The first book in the New York Times bestselling young adult vampire series In a small college town in Texas, a supernatural evil lurks in the darkest shadows—one that will spill out into the bright light of day. College freshman Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation, where the popular girls never let her forget just where she ranks in the school's social scene: somewhere less than zero. And Claire really doesn't have the right connections to the influential people who run the town—and who happen to be undead. When Claire moves off-campus, the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Her new vampire roommates don't show many signs of life. But they'll have Claire's back when the town's deepest secrets come crawling out, hungry for fresh blood. "A kick-butt heroine who will appeal strongly to fans of Tanya Huff, Kelley Armstrong and Charlaine Harris." "The Weather Warden series is fun reading...more engaging than most TV." "You'll never watch the Weather Channel the same way again." -- Jim Butcher Rachel Caine is the New York Times , USA Today , #1 Wall Street Journal , and international bestselling author of more than fifty novels for adults and young adults, including the Stillhouse Lake series, the Weather Warden series, the Outcast Season series, the Revivalist series, and the Morganville Vampires series. Rachel Caine lost her fight with a rare and aggressive cancer in November of 2020. The popularity of her novels subsequent to her tragic passing is a tribute to the timelessness of her creative spirit. Erica was right about the quack shack being the logical first stop; Claire got her ankle wrapped, an ice pack, and some frowns over the forming bruises. Nothing broken, but she was going to be black-and-blue for days. The doctor asked some pro forma questions about boyfriends and stuff, but since she could truthfully say that no, her boyfriend hadn't beaten her up, he just shrugged and told her to watch her step. He wrote her an excuse note, too, and gave her some painkillers and told her to go home. No way was she going back to the dorm. Truth was, she didn't have much in the room—some books, a few photos of home, some posters… She hadn't even had a chance to call it home, and for whatever reason, she'd never really felt safe there. It had always felt like… a warehouse. A warehouse for kids who were, one way or another, going to leave. She limped over to the Quad, which was a big empty concrete space with some rickety old benches and picnic tables, cornered on all sides by squat, unappealing buildings that mostly just looked like boxes with windows. Architecture-student projects, probably. She heard a rumor that one of them had fallen down a few years back, but then, she'd also heard rumors about a janitor getting beheaded in the chem lab and haunting the building, and zombies roaming the grounds after dark, so she wasn't putting too much stock in it. It was midafternoon already, and not a lot of students were hanging around the Quad, with its lack of shade—great design, considering that the weather was still hovering up in the high nineties in September. Claire picked up a campus paper from the stand, carefully took a seat on the blazing-hot bench, and opened it to the "Housing" section. Dorm rooms were out of the question; Howard Hall and Lansdale Hall were the only two that took in girls under twenty. She wasn't old enough to qualify for the coed dorms. Stupid rules were probably written when girls wore hoopskirts, she thought, and skipped the dorm listings until she got to off campus. Not that she was really allowed to be living off campus; Mom and Dad would have a total freak-out over it, no question. But… if it was between Monica and parental freakage, she'd take the latter. After all, the important thing was to get herself someplace where she felt safe, where she could study. Right? She dug in her backpack, found her cell phone, and checked for coverage. It was kind of lame in Morganville, truthfully, out in the middle of the prairie, in the middle of Texas, which was about as middle of nowhere as it was possible to get unless you wanted to go to Mongolia or something. Two bars. Not great, but it'd do. Claire started dialing numbers. The first person told her that they'd already found somebody, and hung up before she could even say, "Thanks." The second one sounded like a weird old guy. The third one was a weird old lady. The fourth one… well, the fourth one was just plain weird. The fifth listing down read, three roomates seeking fourth, huge old house, privacy assured, reasonable rent and utilities. Which… okay, she wasn't sure that she could afford "reasonable"—she was more looking for "dirt cheap"—but at least it sounded less weird than the others. Three roommates. That meant three more people who'd maybe take up for her if Monica and company came sniffing around… or at least take up for the house. Hmmmmm. She called, and got