The dream wasn't as much of a dream as it was a collage: flashes of images, some calming, some terrifying. I was little, not more than four years old, my legs short and stubby, my head shaved. A long, cold hallway stretched before me, all white and nothing else. The lights were flickering, flickering, flickering again, dark and then light. I was afraid.

I didn't know where my family was. I didn't know how to get home. I didn't know what was home.

The lights went dark, then came up again, and I swallowed back a scream. Blood stained the walls and the floors—everything that was once white was now dripping red. My feet sped, and I hit the ground running, not sure where I was going, just that I couldn't stay here.

I could see the door, the light beyond it, the outside I so desperately wanted to taste.

A hand caught my arm in an iron grip.

The man yanked me towards him—two eyes, ice cold blue, stared back at me. I didn't know anything, just that I'd never felt so frightened.

"Why are you running?" he asked. "You act like you're the victim."

I wanted to answer, but I couldn't. The red all around us had already bled into me, washing everything away.

I woke in a cold sweat, the sheets stuck to me, the room an eerie quiet. I had to repeat to myself that it had been a dream, it had been a dream, it had all been a dream, a few times before my heart rate returned to normal. Even then, I was still shivering.

My bleary eyes watched the blades of the ceiling fan spin above my head, ambiguous shadows in the twilight. Frowning, I blinked the images away: the crimson walls, colliding so violently with those frigid blue eyes. I realized all of a sudden whose they were—Mr. Jardetzky's.

Groaning, I used whatever energy I had left to toss the sheets off of me, ambling over to my window seat and collapsing on it. My head back against the wall, I fumbled around for my phone, the screen a harsh bright to my non-adjusted eyes.

I hesitated for a moment, wondering if this was a rash decision.

But it was only a moment—another glance around at the darkness of my room, the silhouettes my paper clip soldiers had become, another image of the odd dream, another thought about how much I needed to at least hear her voice, and I was convinced.

I scrolled through my phone logs until I found Cal's number, and dialed it.

It was only two rings before she picked up. "Oh, Theo, I was just thinking about you."

It hadn't been anything like what I'd been expecting her to say, but I had the feeling Cal had never lived by other people's expectations. "You were?"

"Yeah," Cal said into the other end. I could hear the smile in her voice, and slowly, the apprehensive feeling that the dream had forced into me faded away. "I was thinking: 'I wonder if he's asleep. If not, I wonder why he's not asleep.'"

I thought about telling her the real reason, but before I could say anything at all, she had continued speaking. Her tone, now, sounded thoughtful, her words stringing together in some sort of odd, drunken poetry. "And then I remembered what I told you that time: that you and I aren't that different at all. You and I, Theo—we're children of the night itself. We were born with the stars in our lungs. So of course you're not asleep."

"Wouldn't having stars in my lungs be a bit toxic?"

"You are missing the point."

"I'm just saying. They're flaming balls of gas and dust. That's the last thing I would want—"

"Theo, tell me why you called me."

I paused, letting my gaze drift out the window, at the shadows of tree limbs, at the waxing moon above it, on its way to fullness yet again. A sense of longing twitched within me, but I ignored it, just like I always did. It felt like ignoring was the only way to survive like this.

"Cal, I...need to see you."

There was a moment of silence that made me feel as though I'd said the wrong thing, somehow. Like it wasn't the answer Cal had been searching for. "I'm on Richie duty. I can't really leave him right now, or he'll eat someone."

I scoffed. "He can eat me if he really needs to. As long as I get to see you. Please?"

Cal laughed. "Now who's the crazy one?"

"Is this your way of saying yes?" I asked her, crossing my fingers. I just needed to be away for a moment. Away from my bedroom, away from this house, away from the woods. I needed to be away from everything that was not Calliope Marinos.

"Richie and I will be at Denny's in ten minutes. We'll be waiting for you."

It was beginning to become obvious that Cal was as efficient at finding alternate universes as I was. It wasn't the grocery store or Smith's bookshop, but rather a quite ordinary diner that became something extraordinary when the sun went down. Maybe this was because only two of the many tables and booths were filled, or because the chefs and waiters all looked like they'd rather be at home watching television, or because an atmospheric 80s slow jam was ringing through the speakers. Maybe it was even because at least eighty percent of the customers present, if not more, were not even human.

I had the feeling, however, that even if we weren't here, this place would still be oddly beautiful.

Cal and Richie were lounging in the corner booth, which was clearly made for three times as many people than who were sitting in it. Cal had her face buried in a menu, but Richie had his flat against the table, looking both disgusted and bored. Strangely enough, the kid was in a dress shirt and slacks. This was yet another reason why this Denny's was one of the weirdest places on Earth.

Richie rolled his eyes and tapped Cal's shoulder. Before I arrived at the table, I heard him whisper, "Your pet's here."

Cal put her menu down, looking up at me with a smile. I half-expected her to correct her little friend that I was not anyone's pet, but she didn't, so I gave up. "You're just in time. I was debating between waffles and pancakes. What's your standpoint?"

Cal scooted over, despite the fact that there was enough space that she didn't need to. Drawing my legs up in my seat, I gave a shrug. "Well, technically speaking, a waffle's just a pancake with abs. They're practically the same—"

"They're both revolting and they'll make you fat," commented Richie with a huff, raking an impatient hand through the brown strands of his already mussed hair. He shot Cal a dagger glare. "I can't believe you brought me here. You could have left me in your apartment."

"I couldn't have," Cal said, reaching to ruffle Richie's hair. "I love you, but you have no self control. You would have eaten my neighbors."

"I would not—" Richie began, then seemed to think better of it, and fell off into silence. I once again had to remind myself that the kid I was looking at was not a kid at all, but over a century old. This was supposed to make me feel better about the subject of him eating people. It did not.

I sighed, and pointed to a dish on Cal's menu. "Get waffles," I told her, then sat back, unable to fight a yawn. "Thanks for doing this, by the way. I know it's an inconvenience."

She frowned at me in silence for a moment, as if waiting for me to go on. When I didn't, her hand slid into mine underneath the table, discreet enough for Richie not to see. "You're never an inconvenience," she replied simply. "Is something up? You seemed—I don't know—distressed when you called me."

Her fingers still entwined with mine, she lifted her free hand to wave a waiter over. As she ordered a plate of waffles for herself and coffee for the three of us, I couldn't help but observe the outline of her face: the gentle slope of her nose, the curve of her pink lips, the cloud-like curls pushed back behind a bejeweled ear. Her skin, even in the dim lights of the restaurant, was a glowing milky brown, her eyes the color of mahogany.

It continued to confuse me, how she could look so...not dead.

She turned her head then, and my gaze shot towards the floor. "Theo?" she said.

"I think there's something...weird happening," I murmured after a beat, my brows furrowing. I wasn't sure where I was going with this. I hadn't been sure when I'd picked up the phone. But now that I was already talking, now that both Cal and Richie were staring at me, I had no escape.

Under the table, Cal's grip tightened. There was hope ever present in her tone. "Weird good or weird bad? Like maybe...maybe you felt the wolf in you, or—"

I shook my head. "No. It's more weird bad, I think."

"Oh," Cal responded, sounding a bit dismayed. "This is why you called me, isn't it?"

I shivered.

"I had a dream. It might have been a nightmare. I don't know. But I...I was a kid again, and I was running away. I don't know what from. The halls were all white, like in a hospital. Then all of a sudden, they were all red, all dripping with blood—"

"Sounds delectable."

Cal turned an exasperated look towards her son, thumping him in the head with her fingers. "Richard Alistair Crowell, if you don't shut your pie hole, I am going to shove garlic in it."

Richie went quite green, the first sign of weakness I'd ever seen him show. He shut up.

I swallowed, going on. "I was getting more afraid, and then someone grabbed me. The only thing I remember is his eyes—they were light blue, like ice. He asked me why I was running, said I was acting like I was the victim. Then I woke up."

The two vampires both blinked at me in silence.

"That's not it," I went on. I told them about Reese and the books in his basement. I told them about Mr. Jardetzky and his non stop questions, about his silver ring, about the eyes that were so similar to the ones I'd dreamed of. As the story unfolded, my nerves were more and more on edge, my hands trembling. It all sounded even worse, now that I was telling someone else.

All of us dropped off into silence as the waiter swung by, dropping off Cal's steaming plate of waffles, and our individual mugs of coffee.

To everyone's surprise, Richie was the first one to comment after I was done. He took a sip of his coffee first, scowling at it before he spoke. "I say you just kill Jardetzky. He knows too much about too much."

I rolled my eyes. "We're not doing that. Reese will never talk to me again if I kill his dad."

"But if he's going to kill you," Richie countered, his gray-blue eyes narrowing, "then it's either you or him, furball. So."

"Richie, please," Cal muttered. She had her fingers pressed to her temples, her eyes squeezed shut. "I am trying to think."

I leaned my cheek into my palm. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking there has to be someone we can go to about this. Someone who might have information about you, about why this old guy might be interested in you, someone who knows something you don't..." Cal trailed off, her eyes suddenly going wide. She grabbed my wrist, and I yelped, her grip inhumanly strong. "Your family, Theo!"

"My family? Cal, no—"

"You've got to let me meet them. You have to. I can talk to them; we can talk to them. Who knows? What if they've met Jardetzky before? They've been in this werewolf business a while, haven't they?" Cal babbled, before I could stop her. Her fingers were still locked on my wrist; no matter how hard I tried to wriggle free, I couldn't seem to escape.

"Did you forget that my sister," I began slowly, "is the one who ripped up your cell phone number? My family wants nothing to do with you. This is a bad idea. It's not like you're going to learn anything. My parents, my siblings, they tell me everything. Something tells me if they encountered a psycho werewolf-hunting human, they would have told me by now."

"Do you know them that well?" Cal asked, her tone sobering. I watched the frown at her lips deepen, her eyebrows pulling in. The surrounding quiet seemed to grow quieter still. "Do you really know them, Theo? I mean, think about it. Richie thought he knew his uncle. I thought I knew Ethan. The people closest to you are the ones you know the least—"

I tore her wrist from my grip, getting to my feet. The salt shaker teetered and fell over with a clank, Cal looking stunned, Richie with a twisted smile on his face. "My family is all I have. I'm sorry that yours betrayed you, but you can't talk me in to turning my back on mine."

"No one's talking you in to anything," Cal replied, folding her arms. "I'm just asking you to open your eyes a little."

My hands had curled into fists at my sides, and I let out a long breath, turning away from her. I hadn't felt so frustrated in a long while. What was the most frustrating was that a big part of me wanted to believe that she was right.

"My eyes," I said, my voice a low whisper, "are always open."

I wasn't looking at her, but heard the concern in Cal's voice. "Theo..."

"Your waffles are getting cold," I muttered.

 And no one stopped me when I walked out.