Turn

19

After her seventh loop around the lake, Virginia's head still wasn't any clearer than it had been before. She circled back to where she started, where Greyson sat on the hood of the car and Quinn, still on the dock, leaned back on his hands, feet in the cool water. Greyson looked up expectantly, but something drove her away from him and toward Quinn. He was a vampire, and he didn't want her to know that. Against his will, his secret had been shared with her. She thought she understood why, but she was drawn toward him all the same, still desiring answers.

Sitting down beside him, she plucked off her sandals and dipped her toes into the water. "Hi."

He glanced over at her, for the first moment acknowledging her presence. "How are you handling it?"

"What that two of my best friends are vampires?" she raised an eyebrow. "Well, I think I'm officially the coolest human I know."

Quinn smiled at that.

"Greyson told me how it happened," said Virginia quietly. "I'm so sorry."

"What are you talking about?" he furrowed his brow.

"I'm sorry this happened to you, and the way it happened," she shrugged. "It didn't sound as though you had much choice."

Bowing his head, he replied, "I would be dead if it weren't for what Greyson did."

"That's not the same as choice. Even if you think you would have chosen this life, you'll never really know," she reached out to clasp his hand. "Greyson chose. You didn't get to, and I'm sorry for that. I'm not sorry that you're here, but still."

He looked back to her as her hand contacted his. "Thank you."

"I think I understand more now," Virginia nodded, keeping her eyes with his, sparkling with the light of a thousand stars above. "I get what happened the night of the party."

Quinn snapped his hand away and looked back to the lake. "You can't understand, Virginia."

"Hey," Virginia whispered harshly, grabbing him by his forearm. "Maybe I can't, but I'm trying to make amends for it. I'm sorry about all this. I really am. I never meant for it..."

She stopped when she saw the way he looked at her.

"Nobody ever does," he said quietly. "And yet, people still get hurt."

Pursing her lips, Virginia nodded. "I'm still sorry, Quinn. If I could change the past, I would."

He nodded, seeing in her eyes her lack of understanding. It was true. Greyson said they killed, and that they tried not to, but they were killers all the same. Monsters. And yet, it was still Greyson. It was still Quinn.

"I wouldn't have changed it. It's not your fault. That's not the first time Col did something like. It's mine, really," he breathed out. "I've learned to keep everything inside so well, and I just snapped then. The thought of him hurting you...I couldn't handle it. Maybe it shouldn't have been like that, but I'm reconciled to what happened."

With a sideways smile, she leaned her head down to rest it on his shoulder. "You saved me. I think I can safely say that you wouldn't have if you weren't..." she wanted to pick her words carefully, but instead, she spoke it for the first time. "A vampire."

His head moved to lean on top of hers.

"There's good in what you are, Quinn. I read Dracula, and you aren't him. You're not a monster," she whispered.