Before we went to Freida's, Cruz put on one of his grandpa's shirts. He kept his game pants rather than help himself to nipple-high waistband slacks. He rocked the buttoned-down pink over navy-blue spandex, which was the best testimony to his hotness. 

"Turn around, let's see it from the back." I was looking at him, giggling and shoving my car fob, sudoku puzzle book and my phone into my bag, so my mind barely registered the numbers on my phone screen.

02

08

Sun, April 28

"Sunday?" I fished out the phone from my bag and stared for a stupefying moment. "Is it Sunday?"

Sunday meant it was two in the morning.

"Is it two in the morning?"

A ball of fear formed in my throat. "M-my parents..." My shaking finger opened the texts, and the one right on top, the first of the twenty-six new text alerts from just Mom, read:

Dawn: Zoe, whatever happened, just text us! Police won't do anything until 24 hrs.

The phone winked out, stone-cold-dead, at this precise moment, like it was a sadist.

"Charger! Is there a charger in this place?" I whimpered, turning in one spot a dozen times. Thinking straight? I couldn't if my life depended on it! Of course, an Ancient vampire didn't have a charger lying around! She hid it with magic, just like the secret blood stash. But in my car...

"There is a charger in my car...it's 2 am. My parents are going insane..."

In my panicked stumbling, I would have eventually found an exit from Freida' room by sheer blind luck, but Cruz seized me by the shoulders. "Zoe! I'm taking you home."

My mind churned. Sort of. "B-but they said, you can't leave."

He scoffed, grabbed my hand and vampire-zipped me out of the room, down the hallway, past Lilian's post and out of the building.

"Try and stop me!" he yelled at the mansion. A muggy Mississippi night flashed by us as Cruz raced to the parking lot, confirming that 2 am wasn't a figment of my reeling mind...alas.

Nobody bothered with the streetlights for the visitors' parking lot, since the mortals didn't stay on the premises overnight. Even without the magnolia's thick foliage to block out the sky, it was almost completely dark, with the yellow crescent moon obscured by the rain clouds. Only the Eternal Acres sign was on, its LED glow reflecting from the surrounding white lilies.

Moving by feel rather than by sight, I grabbed the charger out of my Mini and got into Cruz's Porsche without a word of argument. One, I wanted to text my folks. Two, I was too mentally and physically exhausted to drive a rural road in the middle of the night. Three, every extra minute with Cruz was precious.

The Porsche launched so fast, I nearly swallowed my tongue. Bouncing in my seat despite the seatbelt, I searched for a plug-in, finding only a cigarette lighter. "Cruz, where do I—"

"Sorry, Zoe, a USB would have ruined the original feel of the seventies' interior. Grandpa insisted when he gave his car to me." The speedometer's needle bounced to and stuck to the right corner of the gage. "But we'll be in Delys in a few minutes. What's your address?"

"How can you be so calm!" I grasped the panels, the rear-view mirror—anything. "Don't your parents—"

"They will blame Grandpa, as usual...and Grandpa is in a vampiric sleep."

"Lucky you!"

"Address, Zoe?"

I rattled off my address through chattering teeth, as the sparse lights of the night-time Delys rushed toward us.

Cruz took a turn without dropping his speed by a hair. The tires squealed.

I shut my eyes, not caring if he flew his car to get me home.

Cruz didn't turn the music on, though the seventies' interior included a car radio, but my heart was pounding in my ears louder than a marching band. My Parents Will Kill Me, was the name of the soundtrack, sometimes interrupted by a drum crescendo of, Cruz Is My Boyfriend!

"Don't worry, it's going to be alright." Cruz slammed on the brakes. The Porsche reared like a horse, but didn't roll over its front bumper. Why it didn't, with that kind of momentum...I sucked at physics, so I would never know, and thanks goodness for it.

Nervous giggles seized me. I didn't fight the release of adrenaline, shaking against the leather seat and the headrest, until tears squirted from my eyes.

Cruz leaned over to peck me on the cheek, a pleasantly cool touch.

"I'll talk to your folks, Okay?" A blue glow of magic coated his face, transforming his fangs into normal incisors. "It will be fine, you'll see."

"Uh-huh. Have you met my dad?" I mumbled a rhetorical question, while Cruz hopped out of the driver's seat and came over to open the door for me. No, Cruz hadn't met Dad. Not until three seconds later at least, when the front door flew open, spilling electrical light and Dad onto the porch.

I stepped out of the Porsche onto my family's driveway like a movie star and attempted a smile. It was likely crooked. "Ah, hi."

Luckily, Dad didn't carry a rifle, because the way he eyed Cruz was murderous. For a financial advisor, he could look pretty intimidating.

I lost my nerve and backed into Cruz. He had enough presence of mind to take my hand. Together, we walked the length of the driveway, not even five yards, but I felt every step in my stiffened knees.

"There she is." Dad didn't start with yelling, rather it built up to it from a low rumble. "Dawn, you can stop calling the hospitals."

I could just make out Mom's slight figure behind Dad's bulky frame. "Thank God! Is she hurt?"

"Are you hurt?" Dad barked, in case I didn't hear Mom behind his low growls.

"N-no."

Mom sobbed.

"Sir, this is entirely my fault," Cruz lied bravely.

Dad's facial color intensified from the red all the way to burgundy in under a second. He opened his mouth to unleash thunder and lightning. Blue tendrils of magic emanated from Cruz, to circle Dad's head. He frowned, tilting his head to one shoulder, as if listening to something inside his head.

Since he was listening, I rushed in with introductions. "This is Cruz Triana, from my school. We..."

Then I was just as lost for words as my ensorcelled Dad.

We, what? Were kidnapped by an Ancient vampire?

"Hi, Cruz," Mom said in the background, still nasal from crying. "Honey, shouldn't we get inside to hear what the kids have to say? It's so late..."

"Zoe, get in!" Dad boomed. Apparently, he didn't care about neighbors' sleep as much as Mom did.

"Everything was my fault," Cruz said, reluctantly letting go of my hand. I scooted past Dad and fell into the safety of Mom's embrace with a whispered, sorry. "Just before the game, I got a message that my Grandpa fell very ill at the senior's home. I...I kinda lost it, and Zoe agreed to come with me. It was a tough afternoon, we didn't know if he would make it or not...so we lost track of time."

That was as good of a lie without outright lying as could be. Except, Cruz didn't give off a vibe of a guy who could lose it under stress. On the contrary, he seemed like someone who only grew colder and calmer as the pressure increased.

However, his confession immediately put Mom behind him one hundred percent. "Your poor Grandfather!" Her hands flew to his mouth. "How is he?"

"He was still in a coma when we left," Cruz said solemnly. Again, not a total lie.

"Oh my God! That's awful. I hope he'll recover soon!"

"I'm praying for it." Cruz nodded. "Please, don't be mad at me for causing so much distress for your family. I...I couldn't have survived this afternoon without Zoe. She is wonderful, and kind, and altogether amazing."

Despite worry and guilt eating me alive, I smiled. He was wonderful, and kind, and amazing.

In this sweet moment, Dad's bass startled me. "This is very sad, young man, and we'd have understood, but my wife drove circles around town imagining the worst for ten hours. Something a single text could have prevented."

The strands of magic thinned out. Dad jerked his head, as if shaking off a persistent mosquito, and the magic threads snapped. Once this happened, all traces of doubt melted away from Dad's voice.

"So, until one of you remembers how to use a cell phone your generation can't seem to put down, I forbid Zoe to see you."

This was just too much! "Dad, it was discharged!"

He whirled at me, shutting the door in Cruz's face. "And you, young lady, are grounded until the summer break!"

"But the prom..." This was the longest and hardest day in my life. It was a wonder I survived it. Not to mention the emotional damage! I found a wonderful boyfriend, we defeated an Ancient Vampire, but he had turned, giving our relationship a tragic shade and an uncertain future. Didn't I deserve even a tiniest bit of pity?

Wish I was as good as Cruz at skirting the lies and still getting things across! I couldn't explain what I had survived without ending up in a shrink's office, so I hung my head and turned to go upstairs.

"Greg," Mom whispered.

Dad ignored her. "Aren't you forgetting something, Zoe?"

My shoulders slumped. "Sorry, Mom...I really wish I called." Or could have.

"Yes, that too. But I meant you forgot to hand over your phone. You're not grounded so you could chat with Esha for hours."

Great, so now I couldn't help to save Dylan and others from Corazon and certain death. Just freaking great.

At this point, I was so down, the new blows simply stopped registering.

Without a single word of protest, I turned over my bag onto the floor, threw it on top of my stuff, then stomped off to my room.

Once there, I buried my head under my pillow. My thoughts bounced from my screwed-up prom, to the vampires, to worrying about Bartolome, to the horrors Freida's feeders suffered. Somehow I fell asleep.