creature. My hand wraps around the wooden handle, and I look back up, seeking to hock the cleaver at the creature.

But it’s gone.

For an instant, I want to let it go. The relief at being uneaten is that immense. But then, not only will this thing kill again, and Raphie’s killer will go free, but Jeff and Marie will know I wimped out. Failed.

I can’t let that happen.

Cursing, I blast out of the barn and search the surrounding fields. It can’t have gotten far …

Yes!

A massive black shape is careening through the fields, heading straight for the jungle.

It takes me less than a minute to race across the muddy field, and when I get to the tree line, I stop only briefly to pick up the creature’s trail. It’s an obvious one. The thing is at least seven feet tall and built like a grizzly bear, so the giant hole it left as it crashed through the underbrush is simple to follow.

I run full tilt, stopping only occasionally to listen, hoping I hear the creature up ahead. But whatever it is, it’s fast. I’m way behind.

As dawn breaks over the horizon, I decide I have to stop. The trail goes on for what seems like forever, and I haven’t heard any sign of the creature for almost an hour. I brace my hand against a vine-choked tree and catch my breath.

I look up at the trail, wishing I could just keep going. But Marie and Jeff will be here soon, and it’s not like I have any camping supplies on me. As I turn to find my way back home, the sunlight peaks from behind a hazy cloud and catches on something metal through the broken trees the creature barreled past.

I pick my way toward it, heart thudding loudly again—and not from my run. There’s something up there. Something … big.

The trees part and I’m in a clearing of sorts. It’s small, seemingly manmade, and there’s a hut in the center, camouflaged with trees and vines. I circle around, looking for where the creature’s trail picks up again, but I can’t find it. Only conclusion: the creature stopped here.

Something bangs inside the hut, and I crash through the flimsy front door, entering the hovel. It smells of soot and sweat inside and all the furniture looks to be handmade. A desk and a rickety chair stand at one end, and a stone floor with what looks like the remnants of a small fire are at the other. Before the fireplace is what I assume to be a bed. It’s nothing but a pile of ratty blankets, next to which is a rather impressive stack of books. Text books, literature … even a few comic books.

Someone lives here, obviously. But whoever—or whatever—made the banging sound is gone.

I step over toward the desk and find more books, stacks of dirty paper and some ballpoint pens. There’s also a dagger, which I slip into my back pocket.

A book catches my eye on the desk and I pick it up, running my hands over the worn leather. It’s a journal. I frown, reading an excerpt from the first page. No … it’s more of a story, likely written by whoever lives here. But whether it’s fiction …

I flip through the book, and my heart plunges.

My name.

My name is written all over the pages of this book. I’d never met anyone like Eva before. Smart, quiet, funny … her presence calmed me when I felt like my world was coming apart, made me want to live this cursed life if only for the chance to be with her again …

I feel my butt hit the chair as everything crashes down on me, wave after wave of horror.

The beast would not be tamed, would never stop killing. And I couldn’t let it hurt anyone else. Especially Eva …

My heart breaks into a million miserable pieces as it becomes clear whose journal I’m reading. The handwriting is his, the words … all his.

It came for me every year. On the solstice. My brother was the only one who could satiate its bloodlust, trapping me all week and feeding me goats. When he was murdered, and Eva was gone forever, there was nothing left for me, save one thing. Vengeance.

“It’s me,” says a dark voice from behind.

I don’t have to turn to know who it is.

Diego. Diego is the monster from my childhood dreams. He is the beast, the legend, the horror story. He is the chupacabra.

Still staring at the book, I force myself to speak. “Even … back then? You were … ?”

“Yes.”

I nod, trying to force reality into my head. “Your grandmother knows what you are, doesn’t she? She said … the chupacabra killed Carlos.”

“I had nothing to do with my brother’s death.” His tone leaves little to be argued with.

“Are you? The chupacabra, I mean?” It’s obvious at this point, but I need to hear it.

I hear a deep sigh, and I remember all the times he used to do that when we studied calculus up in the hayloft of his family’s barn. Exhaustion more than frustration was what plagued him then. I hear it now, too.

“Some call me that,” he says. “I call it the beast. My curse.”

“And you were born like this?”

“Far as I can tell.”

Meaning one of his parents has shapeshifter blood in them. Shapeshifters are only created by birth, and the gene is recessive, skipping generations, bouncing around the family tree, petering away until it dies off altogether. Since the chupacabra legend is so old here, I imagine generations of the Rodriguez family have been changing into the beast I saw last night.

“I know why you’re here,” Diego says.

I still haven’t turned around to look at him, and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to look at him again.

“I know, too,” I say. “You wrote about it here … at the end.” I pass my finger over the words … I was destined to be a killer. So I would let Eva end it. “I take it this means you got your revenge? You killed Raphie.”

“He killed my brother first. Bled him dry and left his blood for me to drink on the last solstice. Raphael … he had been following Carlos when he figured out his wife was cheating. That’s when he discovered what I was, and what Carlos had to do to keep me under control. I guess he thought it would be … poetic if I drank my own brother’s blood when I couldn’t stop myself. Or maybe he was just sadistic. Liked torturing people the way he did his wife.” I hear him step closer. “I’m not sorry for killing him, Eva, I’m really not. I did what I had to do. And I don’t regret it. But without Carlos … I can’t live this life anymore. It’s not safe.”

I turn around then, because I can’t not look at him anymore. He appears the same, only thinner. Taller. His dark shock of messy hair, his full lower lip, his angular hazel eyes … those long, lean fingers. I remember all of it. Although, maybe not the scruff on his chin or the circles around his eyes, or the way his stomach is sunken-in.

“You look the same,” he whispers. “But different.”

I puff a breath. “I was about to say that about you.”

I finger the dagger in my back pocket. He wants me to kill him. And I should kill him. He’s a murderer, and a monster. He’s exactly the kind of thing Jeff and Marie hunt for a living. But he’s also my first true friend, and my first love. I imagine sinking the blade of the dagger through his flesh and wince.

“You have to,” Diego says. He kneels in front of me, and his warm hand closes over mine on top of the diary. “You read this, so you know I have to die. I wish … I wish I was strong enough to do it myself, but I can’t. I’ve tried, believe me.” In his face, I see the lifetime of pain he’s endured and my heart breaks for him.

Funny, when I’ve watched Jeff and Marie kill creatures like shapeshifters and vampires and demons, I never paused to think about their story. Are they all like Diego? Tortured souls trapped in a life they never wanted?

He pulls the blade out of my pocket and hands it to me, his skin sliding against mine as he drops it into my palm. He stands.

“You came here to find out what killed your sister’s husband,” he says. “You came here to kill that being, didn’t you?”

I nod at him.

“Then do it.”

I stand, too, but I keep the dagger at my side. “I … ” I clear my throat, because it sounds like I ate sandpaper. “We can … we can work something out. I’ll tell my aunt and uncle that I killed you, so they won’t hunt you down. And I’ll tell Emily, too. But you don’t have to die. You can run. Go someplace remote. Do what you’ve been doing, just without Carlos.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t get it. Carlos literally pinned my body to the floor with stakes and hand-fed me goats. Without him, I’m free. And that means people die.”

“If that were true, you’d have killed me last night.”

He swallows hard, his jaw stiffening. “You … you’re a special case.”

I stare up at him, feeling that magnetic pull that used to enchant me when we were younger. “That’s why you need to stay with me,” I say. “You won’t hurt me, and I can restrain you when you shift. I’m … kind of a professional. In training. I’m going to be a pro after I graduate, anyway, and then we can be hunters together. I can teach you. There are things out there that are evil—really evil, not like you—and you can help me destroy them. We can be together, Diego. We can figure this out together.” I put my free hand on his cheek and hear his breath catch. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

It takes what seems like a million years for him to respond, and when he does his words shatter me. “You know I want nothing more than to be with you, Eva. It’s what I’ve always wanted. But I can’t jeopardize your safety and the safety of others for the sake of my selfishness.”

“It’s not selfish to live, Diego!”

But he shushes me, putting both his palms over my cheeks, rubbing his thumbs across my lips. “Did you read the last line of the journal?” he whispers.

I nod.

“Then you know that’s all I want from you.” One of his hands drops and it closes around mine, forcing my palm closer to the hilt of his dagger. He tilts my face to the side as he positions my dagger hand around his back. If not for the blade, we would be embracing. But I know what he wants me to do. Tears fall unbidden down my cheeks, and slowly, carefully, he kisses them away, light touches that make my head explode. Then a trail of salty water traces down to the corner of my lip and he kisses it, our lips touching for the first time.

 I turn just slightly and we fit together, my lips against his. I taste the salt and sweetness of him, and it only breaks me further. He’s tense in my arms, his fingers biting into my face as he holds onto me like I’m the one who’s going to go away.

But I’ll be damned if I ever leave him again.

I drop the dagger on the floor and feel him jump. But I grab onto his arms and hold him to me. I break our kiss only to say one thing. “In case you were wondering, that was no goodbye kiss.” I hold his burning gaze steady and watch as he gradually relents, his expression growing soft, disbelieving. “I will never say goodbye to you, Diego. Never again.”

And he kisses me once more.