I sat in one of the uppermost rooms at Greylark and huffed out a dejected sigh. I'd arrived a little before dusk, armed with knives, stakes, and determination. A thousand doubts had crowded my head as I climbed the curving stairs, the most dominant ones being I wasn't ready for this, I was rushing into something I couldn't handle, I was going to put myself in serious danger. Diligently I ignored every negative thought. This was something I had to do. 

Unfortunately the vampire had other ideas. Hours trickled by with no sign of the bloodsucker. At first I was vigilant, my whole body tense and coiled to fight, fingers tightly curled round the handle of my knife. Now, nearly four hours later, my feet were dragging as I paced up and down the floor, my knife hanging from slack fingers. I was cold, hungry, and completely fed up. I had been ready for this, ready to fight, ready to kill, and the vampire hadn't had the decency to show up. Didn't it know what this meant to me? 

My lips twisted. Of course it didn't know. It was a vampire. The only thing its primitive brain understood was slaughter. It was like expecting a lion to display human emotion. 

Briefly I considered the possibility that the vampire had smelt me here and had stayed away accordingly. I shook my head, dismissing the notion. Here alone, I was easy prey, and vampires were killers, pure and simple. Although . . . I'd been alone here last night and I'd come out unharmed. The vampire could have chased me into the night and torn me to pieces. No one would have heard anything over the noise of the party. Why hadn't it come after me? 

I shook my head again, irritated with myself. Why did it matter? The only good vampire was a dead vampire. End of. 

The edges of night were turning a lighter grey, pre-empting dawn. The vampire wouldn't be coming out now. Vampire hunters were still separating fact from fiction when it came to vamps - crosses don't work, by the way - but we knew one thing. Vampires were deathly allergic to sunlight.  

The sun was climbing over the horizon as I trailed home, my body sagging with exhaustion. If I was lucky, I'd get in a couple of hours sleep before training. My first college class wasn't until the afternoon, and that meant Noah would expect me to spend the morning training. Leisure time had no place in our house. I'm not sure it even featured in our language.

"Again." Noah's voice cracked round the garage walls.  

I gritted my teeth and forced my body into a martial fighting stance. I'd barely scraped an hour and half's sleep this morning before my alarm blared out, and I'd dragged myself down to the garage. The small concrete-walled room - tacked onto the side of the house like an afterthought - was where we trained, honing our skills with fists and weapons. A cross-trainer occupied the left-hand corner, a metre or so away from where a metal pull-up bar projected from the walls. The right-hand wall was adorned with a long wooden shelf, the rack where we kept our vast selection of knives and stakes. A black vinyl punch-bag hung from the ceiling, and the floor was covered in padded mats. A few years back, in one of our other houses, we'd had a treadmill. But Noah had quickly decided it was better for us to practise running outdoors so we could get used to different terrains and obstacles. Vampire hunters were always going to be running from or after their targets, and you couldn't practise that kind of running on a treadmill.  

The garage reminded me of a cross between a prison cell and a medieval dungeon. It was probably Noah's favourite part of the house. 

Noah lunged at me, all six-foot-plus of broad shoulders and barrel chest. I brought my arms up to protect my face and he promptly slammed a fist into my solar plexus. Even through my protective clothing and the padded gloves he wore, the blow still hurt. Not that I expected Noah to pull his punches just because he was my father. He always told me the vampires wouldn't hold back just because I wasn't ready. 

I ducked another punch and swung one at Noah. He batted my arm aside like I was annoying him and cuffed me around the head. It was hard enough to make me stagger back. 

On the other side of the room, Ethan glanced up, his face set with concern. He'd said to Noah before that he should go easier on me. I might have been trained to hunt and fight, but as a sixteen-year-old girl who barely reached five-four in heels, I could hardly be expected to equal my burly father in combat. The best I could do was use my superior speed to dodge Noah before he could hit me.  

My concentration slipped for a second and Noah neatly tripped me. I hit the mats, rolling over and away from the kick Noah aimed at my ribs. I rolled to my feet, darting away from him. My lungs ached, my eyes burning with exhaustion. Sweat trickled from my hairline. 

We kept up the training for another five minutes before my father surprised me with a burst of speed. He slammed his arm into my chest, flipping me onto my back. The breath was knocked out of my lungs, and for a moment all I could do was lie on the floor and gasp like a dying fish. In my periphery, I saw Ethan on his feet, his whole body taut with the urge to run to me and make sure I was okay. But he wouldn't dare, not with Noah there. Nobody went against Noah in our house. 

Noah stared dispassionately at me as I gasped at his feet. He was a thousand times colder than Ava could ever be, and I hated how helpless he made me feel. I forced myself to climb to my feet, determined not to flinch as a wave of pain swept over me.  

"You should have seen that last blow coming," Noah said. 

It wasn't worth trying to defend myself. Nothing I said would make the slightest bit of difference. I kept my eyes fixed on the padded floor. 

"You're not training enough, Kiara," Noah accused. "You need to be faster, stronger. We'll train again tonight." 

That brought my head up. "No, I can't." 

"Excuse me?" Noah's eyes were like steel.  

"I . . . I've got plans tonight. I'm going out with Riley," I blurted out. It was the most plausible excuse I could think of on the spot. It wasn't like I could tell the truth, that I was heading back to Greylark to confront the vampire. Noah's disappointment in my fighting abilities only made me more determined to prove him wrong by bagging my first solo kill.  

"You've been wasting a lot of time with that girl lately." 

I gritted my teeth. The time I spent with Riley was the closest to normal I ever got, and I was determined to enjoy every second of it.  

"We can't train tonight. Aren't you supposed to be hunting?" I pointed out. 

Noah blinked, surprise flickering across his face. That little detail had obviously slipped his mind. "You should still be training," he said, quickly recovering. 

"I'll do a couple of hours when I get back from college." I wasn't sure if that was a lie or not. Ethan wouldn't rat me out if I didn't train, but I was still afraid Noah would find out somehow. Disobeying him equalled serious trouble. I didn't get special treatment just because I was his daughter. 

Noah pulled off his padded gloves and tossed them in the corner. "Make sure you do."  

Ethan shook his head as Noah stalked out of the room. "You shouldn't press his buttons like that," he admonished.  

"Are you kidding me?" I shoved sweaty hair out of my eyes and glared at him. A year older than me, Ethan was another of the hunters that made up our team. Noah and his best friend Marc had rescued Ethan from a vamp attack a few years ago. He'd come to live with us, and had learned to hunt and kill in the process. It was vampires that had reduced him to an orphan at a young age, and vampires that would have taken his life when he was living on the streets if it hadn't been for Noah and Marc. It was small wonder he embraced a life of hunting them. 

"I'm not pressing anyone's buttons. I'm just trying to have some semblance of a life. Why does everyone think that's such a terrible thing?" 

"Because, Kiara, we are vampire hunters and vampire hunters don't have social lives. We have a responsibility to protect people -" 

"Save it, Ethan, I know the spiel," I snapped. "We're hunters so we must live by the sword and die by the sword." 

Ethan regarded me. His eyes were always serious, so the only sign he was annoyed with me was the slight flush creeping up his neck. It made the three-inch scar on his throat - legacy of the night the vamps had almost killed him - stand out even whiter.  

"I don't want to always agree with your dad but he is right. If you keep missing training to hang out with Riley then you're going to get sloppy. And sloppy hunters make mistakes that get themselves, or their teammates killed." 

"I know, Ethan." Already my anger was fading. It wasn't directed at him really, he'd just got in the way of the rage I was too scared to throw at my dad.  

"I just want you to be careful." 

"And I just want to have a life." 

"But you can't. You've got Riley now, but what happens when Noah decides to move us again? You know we never stay in one place for too long." 

"Sophie said we might do this time." 

"Huh?" Ethan stared at me, confused. 

"I heard her talking with Ava. They both think it would be a good idea to have a solid base of operation, somewhere we know we can always come back to. We can still travel for hunts, but it would make sense if we had at least one permanent residence." I recited verbatim the conversation I'd overhead. Well, eavesdropped on.  

"That's great, Kiara, but what happens if we do stay and Riley wants to start hanging out at your house?" 

"She won't." I spoke with a confidence I didn't feel. 

"Not ever? I don't believe that. Sooner or later she'll want to know why she's never welcome in your house. The closer she gets to you, the more likely she is to start asking questions and that's a risk we can't afford. Riley can never know the truth about us. You know that." 

Unfortunately Ethan was right, and the injustice of it made me want to scream. When I was younger, we'd moved around so much that I'd never had time to make friends. Riley was the first person I'd ever made a connection to who didn't know what a freak I was, and I didn't want to lose her. But if she did start sniffing around our family secrets, Noah would ban me from seeing her. Worse, he might uproot the entire family and force us to hit the road again. I liked the idea of having somewhere I could call home, living somewhere long enough to actually become familiar with the rooms. Maybe even add some personal touches to my bedroom. If my parents permitted it, that was. 

"Riley's not going to find out about us," I said. "I won't let her." 

I wasn't sure Ethan believed me but he let it drop, for now. He was only concerned about me and at times I appreciated that. Other times it felt like he was just one more link in the chain that bound me to this life.

I decided against breaking the promise I'd made to Noah, and it was a good thing too, since he was still home when I got back from college at five. Vampire hunting may have been our way of life but it didn't pay the bills. Everyone had a day job to tide us over, and Ava's was at the local pharmacy. Apparently they'd kept her late that afternoon, so Noah and Marc had to wait for her to finish her shift until they could head out on their hunt. Which meant I had to go through a gruelling two-hour exercise regime under Noah's watchful eye. I was drenched in sweat by the time I finished, and every muscle was strung painfully tight. 

After Noah had dismissed me - without so much as a word of praise - I headed upstairs to take a shower. I wouldn't get the element of surprise if I went hunting reeking of sweat. The vampire would smell me a mile away.  

Once I was showered, I changed into my vampire hunting kit; black leggings and a long-sleeved black vest with flat, soft-soled boots. I tugged my hair into a ponytail.  

I was sitting on the edge of my bed, debating which would be the best knife to take when my door opened and Riley strolled into the room. I had just enough time to shove my weapons under my pillow as her gaze swept the room before landing on me. 

"Hey, K-girl, what's with the surprised face?" 

"What are you doing here?" I blurted out.  

"Taking you out," she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that she was here, in my house, as close to my secret as she'd ever been. The conversation I'd had with Ethan that morning played in an endless loop through my head.  

"Sorry, Riley, but now's not a good time." 

She dismissed my words with a flick of her hands. She'd painted her nails sometime between this morning and now, and every one of them was a different colour. It was like she'd pinned a rainbow to her fingers. 

"Kiara, I want to have some fun and I want my best girl to have fun with me." 

Suddenly there was a funny knot in my throat. No one had ever called me their best girl before. No one outside my team had wanted to get too close to me before. Kids had a nose for otherness - they could sniff out a goat among the sheep even if the flock was huge. And that was how it had always been with me. Every school I went to over the years had marked me out as different. They might not have known about my secret life, or seen my scars, but they could somehow tell that I wasn't a part of their happy, sunshine world and they ostracised me accordingly. But Riley was different. From the day I'd arrived in Dalwick, she'd accepted me, no questions asked. She'd never know how much that meant to me.  

Riley put both hands on her hips and shook her head at me. "K-girl, why are dressed like that?" 

I looked down at my outfit, and my happy glow faded. Now I remembered why I couldn't go out with Riley tonight; I had a vampire to hunt. 

"I . . . I have plans," I started to say. 

"We're going to have a great time tonight, Kiara." Riley carried on as if I hadn't even spoken. "And don't worry, I promised your dad I'd take good care of you." 

And just like that I was trapped by my own lie. I'd used Riley as an excuse this morning to get out of further training. I hadn't expected her to turn up out of the blue with actual plans for tonight. Now that she was here and had spoken to Noah, I couldn't very back out of whatever she had planned. Noah would know I'd lied to him and that was a situation I wanted to avoid. 

Riley bounded across the room to the chest of drawers and began riffling through it. 

"What are you doing?" I said. 

"That emo outfit you've got on is no good for what we're doing tonight." 

"What are we doing ?" 

Riley just winked at me over her shoulder. A little ball of apprehension formed in my stomach. I wished I could gauge her plans from her outfit but she always dressed flamboyantly. She was wearing more makeup than usual so I guessed whatever we were doing involved other people. 

Riley plucked my good jeans from the bottom drawer and tossed them to me. They landed neatly on my head, the denim legs flopping over my face.  

"No offence, K-girl, but we need to get you some new clothes." 

Privately I agreed with her. I was sixteen years old, of course I wanted new clothes, but there was very little I was allowed to buy that wasn't suited for vampire hunting.  

Finally Riley settled on a midnight blue camisole and a simple black jacket. She urged me into the clothes, then pulled my hair out of its ponytail. She brushed my hair until it gleamed, arranging it round my shoulders.  

"You've got such lovely hair, you should wear it down more often." 

I made a noncommittal noise.  

Riley emptied her handbag onto my bed and various bits of makeup rolled out.  

"I don't really wear makeup," I said, shying away from her. It was yet another thing Noah and Ava had banned. Most girls my age knew what makeup suited them by now. I had no idea. If I was to try, I'd probably end up looking like a clown. 

"Once in a while isn't going to hurt you," said Riley briskly. 

So I sat there and let her paint my face, trusting her not to poke me in the eye with a mascara wand. It felt weird to be doing something normal. I half-expected Noah to burst through the door and demand Riley leave, or worse, a vampire to break in and force me to reveal who I really was. 

"You can open your eyes now." Riley sounded amused. I cracked an eye open. She was standing in front of me, a triumphant smile on her face. "I always said you were hot, K-girl, but now you're smoking." 

I peeped past her to the mirror. A girl I didn't know stared back at me. Her blonde hair fell in soft waves round her face, unanchored by its usual ponytail. Her eyes had been subtly made up with mascara and eyeliner, making them huge and doe-like. There were hints of pink on her cheeks and a darker red on her lips. She didn't look like the me I was, but maybe she was the me I could have been if I'd been born into a different life. I often thought about the Kiara that could have been if there were no vampires in the world. She was a phantom-me that I sometimes ached to be. 

"Hey Hot-Stuff, stop admiring yourself. We need to get a move on," said Riley. 

She led the way downstairs and paused when she found Noah standing at the bottom. His stare drifted past her to me and his face darkened. It didn't take a genius to work out he didn't approve of my new look. Ethan, hovering in the living room doorway - probably to stop Riley from peeking inside and spotting any of our hunting paraphernalia - stared at me like he didn't even recognise me.  

"Don't worry, Mr. Morrow, I'll take extra-special care of her." Riley grinned. 

Noah merely grunted without looking at her.  

We sidled past him to the front door. I kept expecting his meaty hand to close on my shoulder and tell me I wasn't leaving the house with all that junk on my face, but he just watched us leave, his eyes like ice. 

I breathed a sigh of relief once we were safely outside and heading down the street. 

"Wow, that was . . . tense," said Riley. 

"He just worries about me." If only that were true. If only Noah did care for me like a daughter and not just another cog in the machine that made up our team.  

"Yeah, but you're not a little girl. He can't protect you forever." 

Riley had no idea how right she was. One thing all vampire hunters had to be aware of was that we couldn't always protect each other. It was a grim and bloody life and came with a high chance of dying young.  

"I think he was surprised to see me wearing makeup," I admitted. 

"I think your cute cousin was surprised too," said Riley nudging me. 

Ethan wasn't my cousin but that was the story we told people whenever we moved somewhere new. Although he lived with us, I'd never felt quite right about passing him off as my brother. We probably could have got away with it since we were both blonde, but I'd spent a great chunk of childhood wishing I had a sibling to take some of Noah and Ava's pressure off me. It felt wrong to masquerade Ethan as the sibling I'd never had. 

"Normally I'd have invited him to join us, but he wouldn't really be welcome tonight." 

In hindsight I should have cottoned on to Riley's plans at that point. She was dropping a hint that I was apparently too dense to pick up on. It all became clear once we'd walked into the town centre, towards Bar 64 that hosted under-eighteens nights during the week. There were two boys waiting outside, one blond and one dark. They straightened up when they saw us, both wearing identical grins.  

"You see those two hotties?" Riley said. "Those are our dates for tonight." 

I stopped dead. "You're kidding? Oh, no, Riley, no, you know I don't date." 

"Pfft, don't be silly. I found you a really great guy. He's cute and funny and nice." 

I shot her a sideways glance. "So why don't you want him for yourself?" 

"'Cos I think his friend's cuter," Riley snickered. She tried to pull me forwards but I dug my heels into the pavement. "Come on, Kiara." She adopted her best fake-pout, red-painted lips tragically pursed. "I've been after this guy for ages and when I found out he had a hot friend, I immediately thought of you." Riley put both hands on my shoulders. "I wouldn't just chuck you at some loser, Kiara, you know me better than that." 

I tried to shape my lips into a smile. I wanted normal and this was about as normal as things got. Phantom-Kiara would have been happy to be in this situation. 

"I'm sure you would have been happier if I'd set you up with Luke, but he plays too hard to get. So you got Joel instead." 

"Joel," I repeated, committing the name to memory.  

Riley looked at me, really looked at me, as if she was seeing past my tense smile to the uncertainty that filled me to the brim. "Kiara, if you really don't want to do this, we don't have to." 

That turned my smile genuine. Riley really would walk away from the guy she fancied if it made me feel more comfortable. I squared my shoulders and lifted my head. "I went into Greylark asylum by myself. I can handle a blind date," I said. 

Riley squealed and hugged me. "That's my girl."

My first blind date didn't go as badly as I'd feared, but I wouldn't have said I truly enjoyed myself. Riley's date, Alex, ordered food for us - bowls of chicken wings, chips, and onion rings - and we all crammed into a little corner booth on the ground floor of the bar. It was still early but already the DJ was spinning discs and the dance floor was filled with gyrating teenagers. Sheer horror shot through me at the thought of dancing. I'd rather face down ten hungry vampires.  

Joel made it plain early on that he found me attractive. I wished I could say the feeling was mutual. Riley was right, he was a genuinely nice guy. He was attentive and polite, funny and interesting to talk to, but he didn't exactly set butterflies fluttering in my stomach.  

I couldn't help thinking about what Riley had said about Luke. Would this date have gone differently if he'd been here instead of Joel? I didn't want to think so much about a boy I didn't even know, but I couldn't forget the bolt of heat that had shot through me when our eyes met across the bonfire. Nice as he was, Joel didn't ignite any part of me.  

After a while I got tired of watching Riley and Alex pawing each other. The bathroom was located on the second floor of the bar, at the top of a curving staircase. I made my excuses to Joel and hurried for the stairs. I could only hide out in the bathroom for so long before anyone got suspicious, but Joel was starting to make me feel claustrophobic. Now I knew why I didn't go on blind dates. I didn't know what to say to a boy I did like, let alone how to let one know I wasn't interested. I'd hoped that by moving away slightly each time his arm or leg brushed mine, he would get the hint but so far he hadn't. Maybe my anti-Joel signals weren't strong enough, or maybe he was just ignoring them.  

I hovered over the stainless-steel basin in the girls' bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. Belatedly I thought it was a good thing Riley had painted me with waterproof mascara. Otherwise I would have achieved the clown look I'd been dreading.  

My face stared back at me, beads of water sliding off my nose. I'd thought about Phantom-Kiara many times but this was the first time I felt I had seen her face. This was what I would have looked like if I hadn't been born to vampire hunting parents. This was the life I could have had and I didn't know what to do with the snippets of it that Riley was sharing with me.  

Suddenly I couldn't stand to look at my own face, not when it was like this. I soaked some toilet paper under the cold tap and scrubbed off the red lipstick Riley had made me wear. I could never be Phantom-Kiara so what was the point of wearing a mask and pretending?  

Running adjacent to the bathroom were floor-to-ceiling windows, and some small tables and chairs where people could sit and watch the view. I slumped down into one of the chairs. If I could snatch a few moments of composure, maybe I could face a couple more hours of awkwardness with Joel. 

A shadow fell across me and a male voice asked, "Is this seat taken?" 

I glanced up and heat flared through me.  

Luke was standing in front of me.