Gio's Pizzeria always smelled like burnt pepperoni, but not because the chefs didn't know how to make pepperoni. I had yet to figure it out, really, but my guess was that one burnt pizza had cursed the place with the scent forever. Scents lingered like that.

I did not exactly like my job there. I was a delivery guy, and sometimes the hours were ridiculous, and people were always cranky and I rarely got tips. Not to mention my car always smelled like pizza.

I'd only gotten a job here because it paid more than I thought, and because Dad had pressured me, both because he thought I wasn't becoming an adult fast enough and because he and the pizza place shared the same name. For some reason he thought that was the coolest thing ever.

As soon as I got in for my evening shift, the manager—a guy whose name was, miraculously, not Gio—gave me my route for the night. I loaded the car full of pizzas from plain cheese to the strange sort with pineapple and sausage, then started it up and hit the road.

The sun set as I drove from house to house, weaving all through the suburbia, delivering to at least five different soccer moms, a quite possibly drunk guy in a wifebeater, and a girl living in her house by herself that was probably a twenty-something but looked twelve. By the time I'd reached my last delivery, I was exhausted, my eyes bleary from watching the road, my fake smile beginning to wear off. This person was going to get the worst of me.

The car chirped as I locked it. Gripping the delivery bag and straightening my hat, I strode towards the apartment complex's entrance. It was dark by now, and the place looked eerie and quiet, bathed in shadow with the exception of the few street lights outside the lobby door. Moths and gnats flitted around the bulbs, clinging to their warmth. I swallowed down any discomfort, glancing back down again at the apartment number: 32A.

A woman's voice buzzed me up; I entered the staircase, which smelled strongly of rubber and possibly some rotten food. Last one tonight, I reminded myself. I could manage one more smile. Pizza was a happy food. I had to be happy delivering it, even if all I wanted to do was take a nap.

At 32A, I knocked. The door opened almost immediately. "Delivery from Gio's...oh. Hello again."

I kid you not, Cal stood there.

She was in pajama pants and a tank top, but she seemed just as bright, her eyes alive and observant, the grin that spread across her face joyously intrigued. Dropping her eyes to the floor as she secured her hair in a ponytail, she sighed. "Goodness, this is awkward. I didn't coin you as a delivery guy."

"I didn't coin you as the type of person who craves pizza late at night."

At that, she looked up in alarm. "Who doesn't?"

This was true, I suppose. I held out her pizza to her. "Well, here it is, anyway—"

"You didn't call me."

"Well, I mean, it hasn't been all that long. I was going to—"

"I'm not stupid, Theo," Cal replied. She leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms across her chest. She stared at me for a moment, her eyes questioning, then gave a shrug and said, "Come in."

I was so startled by that invitation that I was a blubbering mess for several moments. "I-I can't. I have to report back to the pizzeria, you know—"

"Like you want to? Just come in, Theo. Eat pizza with me. I'll take care of your job situation," Cal said with another shrug, as if abandoning their shift was the sort of thing people did all the time, without consequence. She reached out, gripping my wrist, holding my gaze. "Besides. This personal question bargain we had...I'd like to extend it."

"You're still paying for the pizza," I said, "but fine. I suppose I'll enter your lair."

She gave a pleasant nod of approval, stepping aside in the doorframe to let me by. I came into the living room, a relatively small square of space with a beige couch and fifty-inch television, the rug between the two of them fuzzy and white enough that it could have been one of those creepy skinned polar bears. I didn't think I wanted to know. The walls were a pleasant light blue, accented with a plethora of paintings, and a broad tapestry near the kitchen. A narrow hallway, likely leading to the bedroom, branched off the space.

I set Cal's pizza down on her kitchen island—polished stainless steel—and eased myself into a barstool.

She leaned against the back of the couch, watching me for a moment. Only when I began to become squirmy did she say, "You know, you keep showing up at the most inconvenient times."

"How's that?"

"I agreed to a blind date, so I could find prey. I ordered pizza, so I could find prey. Do you see what I'm getting at here? Every time I'm craving a clueless human, you show up," Cal elaborated, and I just nodded, trying to act like the practice of eating people was a mundane dinner party topic (which, if it is, said dinner party should be vacated immediately). "No matter how many pizzas I consume," Cal went on, "it's not as satisfying as blood."

It dawned on me that had anyone else been sent, Cal would have devoured them. This made the blush at my cheeks evaporate. "That's not creepy at all."

"You come from a family of people who literally change into dogs and chase each other around on full moons. Don't tell me what's creepy."

"One, we're not dogs, and two, I've never actually done that myself, so you can't use that against me," I shot back, making a displeased noise in my throat. Cal just rolled her eyes, pushing away from the couch and taking a seat at her island, beside me. She was closer to me than she ever had been, her mahogany eyes scrutinizing me, her milky brown skin shimmering underneath the overhead light fixtures.

She reached out, removed the hat I was forced to wear as part of my uniform. "So, Theo. Rapid fire. Ready?"

It took me a second to understand what she was saying, but it was just that: a second. "Ready. You first."

"Does your family treat you any differently since you can't change?"

"If ceaseless fussing counts, yes. Do you have a reflection?"

"You think I can make myself look this flawless without a reflection? Hell, yeah, I have a reflection. Just how many methods has your family tried to unleash the wolf in you?"

"Fifty, at least. How come you can eat stuff besides blood?"

"Blood's like water. You need it to survive but you need other supplements with it. What actually happened to the number I gave you?"

I paused. "My sister ripped it up."

At the stunned expression on Cal's face, I winced. That had been the one question I was dreading. She squinted, blinked, squinted, blinked again. "Your sister...ripped it up. Why?"

"Look—i-it was right after the change, you know, so my family's senses were all jacked up. My brother kind of...picked up your scent on the paper."

Cal's expression was on the border of amused and perplexed. She raised an eyebrow, cocking her head a little. "What do I smell like?"

"A vampire."

"What do vampires smell like?"

"Death," I answered, then, after considering for a moment, added, "and a hint of destruction, with a sweet note of eternity."

Cal's expression settled to just amused. "Are you being sarcastic?"

"If you have to ask, then probably not," I said. Her gaze was burning into me; I lowered my head, watching the floor. I wondered how I'd gotten here—in a vampire's apartment, sitting beside said vampire, carrying a casual conversation. If Nell found out about this...no. Nell couldn't know. I wasn't sure if anyone could.

"You said it was after the change that their senses were, quote, 'jacked up,'" Cal said all of a sudden. I looked up, examining her face: the tiny smile on her face, upturned at one side, the pitch black eyelashes stroking up towards the sky, the light caught in her gold-rimmed eyes. Then I realized I was staring, so I coughed and urged her to finish her question. "So, like, they can't smell like that all the time?"

"They can't," I murmured. "My senses are always on alert. It's insane."

Cal frowned at me, and I saw her hand reach a little towards my leg, but she drew it back. "That's a good thing, right? It seems useful, you know."

"It seems useful, yes. And it is sometimes. Other times it's the most annoying thing ever. My brain takes in all these signals at once—loud, loud signals—and it drives me crazy," I countered. My voice lowered before I spoke next, and no matter how hard I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice, I couldn't. "It's like my whole body's anticipating a change that's never going to happen."

"Theo..."

I watched her. She watched me. It was just the two of us, plus the pizza that was getting cold, and it was at that moment that I realized the word alone had many meanings.

The alone I was used to being was far different from the alone I was now.

She reached out a hand, brushing it across my cheek. Her hands were frigid, yet the goosebumps they rose were pleasurable. "I'm sorry," she said finally, and the way her soft voice carried, the way she half-shut her eyes, I knew she truly was sorry. It was the first time someone had looked at me, and seen my predicament as something besides an advantage.

"I think there's a way," Cal told me.

"A way?"

"I think there's a way we can...make you change, Theo. I think there's a way and I think we need to find it," she said, sitting back from me. She hopped off the barstool, beginning to pace back and forth across the floor. "It's true, that in all my years—"

"Which hasn't been many," I commented with a snort.

"—and in all the werewolves I've met, I've never seen this phenomenon before," Cal observed, "but there is a first time for everything, Theo."

She kept pacing for a moment longer; it was beginning to make me anxious, so I was more than happy when she finally stilled herself. "That's why you need to tell me."

I blinked. No one had ever been this excited about helping me before, especially not a bloodsucker. "Tell you what?"

"Do you want to be able to change? This way, if we found it...how far would you go?"

I stared at her, thought about all the methods my parents had tried—and how every one of them had been a failure. How did I know this wasn't just another mistake? I'd given up. I had already given up. The wolf inside me was either a coward, too afraid to come out, or did not exist at all. I had given up.

But Cal was...different.

I said, "I'd give anything."

The broad grin across her face told me she was pleased with that answer. She came towards me again, clapping a hand on my shoulder.

 "Then you and me have yet another deal."