Summer wasn't sure how she started dating Seth Cohen again. It was one of those things that just happened. It was easier, in the end, to date him, than it was to think about him all the time. At least when they started dating again, she remembered everything she hated about him. Mediocre sex, annoying music, his stupid obsessions with comics and boats. Blah blah fucking blah. He never talked about anything real, and he never wanted to listen to her talk, and after less than twenty-four hours, she was mad at him again, and felt more content with the world than she had in a long time.

A few months anyway.

They always had to go where he wanted to go -- with Ryan -- and do what he wanted to do -- with Ryan. Did they go to the mall? No, they went to the comic book store. Did they go to the movies? No, they played Grand Theft Auto 3. Did they go for a romantic weekend away in Tahoe or wherever? No, they went -- with Ryan and his annoying girlfriend-slash-foster-half-aunt -- to some big fucking hole in the ground north of L.A. Seth insisted it was like the Bermuda Triangle or some shit, but it was really just like the desert.

She said that and Seth said, "The desert like the X-Files!" like he was really excited or some shit. Hello, that show was so late 90s.

It would be way cooler if they were in, like, Canada, and it was, like, Alias or something.

Whatever. Summer agreed to go because Seth promised her a day at the hotel's spa. Paraffin treatments and full body massages and a mud bath and maybe a facial. So good. But first they had to go to the big fucking hole, which was covered in weird red dust. It looks like they are the only people there, but the hole is bigger than all of Newport, so there might be someone on the other side.

The hole is huge. Summer refused to go down into it, but Ryan and Lindsay looked fucking excited to slide down the side with Seth, carrying shovels, talking about the Anasazi and Navaho codes. Summer bit back mean comments and stayed with the Range Rover -- but not with it turned on, because that would use up the half-tank of gas they had left, and there were no gas stations for a long long long time. The fucking hole was on the outside of fucking nowhere.

So she sat down on a towel in the boiling hot sun with a big bottle of water and a magazine. She read it three times and they were still in the disgusting hole, and then she started going through everyone's bags. Ryan had a messenger bag with an Eminem cd and two packs of cigarettes and a Zippo and a book about young werewolves or something that was really boring.

Seth had a bunch of comics and a bottle of flat Coke and condoms -- yeah, right, he wished -- and four hundred-dollar bills in his wallet. His license photo made him look like an idiot.

Lindsay had a small purse. She photographed well, and she had a bunch of photos of people Summer didn't know, and a tube of melting lipstick, and seven dollars, and a black Discover card in her mom's name. Whatever. Why was everyone so boring?

Summer went through her own bag. Lip gloss -- in a jar, so it didn't melt all over everything -- and eyeliner and those little Biore face wipes to make her face less shiny, and those wet towelette things to wipe off any dirt that might get on her face whenever, wherever. They would definitely come in handy at this place. Summer used one to wipe off her hands, even though they weren't very dirty. She just felt like she had red dust all over her.

She also had a little notebook to write things down in that she hadn't ever used and condoms -- yeah, right, whatever -- and a tiny tube of strawberry flavored lube that had come with the condoms -- double whatever. Three fifty-dollar bills, two hundred-dollar bills, and seventeen dollars in ones. Fifty-three cents. Cds for the trip that she didn't get to listen to because Seth made them all listen to a copy of the new Bright Eyes album that his dad had gotten or something -- she hadn't been paying attention.

She had been staring out the window, not watching Ryan's thumb stroke Lindsay's thigh.

Cotton candy gum, peppermint Altoids, two pens -- one with pink ink, the other with orange. Cell phone, no reception. At the very bottom, a note from Coop, folded into a triangle. She spread it out and read it: Sum, after class you wanna go do that thing? The i in thing was dotted with a heart, and thing was underlined three times. It had to be really old; Summer couldn't even remember what it was about anymore.

And the sleeping pills Summer'd stolen from her stepmother. One every night meant none of the weird fucking nightmares she'd been having. Maybe it was time to get her own prescription, since it had been over a year or whatever.

Summer reached over into Ryan's bag and pulled out his cigarettes. He could spare some. He smoked Newport Lights, which Summer suspected was supposed to be funny. She lit it with his Zippo, which was almost out of lighter fluid, and took a deep drag. Shit, why did everything have to fucking suck? Why couldn't Ryan still be dating Coop? At least then Summer would have someone to talk to. But no, he was dating Lindsay, who was nice enough or whatever, but not interesting. Plus Coop wouldn't have come anyway, because she and Caitlin and her mother and her father were off "rebonding" or whatever as a family. So lame.

The red dust was totally creeping Summer out. There was something wrong with the giant fucking crater in the ground. Seth kept talking about how it used to be a magical town or whatever. That was lame, too, because what the fuck? A magical town. Not at all. Towns were towns. It was probably like Newport, but destroyed by an earthquake or something. Maybe the riots in L.A. last summer crushed it.

Weird to think about how much time passed. That was the summer Seth had left and Ryan had gotten Theresa pregnant, and everything was different but not much had changed. That was the summer that Summer had gone to six funerals after the riots, because six of her relatives had died in really weird ways. But the nightmares went back before that, which Summer was not at all cool with.

Whatever. The world sucked and people had nightmares and shitty best friends and boring boyfriends. Summer couldn't exactly do anything about it.

She took another cigarette and lit it off the first one, and looked up, because someone's shadow dropped over her.

"That will kill you."

It's a girl. Short hair cut by someone better known as a hack with scissors than a stylist, shiny skin under layers of the red dust, wide mouth. Summer studied her. Pretty enough, in a plain way.

"Yeah?" she finally replied. "So will hurting your pores like that."

She dug through her bag until she found the towelettes, then handed one to the girl. She looked at it kind of dubiously, then used it on her face. Her nails were all ripped up, and she was absolutely smothered in that gross dust. Once the dust was off her face, though, Summer realized that they had to be almost the same age. Except the girl looked older -- or younger. Summer couldn't decide.

"Thanks," said the girl. She looked down at Summer's water. "Can I have some of that?" Summer passed her up the bottle, and the girl tilted her head back and drank almost all of it. "I must have walked across the entire town."

"Yeah?" said Summer. Who cared?

"Yeah. My water is on the other side." The girl jerked her head, and Summer looked out. She couldn't see the other side. The girl must have been walking for a long time.

"What are you doing?" asked Summer. The girl really was absolutely covered in dust, except for her big ugly cross, which glinted in the sunlight. It was plain silver, and laid flat. It was her only jewelry, though. What if she was one of those weird Christians who always had to try to get everyone else to become a Christian? Summer would have to run away or something.

She took another long drag on her cigarette.

"I'm looking for stuff," said the girl. "I used to live here. I need... Nevermind. I just need to find some of my old stuff." Summer never used to think people were surprising and weird -- they were just people. But this girl was totally weird. "It's complicated."

Summer was about to continue the conversation by telling the girl that everything is complicated when Seth came running up yelling her name. She rolled her eyes at the girl, and said instead, "My boyfriend Seth. He's a big dork."

The girl smiled at her. "I know a lot of those."

"Look!" Seth yelled. He was holding something almost as big as his entire chest. "I found something."

"It's a book, Seth," said Summer. She rolled her eyes again at the girl, but the girl wasn't looking at her -- she was looking at Seth's book.

"That's mine," said the girl. She stepped toward Seth and reached out for the book and he took a step back.

"I found it," said Seth. "It's mine. Summer, tell her it's mine."

"Whatever, Seth," said Summer, and leaned against the wheel of the Range Rover. She surreptitiously stubbed out her cigarette -- Seth hated it when she smoked. But it wasn't like she was going to stop smoking just because he wanted her to -- that was lame.

The girl stepped toward Seth again and grabbed the book. "Give it to me," she said. "It's mine."

"It's mine," said Seth. "It's my souvenir."

"This was my home!" yelled the girl. She sounded close to tears and looked kind of violent and scary. Summer stood up, ready to defend Seth against this freak. The book was old and falling apart and covered in dust and dirt and kind of charred. It said VAMPYR on the cover. What a stupid book. Who needed another book about vampires? No one. Only losers read books about vampires -- of course Seth wanted it.

"Listen," snapped Summer. "This is stupid. Seth, just give her back her book."

Seth glared at Summer. "Why aren't you on my side! You are my girlfriend, you are supposed to take my side even when I am wrong."

"So you admit you're wrong?" The girl crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Seth. Maybe they could have a glaring contest and the winner could take the fucking book.

"Don't be an idiot, Cohen," said Summer. "If I took your side every time you were wrong, you'd always think you were right. Besides, it's dirty."

"It's dirty and it's mine," said the girl.

"Excuse me, who are you anyway?" asked Seth. He clutched the book tighter to his chest. He was totally covered with the red dust too. It was creeping Summer out, all the dust on everything.

"I'm --"

"Dawn Summers," said a voice behind them. Summer turned around.

"Who are you?" she snapped. Kind of cute, but starchy. British -- he was even wearing an ascot.

The guy totally ignored her and kept talking to the girl. "Dawn, you must return with me now."

"I don't think so," replied the girl. "Go away."

"You're part of our society, Dawn, and you must abide by the rules." Ascot cleared his throat. "If you do not abide by the rules and participate in society, you will be..." Ascot kept talking. Summer rolled her eyes and turned back to Seth and the girl. Dawn. Ascot began to chant in some weird language. Great. Everyone who came near this town turned crazy.

"Give me my book," said Dawn again, and tried to grab it away from Seth.

"Oh no. Do not touch my boyfriend, bitch," said Summer, and shoved Dawn as hard as she could. Dawn went flying -- fucking lightweight.

"Summer, you are Wonder Woman," said Seth, and kissed her.

"Shut up, Cohen, you are so on my shit list for this." Summer looked over at Dawn, who was getting up, looking kind of dazed. Take that, bitch. No one pushed around Seth Cohen but Summer Roberts. And even she didn't do it that often, because it got boring because Seth usually did what Summer wanted, when she bothered. "Give her back her book."

"Summer, I want to keep it," said Seth.

"What the hell? It's a book. What are you going to do?" she asked. "Read it?" She turned around. "Will you shut the fuck up, Ascot?"

Ascot just kept chanting. Dawn walked up behind her and Summer made a weird noise in her throat -- growled.

"I just want my book," said Dawn. "All my books."

"You'll get it," said Summer. "Them. Whatever. Who cares? They're books."

"I need them."

Ascot stopped chanting. "What you need is to come back with me. You're human now, Dawn. What would your sister say if she knew what you were doing?"

"Yeah, right," said Dawn. "My sister? Haha."

Summer felt totally out of her depth, which was annoying. "Someone either tell me what is going on, or get away from us," she said.

Ascot tried to shove past her to get to Dawn, and she pushed him, as hard as she pushed Dawn, and he fell backwards.

"Thanks," said Dawn softly.

"Back off, jerk," she said to Ascot. He stayed down on his ass where he landed, but turned his palms to the sky.

"You want to stay out of this," he replied. "She's dangerous."

"So dangerous she falls over when I breathe on her wrong," said Summer. "Step off."

"Dawn Summers," he said, and his voice sounded deeper and kind of resonated. Seth's hip kind of bumped into hers, and Summer realized he was scared. She totally wasn't, though, because what was Ascot going to do? Talk them to death? "Dawn Summers," he repeated, and Dawn came up to stand next to Summer. "You must come back."

"So you can test me and try to steal my power?" said Dawn. "No thank you."

"No one is taking you anywhere," said Summer. She put an arm around Dawn. The red dust on Dawn's clothes burned her arm, but she kept it there, her fingers firmly on Dawn's shoulder. "Where I come from, we don't push girls around, Ascot."

"His name is Dieter. Dieter Pryce." Dawn pressed up against Summer's side. The pain from the red dust made Summer's head hurt and her eyes cross, but she locked her knees and leaned on Seth -- who was, thankfully, silent.

"Dieter Pryce, what the fuck is your problem?" demanded Summer. Her voice was hoarse.

"You have no power," he said to Dawn.

"Why did Willow try to eat me then?" asked Dawn. "I would have died -- whatever. You're a liar."

"Someone tried to eat you?" said Seth. "Ew."

What the fuck was this girl involved in? Summer was totally curious. But also not, because it sounded scary. Could this be less cool? Possibly, but maybe not. Summer wished for a free hand to grab her pepper spray with -- if Ascot Man came any closer, Summer wanted to be able to take him down. No one got to scare Summer Roberts and get away with it.

"It's complicated," replied Dawn.

"Everything is," said Summer. "Okay, Dieter Pryce, get the fuck out of here."

He still had his palms facing the sky, and he said, "By the power of the council of watchers, I hereby strip you of all title, rank, power, and immunity. Henceforth you are exiled from the council and all anti-council activities will be taken as a declaration of your affiliation with the other side."

Dawn shivered against Summer, and Summer pulled her closer, ignoring the fact that the stupid dust was making her skin fucking feel like it was falling off.

"What the fuck ever, Dieter Pryce," said Summer dismissively, like he was the terrible waiter who spilled water on her suede jacket last night at dinner. "Be gone before someone drops a house on you, or whatever. Like, now."

Seth started to laugh and so did Dawn, but Summer couldn't, because it wasn't fucking funny at all. A breeze picked up and blew the red dust around, and Summer could feel tears welling up from having it touch her, and then Dieter Pryce disappeared.

"Uh, did that guy just disappear?" asked Seth.

"Yeah, he teleported. Watchers think they are so cool because the witches rigged them up with --" Dawn stopped talking when Seth fell down. What a fucking loser. Summer stepped away from Dawn and let the tears fall.

"Shit," she gasped. "What the fuck is this dust?"

Dawn picked up the bottle of water from the ground and wet the towel Summer had been sitting on, wiped Summer off. The more dust she removed from Summer's skin, the better Summer felt.

"What's this dust?" she asked again.

Dawn stared at the ground, wrung the water out of the towel. Finally she looked back at Summer. "It's blood," she said. "It's dried blood from all the people who died."

"Ew," said Summer, and sat down hard on the ground. "So much with the ew."

"You sound like my sister," said Dawn, and laughed a little. She squatted next to Seth and wiped his face with the water, but he was totally out. Summer rolled her eyes, felt around for Ryan's cigarettes, and lit another one.

"This is totally fucked up," she announced.

"Yeah, whatever, welcome to my life," said Dawn, and picked up the book. "This isn't exactly the one I need. Where was he looking?"

"I have no idea." Summer waved her hand in the direction Seth, Ryan, and Lindsay had gone in. "They were over there."

"They?"

"I'm here with a bunch of losers who wanted to find, like, the Anasazi or something." Summer took a long drag on the cigarette. Even though Dawn had wiped off most of the dust -- blood, ew -- from Summer's skin, she still felt tight and burning. Not good.

"All right." Dawn stood up and wiped her hands on her jeans, and walked away. Whatever, bitch! How rude.

She came back a few minutes later when Summer was finishing her cigarette, carrying an armload of books. At Summer's raised eyebrow, she said, "I don't know which ones I need." Summer shrugged, and Dawn walked away again. She made a bunch of trips, stacked books all around Summer, and finally came back with Ryan and Lindsay.

Summer left Seth lying on the ground, and met them a little ways away. Lindsay was carrying books and a satchel, so Summer took the satchel. She was, like, trying to be nice or whatever. It couldn't hurt.

"Dawn was telling us she used to live here," said Lindsay, and then she said something about physics and science that Summer ignored.

"Uh-huh," said Summer, and put the satchel into the back of the Range Rover. "Someone else has to put the books in. I can't touch the dust. I'm allergic or whatever."

Ryan raised his eyebrows at Summer. "What?" he said.

"What?" she said.

"Why are we putting Dawn's books in our car?" he asked. His eyes skimmed the ground, landed on his open bag and the pack of cigarettes sticking out. Summer met his eyes and rolled hers.

"She's only got a motorcycle. Hello." Summer put her hands on her hips and examined the interior of the Range Rover. "I think it will all fit if we squeeze some into the backseat."

"How do you know she only has a motorcycle?" asked Ryan. Summer stopped, turned. Looked at him.

"I have no idea," she said, and felt a little dizzy. She leaned against the car. "It's like déjà vu or something."

"Or something," said Ryan, but he started loading the books in. Dawn and Lindsay helped and they were done quickly. Summer put their bags into the car.

"Someone has to carry Seth," she said, and looked at Ryan.

"Dawn said he fainted?" said Lindsay, and knelt down next to him.

"Yeah, whatever, Cohen is a loser," said Summer.

"We should get back to the hotel and get him some water," said Lindsay.

"Whatever," said Summer. "Can we just leave please?"

Dawn looked up at the sky. "It will be twilight soon. We should totally leave."

"Sure," said Ryan. "Whatever." But Summer didn't feel like soothing him, because that was Lindsay's job, and she was cranky anyway.

All the books, Summer noticed, were about vampires and demons.

Seth woke up in the car, but Summer wouldn't talk to him. She just drove them back to the hotel, and when they got there, she went up to their suite and took a long shower. She wasn't sure why Dawn was okay with leaving her motorcycle, or how she knew Dawn had a motorcycle -- and she was so beyond caring.

When she came out, hair blown dry, face moisturized, wearing long sleeves to cover the red marks on her arms (from the dust? She didn't know. Whatever -- ew), Ryan and Lindsay and Dawn were rubbing the books clean.

"Where is Cohen?" she asked. She didn't sound as irritable as she felt, which was probably a good thing.

"He left," said Lindsay. "Not home -- just down to the pool, I think."

Summer debated going to follow him, but whatever. She was so annoyed with him and the entire situation and the whole crater thing that he could drown in the pool and she wouldn't care.

Maybe she'd care a little, but it wasn't like he was good in bed, so only a little.

"This shit is all weird," she said, and nudged one of the books with her toe.

"Yeah, and?" said Dawn, looking up at her. They were all still covered with the red dust, sitting on a towel or a sheet or something. The books were clean -- cleanish, anyway. They were all leathery and cracked and burned, and some were stained with things Summer didn't want to think about.

Summer had a lot of questions about what had happened, but she didn't want to have to ask any of them. Dawn had a lot of explaining to do, and she was going to fucking do it, or Summer was going to... do something. Beat her up. Hah.

"Whatever," said Summer, and walked away. She went into the bedroom she and Seth were sharing and closed the door and laid down on the bed. A few minutes later, the door opened and closed, and Summer opened her eyes. Ryan.

"This is pretty weird," said Ryan.

"Yeah, but apparently I am the only one who notices," replied Summer. She closed her eyes again. Ryan didn't leave. She opened her eyes. "What?"

"I've seen a lot of crazy shit," said Ryan. "Where I'm from..." he trailed off and stared at the other wall.

"Yeah, Chino," said Summer. "I know."

"Not just that," said Ryan. "Anyway. It is weird. But Lindsay and I are good with weird."

"I am not good with weird."

"You're dating Seth," said Ryan, like that meant something.

"Like that means something?" said Summer, and turned onto her side. She stared at the pattern on the bedspread. It was gold flowers, and really ugly.

"I don't know," said Ryan. "Nevermind." He left and Summer fell asleep.

She dreamed about Dawn's motorcycle, dreamed about riding it fast in circles around the crater until it ran out of gas. She, as Dawn, jumped off, slid into the crater, and started digging with her hands until she reached the roof of a house. It wasn't her house -- she kept moving, digging, looking for a street sign. She found the high school, she moved away from it. She slept in the crater, rolled in the dirt, dirt in her hair, dust in her eyes. When she licked her lips, they tasted metallic.

Summer woke up, sat up straight in bed. Cohen wasn't there -- she wasn't even under the covers. It was cold. She shivered, pawed through her bag until she found the sleeping pills, and swallowed two dry. When she woke up again, it was the afternoon and everyone was gone.

The books were still there, in the living room. Summer sat on the couch and turned on the television, ordered room service, eggs, pancakes, waffles, everything that sounded good, but when it came, she couldn't eat any of it. Her stomach was churning. The television was tuned to the weather channel, strange weather patterns north of L.A., where they were.

Summer looked out the window -- the sky was grey. The window didn't open, but from what Summer could see, it looked windy, cold. She kind of wanted another shower, but she didn't want to leave the books alone.

She clicked off the television and sat down on the floor. One of the books at the top of the stack was black leather with embossed gold lettering. Handbook it said. Boring.

Under it was The Life and Times and Death of William the Bloody. Gross.

Under that was The Crusade of Drusilla, and under that was Demons Underground: Sicily. What the fuck?

The stacks of books kind of stared at her. Her fingers tingled, like she was supposed to read them all or something. Fucking crazy. She was going crazy. She was going to end up like Coop and her stepmother, chasing Prozac with vodka gimlets.

She ran her fingers over the cover of another book -- the VAMPYR one. Creeptastic. Under that was Vampire, and under that was Glorificus.

She kicked the stack in front of her, and fell over. The books hardly made any noise when they banged against each other. Summer brought her knees up to her chest and buried her face in them.

When she looked up again, there was a man standing in front of her. She could either scream, or she could be annoyed. Since she was annoyed, and really good at being annoyed, she just stared up at him.

"I am getting really tired of strange people appearing in front of me," she said.

"Sorry about that, slayer," replied the man. He was British, and kind of hot, for an old guy. His hair was bleached crispy, and he was wearing a great long leather jacket. Summer totally could not pull off his look because she was too short, but she definitely coveted the black leather duster.

"My name is not slayer," she said. "It's Summer. Are you with that ascot guy? Dieter Pryce?"

"That bastard was here? Fuck." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, then said, "Mind?"

"Give me one," said Summer, and he gave her the one that had already been in his mouth. Ew. But she took it, because she wanted it. It tasted metallic, like the dust in her dream.

"Where's the little bit?" he asked, lighting another cigarette.

"The little bit of what?" asked Summer. The guy looked at her like she was crazy. "I wish people would just tell me what was going on instead of always looking at me all the time," she snapped.

"I. Am. Looking. For. Dawn," said the guy.

"And who are you? How do I know you're not one of those guys who wants to steal her power or eat her whatever?" asked Summer.

She felt kind of possessive of Dawn -- and if she reminded Dawn of Dawn's older sister, maybe she needed to, like, protect her or something.

"So she found out about what her power is then?"

He sounded genuinely interested, but Summer was still suspicious. Too many British men melting out of shadows for her taste. Too much weird stuff happening. Summer didn't think she had ever used the word "weird" so many times in her life as she'd done in the last forty eight hours or whatever it had been since they'd first driven up to the giant fucking crater.

"I dunno," said Summer slowly. "I think that's what all the books are for."

"Name's Spike, by the way," he said, and began to pace the room. "You don't have any blood, do you? Wheatabix?"

"Uh, no."

"D'you mind if I watch the telly?" He sat down behind her on the couch. The immense feeling of dread that came over her was. Weird.

She stood up and faced him. "Does Dawn actually, like, know you?"

"Yeah. You don't know who I am?" Spike -- whatever the fuck -- looked kind of hurt.

"No, sorry."

"Sod that shit. I thought all the bloody slayers knew me." He took a deep drag on her cigarette. She looked at the one in her fingers, reached over, and dropped it into her water glass. "Are you gonna eat any of this?"

"No," she said, and wanted to leave the room, but absolutely was not going to leave Spike alone.

"Hey!" he said, and reached over. "It's me!" He waved The Life and Times and Death of William the Bloody at her. "And Dru!" The Crusades of Drusilla. "She and I used to..." He stopped. "Well, nevermind then. This is digital cable -- some channel must be showing a rerun of Passions. It's real hard to get caught up on episodes in Africa -- no telly, you know."

"Of course not," said Summer, and took the first book she could grab, and sat in an armchair. The Ethros Box and How to Use It. There were a lot of pictures and diagrams and everything was spelled really poorly. She kept looking up at Spike, who was very intent on whatever it was he was watching -- definitely a soap opera of some kind, she knew that much. Boring. Soap operas could never compare to The Valley.

He had really long eyelashes and really high cheekbones, and his jeans were tucked into his scuffed and dirty boots, which he propped on a small table he'd dragged in front of the couch. He was eating her scrambled eggs with his fingers, wrapping bits into pieces of pancake. So disgusting. She shuddered and looked back down at the book, stared at it without really seeing it.

She was supposed to be hitting him. That's all she knew. There was something wrong with him that she was supposed to be fixing. She dug her fingernails into the cover of the book, held her breath, closed her eyes, counted to 7847. Nothing worked.

"Feeling it, are you?" he said, and she looked up at him.

"What?"

"Feeling it. The rage. The need to kill. They've all got it now; you're not alone." He nodded his head and she threw the book at him.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" she yelled. "What the fuck?"

"The need to slay," he said, and sounded kind of surprised. He'd dodged the book easily, like he had supernatural reflexes or some other crazy shit from one of Seth's comic books. "We're natural enemies, me and you. Just not fighting is all."

"How are we natural enemies?" she asked. "What, did you invent the koolat?"

"That ugly shorts-skirt thing? Nah. I'm a vampire. You're a slayer. You know, you want to stab me through the heart with a stake. All that rot." He settled back against the couch, turned back to the television. "Just don't, because I have a soul, and you'll end up feeling badly. That sort of thing never ends well."

Summer bit her bottom lip so hard she tasted blood. "Vampires don't exist," she said.

"Of course we do," he said. "How else would you be a slayer?" He made it sound so reasonable.

"Vampires don't exist," she repeated.

"Of. Course. We. Do." He rolled his eyes. "Be quiet, the commercials are over."