***Some Months later***
The breeze whispered around her, its touch furnace hot. Sweat beaded her skin, staining her T-shirt black and dripping from her ponytail.
Around her, the night pulsed a bass-heavy rhythm that made her want to dance. The air was rich with the scent of sweat, alcohol, and chlorine.
Shirley stood in the shadows of oak and sipped a lukewarm soda. Below her, on the main pool deck, bodies writhed in time to the music, unmindful of the heat or the closeness of others.
They had to be mad. If she'd had any choice, she would have been in the pool, allowing the cool water to wash the heat and sweat from her skin.
Instead, she was stuck here in the shadows with a lukewarm cola, awaiting the next move of a wayward teenager.
It was an all too familiar feeling. Six months before, she'd followed another teenager through the night, and had found herself caught in the middle of a war between two vampires.
