He gave her a small smile. “She thinks like you do. I should learn to control it.”

Brian got to his feet because his legs were going numb. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and nudged the crate with his shoe. There was a red Bic lighter resting on it, a candle, and a dinner plate that had become an ashtray.

“She said I can use it to protect myself. And you know, I kept thinking, from what? But then I ran into two vampires in the last week, so.” He shook his bangs off his forehead. “The last one was weird. He kept talking about biting low-lifes, like it’s okay as long as the people are jerks. Maybe he was a cop in a former life.”