UNITED I tried my best to get Chance to agree to leave Kayla out of it when he told Aldric about what happened at the mall. I needed at least one person who could teach me how to take down vampires that was not an actual vampire. And after nearly an hour of convincing on my part, he agreed to only mention Erik and Lila. I felt as good as possible, considering I had probably just sentenced two people to die, and after I helped clean the kitchen—no way was I letting his mom do it every night—I crawled into bed completely exhausted. That night, I had a dream that felt more like a memory than anything else before. Right away I knew I had had it before, many times throughout my life. I’m sitting on a park bench, wearing a gleaming white sun dress littered with tiny, hand-painted sunflowers, eagerly awaiting the arrival of my parents. The sun is bright in the sky, bathing everything in a warm yellow glow. Kids are playing catch with their parents on the lush green lawn in front of me, a group of teenage boys throwing around a football behind me.
