Her ass buried in the sand, she must’ve strummed for hours, because her fingers were coated red the next time she glanced down to adjust. Playing through the pain had become more tolerable as a vampire. Doing anything agonizing had made existing through the past week much simpler. She picked fights with those she knew would beat her. She challenged her parents, breaking her heart and theirs. There wasn’t much she wouldn’t do to rain on anyone’s parade harder than the cloud above her poured day in and out. Her body would heal, but that was the only thing that could.

She’d seen him across the sand. Precisely, she’d heard the click of a camera long before he’d come into sight, but there he was now. And though it seemed the horizon might’ve been the target of his viewfinder, Dusty took his presence personally and made her annoyance known. She stepped in front of the camera the second he’d ducked in to, presumably, capture something magical. He was left with a vexed vampire, if she even appeared. She still wasn’t sure the semantics on photographs. Mirrors worked just fine.

“Just won’t fuck off when you tell him, huh?”