I sat up so fast I almost head-butted Luke. His cat-quick reflexes saved him, but he just about fell off the bed in the process.

I stared at him, nervousness making my heart pound. Ava was here? Why? When I'd walked away from the team, I'd offered her the chance to build a relationship with me. Since I hadn't heard from her since then, I assumed she'd rejected that chance.

Straightening my clothing, I climbed off the bed and went to open the door. Luke tugged his own shirt straight and sat on the edge of the bed, the picture of innocence.

Elena stood on the other side of the door, her face unusually serious. Unease flickered through her eyes. None of us knew where Ava currently stood on the vampire hunting issue, which meant she was a potential threat. A potential threat inside our house.

"Do you want to see her?" Elena asked, her voice so soft only I could hear it.

I knew then that if I said no, Elena wouldn't question me or try and persuade me. She'd simply go back downstairs and tell Ava to leave. For a moment I was tempted. I could let Elena deal with Ava, and just close the door and pick up where Luke and I left off. But I had to know why Ava was here.

"I'll go and see her," I said.

Bedsprings creaked as Luke got up and came to join me. "You want me to come with you?" he said.

In so many ways Luke's presence was a source of strength and comfort for me, but this was something I needed to do myself. "Stay here," I told him.

He gave me a chaste kiss on the lips, then I headed downstairs to confront my mother.

Ava was standing outside the front door, apparently too uncomfortable to come inside. Her face brightened when she saw me, but she didn't make any move forward.

"What are you doing out here?" I asked. It wouldn't be long before autumn gave way to winter, and the evenings had taken on a distinctly chilly quality. Clad only in jeans and a thin jacket, Ava had to be freezing. Wind tugged strands of her hair across her face, but she made no move to swipe them away.

"I just...I wanted to see you," she said.

Questions raced through my mind. Why now? What did she want? Why hadn't she made any effort during the last month? In the end I settled for, "How did you find me?"

Ava had my number, but I'd never told her where I lived. I simply didn't trust her not to tell Noah, and there was no way I wanted him knowing.

Ava looked at the ground, suddenly awkward. "I followed you," she admitted. "I've been pacing up and down outside ever since, trying to pluck up the courage to knock on the door."

I felt like kicking myself. How could I not have known she was following me? When Madeleine's rogues had attacked me in the woods one night, I'd known they were there before they struck. I might not hunt any more, but years of training were still sunk deep into my psyche. I should have been aware that I was being followed. But maybe I was being too hard on myself. Ava had been hunting a lot longer than I had, so it was hardly surprising that she'd perfected the art of shadowing someone. Still, I couldn't shake my unease. If Ava could follow me home, so could Leon. I had to be more careful now there was a threat out there.

I stood to one side, so that light from the house spilled out onto the pathway. "Are you coming inside or are you just going to stand on the doorstep?"

"I didn't know about Leon," Ava said, ignoring my question. "I need you to know that, Kiara. I didn't even know that he existed, let alone what your father told him."

"Don't call him that," I said at once.

Confusion wrinkled the skin on Ava's forehead. "I'm sorry?"

"Noah. Don't call him my father. He hasn't earned that right." Bitterness coated my words. I could have coped with Noah hating me. I could have coped with him never wanting to see me again. But I didn't know if I could cope with knowing that he might actually want me dead.

Ava visibly swallowed, her eyes shifting away from me. "He shouldn't have done it."

"I don't need you to tell me that." Anger forced the words out of me.

Pain flickered across Ava's face. I felt guilty that my words had hurt her, then immediately angry with myself for the guilt. Ava had had weeks to reach out to me and she hadn't. She could have stuck up for me today and she hadn't. She hadn't even bothered to come after me to make sure I was okay. Why should I feel guilty for upsetting her when she'd never taken my feelings into consideration?

I sighed and put a hand on my hip. "Why are you here, Ava?" I wanted to be happy that she was, but all I could find room for was irritation.

"I just wanted to see you." Ava's shoulders slumped, her head leaning forward so her hair fell across her face. All my life she'd been coldly confident, and seeing her like this was unsettling. I'd assumed that my leaving the team hadn't had any effect on her. Maybe I was wrong.

My voice softened. "Why did you wait until now?"

Ava met my gaze. There was something swirling in her eyes - guilt, anger, sadness, confusion. I couldn't begin to guess what was going through her mind.

Wind whistled through the tree-tops, and a shiver rolled through Ava's body. I hesitated then stepped to one side again, opening the doorway to her. "Do you want to come inside?"

Ava looked past me, through the doorway and into the house. A shadow passed across her face, the uncertainty I'd glimpsed hardening back into the stoic mask I knew so well. Realisation was ice water trickling down my spine. She'd come here to see me, but she wouldn't set foot inside the house I lived in because it was also inhabited by vampires.

Another gust of wind tangled cold fingers in my hair and I shivered. Folding my arms, I fixed my mother with a hard stare. "I'm not standing out here, Ava. If you want to talk to me then come inside my home."

Her eyes darted past me, narrowing in suspicion as they peered through the doorway. "I'm sorry, Kiara, but I just can't do that."

I'd guessed she was going to say it, but anger and disgust still rose inside me. When I saw her standing outside, I'd stupidly hoped that she might have found it in her heart to put her prejudices aside and try to reach out to me - mother to daughter. I really should have known better.

When I spoke again, my voice was cold. "Either you talk to me inside or you don't talk to me at all."

Ava's silence said it all. Maybe she did care for me in some small way, but she cared about hating vampires more. And if she couldn't get over that, there was no room for her in my life.

I shut the door in her face.

I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. Anger at Noah, disappointment in Ava, confusion towards Clara, and a deep-rooted unease regarding Leon formed a cocktail of emotion that jittered through my body, and kept me tossing and turning.

Eventually, I gave up. I didn't know what time it was - every room in the house was fitted with thick black curtains to keep the sun out - but my body clock suggested it was early morning. Climbing out of bed, I nudged the curtains aside and peeked out.

The sun hadn't fully risen and the street was bathed in pale grey light. A shaft of it drifted past me, cutting a thin line on the floor. Idly I wondered if this was another reason Samuel and Elena didn't allow me to share a room with Luke. I was human and it wasn't exactly unusual for humans to open their curtains in the morning. Luke couldn't afford that kind of slip-up. I entertained that thought for about a second before dismissing it. I would never be stupid enough to put Luke in that kind of danger, and Samuel and Elena both knew it.

I stared out at the morning world and wished Luke could share it with me. Many times I'd fantasised about waking up next to him - curled side by side in a swanky hotel room in some foreign country, or snuggled together in a hammock on a tropical beach, watching the sun rise over the horizon. Other couples did that. Luke and I never would. There were many things other couples took for granted that Luke and I could never do, and I felt a brief pang in my heart for that.

I turned away from the window. Exhaustion fuzzed the edges of my mind, but I knew I wouldn't sleep even if I went back to bed. I needed coffee. There was a time when the only thing to drink in this house were the bags of animal blood that Luke and his family lived on. That all changed the day I moved in. Now the kitchen cabinets boasted a jar of coffee grounds, as well as some basic human food staples such as bread and pasta. I even had my own kettle, sitting on top of the fridge.

As I filled it with water, I was reminded again how very lucky I was to have Samuel and Elena in my life. They'd welcomed me into their home and provided me everything I needed to make me comfortable. Not everyone would have been so accommodating.

While the kettle boiled, I paced the darkened kitchen, mulling over the new obstacle that life had thrown at me. A naive, idealistic part of me had hoped that my moving in with Luke and his family was our equivalent of skipping into the sunset together. No more hunters, no more fighting, no more stress and worry, just me and Luke and our life together.

Something caught my eye. The corridor that led to the front door was in darkness, but something small and white was lying on the floor. Suspicion reared up. It was far too early for the postman which meant someone had hand-delivered a note. Other girls might not have thought much of this, but other girls didn't have a past tangled up with vampire hunters, killing, and blood.

I picked up the note and unfolded it. Ava's neat handwriting stared up at me from the paper. "Kiara," I read the note out-loud, "I must apologise for my awkwardness last night. I don't want to drive a wedge between us" - a bit late for that, I couldn't help thinking - "but please understand that this is very difficult for me. I really am trying, Kiara. If you feel you can give me a second chance, please meet me in the Waffle House. I'll be there from three. Love, Ava."

Questions churned through my mind. After shutting the door in Ava's face yesterday, I'd expected that that would be the last I saw of her. She'd go back to the team's house and never think of me again. How was it that every time I thought I knew her, every time I thought I knew what she'd do, I was wrong? Discovering that vampires weren't the bloodthirsty monsters I'd always thought they were wasn't the only thing that had rocked my world on its axis.

I opened the front door and peeked out, half-expecting Ava to still be pacing the street outside. But the only thing there was a dead rat lying on the doorstep.

"Charming," I muttered, glaring around the neighbourhood in case the culprit cat was still skulking nearby. Weren't cats supposed to bring dead animals to their owners, not dump them on other people's doorsteps?

Sighing, I kicked the rat into the bushes that fringed the house, and went back inside, shutting the door behind me. I crumpled the note into a ball, no longer sure what to think. I wanted to stick to the conviction that Ava had had her chance, and had blown it last night when she refused to come inside. But I couldn't forget the way she'd railed at Noah on the night the team discovered my relationship with Luke. That was the night I realised that somewhere inside her, buried deep down among her hatred and anger, my mother might actually love me. If she was doing her best to reach out to me and I outright rejected her, did that make me any better than her? I didn't know.

I wanted to go upstairs, creep into Luke's bedroom, and slide under the covers with him. I wanted to tell him all the doubt and confusion that was clogging up my brain, and lie there with him as we worked out a solution together. But I also didn't want to wake him. Some hunters believed that vampires couldn't be awake during the day, but they were wrong. Vampires could wake whenever they liked - they just couldn't go outside in the daytime. But they still got tired, same as everyone else on the planet, and they still needed sleep.

Besides, there was someone else I could talk to, and I could always count on her to be honest.