Mia walked the three blocks from the bus stop to her house, feeling worse than she had in years. She was tired, sluggish, and having difficulty concentrating. And she knew she was going to have to go out tonight in this condition. She tried not to think about how Rudi was probably going to be there yet again to watch her fail.

When Mia had told Carmine that going out once a week wasn't enough, she'd actually been putting it mildly; she didn't think Carmine really needed all the details. It might have been enough to let her survive, but it didn't stop the cravings – at least, not long enough to make much of a difference. And after a few days, the tiredness would come back, the difficulty concentrating. It just wasn't a consistent enough amount to really keep the starvation at bay. She was just glad when she finally got that text from Carmine. At least now, she'd be able to do something about all this.

Carmine had sent her a message in the middle of second period almost three days ago. Mia had read it eagerly; she really needed to know if that mistletoe thing would work – and the sooner, the better. And when she read that one little sentence saying that it really would keep Rudi away, she was filled with nothing but relief. Of course, Mia had wanted Carmine to get back to her a lot sooner with the information, but at least she knew it would work for sure now. Besides, with Carmine going out of town for the weekend, Mia had known she probably wouldn't hear anything until at least Monday. She still didn't know how Carmine found these things out as fast as she did, but Mia was incredibly glad for it. She knew it would have taken her at least a week to figure something like that out; and even then, she wasn't sure she'd be able to say with one-hundred percent certainty that it would actually work. But now that she had a potential weapon in mind, Mia had just one problem – she had to figure out where she was supposed to actually find the stuff.

She'd tried looking online and she could order some, but it would take at least a week to get here. Mia didn't think she had that kind of time to waste. And she'd looked at every single one of the plant stores near her house, but none of them carried it. She just hoped she could figure it out soon. At least Christmas was coming – maybe someone would have some to sell for the holidays.

She dragged herself through the front door and kicked off her shoes.

"I'm home." Mia mumbled, making her way up the stairs.

"Miaka! Is that you?" her mom called out from what sounded like the living room. "Miaka?"

"Yeah?" Mia shouted back, trying not to sound as exhausted as she felt. All she really wanted to do was stay up in her room, do her homework, and pretend that she wasn't slowly starving to death. But how was her mom supposed to know that?

When she didn't hear anything else from downstairs, Mia decided to pretend like maybe it meant she was in the clear. Maybe she wouldn't have to respond to whatever her mom was yelling about. She had a lot of homework to do already; and with how tired she was, and that constant craving for blood, Mia knew it was going to take her a lot longer to finish than it normally did.

"Miaka!" her mom called again.

"Yeah?" Mia yelled back down the stairs. Why couldn't her mom just leave her alone?

"Are you ready?" her mom called.

Ready for what? Why couldn't she just stay here? She was exhausted. All she wanted to do was lay in her bed and possibly go to sleep. If she couldn't actually get blood, maybe a nap would help a little.

"Miaka! Get down here!" her mom called. And now she sounded mad.

"Coming." Mia called back. So much for getting a chance to relax for once. She stared up at the ceiling for a minute. Why did everything have to be so hard?

She wanted to have a normal life – to have a normal time in high school for once. Instead, she was being stalked by some girl in her class – her boyfriend's next-door neighbor, no less – while she sat here starving. And now her mom wanted to talk to her on top of all that?

Mia trudged wearily down the stairs; it took all her energy just to keep from tripping down to the bottom. She hadn't even made it to the final step when her mom was yelling at her again. She leaned up against the wall, trying to look annoyed instead of ill. Her mom was waiting for her, tapping her foot on the tile floor.

"Where have you been? You said you'd be ready as soon as you got home."

"For what?" Mia asked. She might be having a hard time concentrating, but she was pretty sure she'd remember if she was supposed to do something with her mom after school.

"We need to go to the store!" She stared at Mia like she couldn't believe she could have forgotten something so important. Like going to get groceries would ever be a high priority for Mia.

"Yes, mom." Mia sighed.

She was absolutely drained, and it took all her concentration not to show it. She just wanted to have a few minutes to herself to forget how wrong everything was going. But she knew she couldn't do that; her mom would never understand. She'd just yell at Mia for being lazy, and Mia couldn't come up with a single excuse to make herself seem better. So she walked down the rest of the stairs, trying not to look as bad as she felt.

"Why are you talking so long?" her mom asked, the annoyance obvious.

"Sorry." Mia mumbled as she practically staggered from the stairs down to the front hall. She was just so tired – not to mention hungry. All she wanted to do was rip some unsuspecting stranger's head off. But that wasn't exactly an option at the moment. The only thing she could do right now was pretend that everything was ok.

The entire time they were in the store, Mia stared at the other customers, wondering if she could get any of them alone without her mom noticing. She tried to act natural, but it was so hard. Her mom kept interrupting her train of thought, asking her about what she wanted for dinner. But Mia really didn't care about dinners; even on a good day, food wasn't exactly a high priority for her. And today, all she could think about was finding somebody and dragging them into the back room.

Mia was incredibly glad when they were finally done. Now she could finally go home and stop being surrounded by all these people that she couldn't even bite. Her mom was in line to pay for the groceries when Mia finally formed a plan. She was so hungry, it didn't actually seem as risky as it normally would have. Besides, Rudi wasn't here for once; she wouldn't have a better opportunity in the foreseeable future.

She'd been staring at the front of the store, desperately trying to distract herself from her problems. Of course, all the people standing up there with her made it nearly impossible. Her eyes widened as she saw two girls she thought might be sophomores walk into the bathroom. She couldn't believe her luck! And since there were two of them, there was a decent chance she could actually get enough blood without sending either one of them to the hospital.

"I have to go to the bathroom." Mia told her mom. There were a ton of people in line still – her mom wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon. Besides, it worked at the movies, didn't it? And her mom would be even less suspicious than her friends; she wouldn't even know what to look for. Really, if she did this right, she should have no problems whatsoever.

Her mom nodded absently, and Mia hurried to the bathrooms at the front of the store. She was glad to see that there was no one but those two girls in the bathroom when she went inside. Of course, there was no lock on the main door – just on the stalls. Probably for safety, Mia figured. She'd just have to be really careful.

As soon as she got the two girls under and safely lowered to the floor, Mia went and moved the trash can to just behind the door. It wasn't exactly heavy, but hopefully it would give someone pause if they did decide to come in. And give Mia a little bit of warning in the process.

Once she'd made the area as secure as she could, Mia turned back to the girls laying on the floor. She leaned into that first girl. She tried to hurry, especially since it actually was still the middle of the afternoon, and school hadn't been out that long. And she really didn't want anyone to come in and see her – especially someone she might know. Fortunately, speed wasn't much of a problem – she was so desperate, it was a little hard to pace herself anyway. But once she finally started to feel like she wasn't in immediate danger of dying within the next few days, she switched to the second girl.

When she was finished, Mia quickly checked herself in the mirror. She wiped a bit of someone's blood off her chin and grinned to herself; she was already feeling much better. She glanced back at the two girls still passed out on the floor. She was pretty sure they'd be all right, but the one looked a little pale. Mia figured it was time to get out of there.

She moved the trash back to where it was supposed to be and hurried out the door. Her mom was just finishing paying. She joined up with her as nonchalantly as she could, pretending this was just like any other day for her.

Mia stepped through the grocery store's doors and into the fading daylight, glad she was safe. But she hadn't gotten three feet when she heard someone calling her name. She suffered a momentary panic as she wondered if she'd been caught. But how could anyone outside know about what she'd done already? She forced herself to calm down as she turned to face whoever was calling her.

Two girls from her school were sitting at a table near the doors: Summer and Heather. Mia did her best to brace herself; they weren't exactly what she would consider friends – especially after the way they'd used her a few years ago. And Mia hadn't forgotten that conversation Summer had been having with Rudi just a couple weeks ago. So when Heather waved her over, Mia was instantly suspicious. Against her better judgment, Mia walked slowly towards them.

"What are you doing here?" Mia asked them. Of course, they were two of the worst people she could have run into just after an attack. If anyone mentioned this at school, they'd remember she'd been here – and they would know what it meant.

"Fundraiser." Heather told her.

"What is that?" Mia asked, staring at the little plastic baggies that had been set up all over the table. Each one had a sprig of some leafy green plant with white berries on it. Mia tried not to get her hopes up, but it looked an awful lot like the pictures she'd been seeing online recently.

"Mistletoe." Summer said, looking up from behind the table for the first time. "Don't suppose you'd be interested. I mean, considering."

Mia almost asked considering what? but she stopped herself. Summer already knew about her boyfriend, and she was obviously thinking Mia wouldn't want something like that if she was dating Zev. Well, she was in for a surprise.

"Is it real? Not those fake plants, I mean." Mia tried to keep the excitement in her voice to a minimum, but talk about luck!

"Of course. Do you think we'd sell fake plants?" She sounded insulted by the very idea.

"Why are you selling it?"

"Because. More people should have it in a town like this." Summer grinned wickedly.

"It's traditional. Did you know the Druids used to think of it as magical?" Heather added, obviously feeling that Summer's explanation was a little too transparent, even for Mia. But Mia didn't care about its history. Now that she knew it was real, that's all she needed to hear.

"How much?" she asked quickly.

"Three dollars." Heather told her.

"Boyfriend trouble?" Summer asked knowingly.

"What? He's – no. We're fine." Mia didn't really want to explain that it was a different werewolf she wanted to keep away. Summer just snickered.

"You sure?" Summer asked, her grin getting wider.

Mia didn't like how excited Summer was about all this, but there wasn't much she could do. And the less Summer knew about what was actually going on, the better. If she found out, she might take this as an opportunity to start up her blackmailing scheme again.

"So three dollars?" Mia asked. She reached in her pocket for the lunch money she'd been saving up. She was already doing the math and hoping she had more money on her than she thought.

"Yep." Heather nodded, but Summer held up her hand.

"For you?" she asked Mia. "How about we make it a dollar?"

"Sure." Mia said instantly, already pulling change out of her pocket. "Can I get..." She quickly counted the money. "Eight?"

"You sure you're not having second thoughts about those boys you're hanging out with?"

"Of course not." Mia said. But she was pretty sure Summer didn't believe her.

"Well, good luck – whatever you're planning."

"Thanks." Mia mumbled, quickly scooping up her baggies and hurrying after her mom.

As Mia walked away, she heard Heather ask why Mia would get a discount like that.

"Because she's dating Zev – one of Lucas Volk's best friends."

"So?" Heather asked. "Sounds like a good reason to refuse to sell it if you ask me."

"You don't understand. She knows what they are – all of them. And she's still buying it. Whatever she's planning, it's only going to cause trouble."