A/N: I'm new to the whole writing fanfiction thing, so go easy on me!

Disclaimer: Although I really wish I did, I do not own the Evernight books, characters, etc. That's not my territory... unfortunately _

Lucas is dead.

Though I knew the hard facts – he'd been bitten and drained by a vampire, died, and because I'd bitten him multiple times already, was now destined to become a vampire – I still couldn't process the emotions.

I held his head, with his messy golden hair and now-cold skin, carefully in my lap. Tears silently ran down my face, while strands of dark red hair fell forward from behind my ears, blocking my view of Lucas.

"Bianca?" That was Ranulf, my centuries-old vampire friend, beckoning me to step away from Lucas. I couldn't bring myself to call him a corpse, even though I myself was a wraith, my own corpse beginning to rot in the dirt.

God, that's a hard thought to get used to.

Not only was Lucas dead and in my lap, about to arise from said state to become the very thing that Black Cross had trained him his whole life to destroy, but I wasn't even a real person. I had died earlier that same day. I was materialized only by a beautiful silver and coral bracelet that Lucas had given me for my eighteenth birthday, just days before our deaths. According to my not-entirely-friendly wraith "guide to life as a ghost", Maxie, because of the fact that I'm a "pure wraith," meaning that I was given a spirit by wraiths so that my vampire parents could have a child, I can have a real body easily. All I need for this to happen is something I was attached to when I was alive, and it just so happened that because coral was once living as well, it made the magic, or whatever it was that made my bracelet work, stronger.

So, technically, I'm real, since I can talk, cry, hit things, and do pretty much anything like a normal human or vampire, but I'm neither alive nor a part of the walking dead.

Just peachy.

"We have great need to move the body, er… Lucas… to a place of significance; somewhere he is familiar with and comfortable in." It was Ranulf who spoke again, trying to explain something. I looked at him, confused. "He will be more tolerable if he awakens as a vampire in a familiar surrounding," Ranulf explained. "If not, he shall be terribly unruly for some time, and may attack any and all persons around."

Especially with his hatred of the idea of being a vampire, I thought miserably.

I was still numb from the thought of Lucas being, well, dead; however, moving him sounded reasonable. I slowly nodded in agreement. "Okay," I answered shakily. "Vic? Can we go back to your place with im?"

Vic was still kneeling beside Lucas, his eyes red with tears. He looked up, as falsely perky as one can be after the death of his best friend. "Yeah, sure," he murmured feebly, getting up slowly from Lucas' side. "My parent's won't be back from Tuscany for at least another month."

I looked back, standing up with Vic. Balthazar and Ranulf stood by the door, not knowing what to do. I pointed at them both, then at Lucas, signaling them to carry him. Both were vampires, and quite old at that, which meant they were very powerful. Although Balthazar was much younger, he made up for it in sheer size.

I blamed Balthazar for Lucas' death. I would continue to do so, no matter how many times he apologized. He had gotten the two of them exposed to Charity's tribe! He had insisted on going to talk to her, even when he knew that neither of them was in shape to fight a tribe of hostile vampires! He'd been selfish and foolish to go find his power-hungry, whiny, and powerful little sister's tribe, and to drag Lucas along to his death made it worse.

After taking a few minutes to maneouver Lucas carefully throughout the abandoned Philidalphea movie theatre, we all piled into Vic's car. Ranulf and I sat in the back, Lucas resting across us, while Vic took the wheel and Balthazar the passenger seat. We started on our way back to Vic's enormous home and the temporary cellar home he'd given to Lucas and I. The ride was silent, as we were all preparing for what was to come.