"He thought I was a wraith," she says suddenly, her thoughts having taken another sharp turn down a different path. "The marine, Tony Adams. When I touched him, that was the last thought in his head."

She looks down at her lap then, turning her right hand up as if she could see through the glove to the feeding slit that wasn't there. "He was so scared, it was the only thing that made sense for why it hurt so much." She wasn't a wraith. She wasn't. She didn't feed on people like that. But his fear and that single thought had still torn through her heart like a knife.