“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Hey, it got the rabids off our backs, didn’t it?” Jackal’s grin was insufferably smug as he stepped to the edge of the tower.

“I would think you’d be grateful, puppy. Kill some rabids, burn down a church—I don’t see a downside here, do you?”

And he leaped to the branches before Zeke could respond.

Zeke snarled at him, fangs bared, but he jumped off the roof as well, landing beside me on the narrow limb.

“Come,” Kanin murmured when we had all converged in the tree. Below us, the rabids had all but fled, slipping back into the ravaged city, while smoke trickled out of the bell tower and the first tiny flames began to flicker through the windows. “We’ll take the rooftops as far as we can,” Kanin went on, nodding to the edge of an apartment building beyond the fence. From here, it would be quite the jump, but we could make it. “Hopefully we can circumvent the rabids and any other surprises Sarren has left us by avoiding the streets. Let’s go.”

He turned and walked gracefully down the narrow branch, as easily as he would the sidewalk. Jackal pushed himself off the trunk and started to follow, but Zeke paused, casting one final glance at the doomed church, a flicker of sorrow and guilt crossing his face. I reached out, gently brushing his arm, and he turned back with a pained smile.

“Sorry.” He drew back, turning away from the church, though his face was still dark. “Just…memories. I spent a lot of time in that building after we came here, praying for guidance, asking where I should go next. It’s also one of the few places where I got to see Caleb and Bethany and the others.

They’d attend Sunday morning service, and sometimes their parents would invite me home, just for the afternoon. All the other days, I’d be so busy at the lab, working with the scientists, I didn’t see much of them at all.” He sighed, glancing back once more, watching the flames flicker through the tower windows. “Lots of memories there. It’s hard to see it all burn.”

“It’s just a building, Zeke. It can be rebuilt.”

“Yeah.” Zeke nodded and turned away. “You’re right. It’s just a building.” His voice grew stronger, more determined.

“Eden can be rebuilt. We can start over. We just have to make sure there is a new beginning to look forward to.”

We came to the end of the branch, Kanin’s and Jackal’s dark silhouettes waiting for us on the nearby roof. Zeke went first, leaping into the air, farther than any human could hope to accomplish, landing easily on the other side. I gathered myself and followed, my coat flapping behind me, feeling a momentary thrill as my body propelled itself through open space and hit the edge with room to spare.

Kanin took the lead again, and we moved quietly over the rooftops of Eden, heading toward the huge billowing smokestacks in the distance. I walked next to Zeke, watching him from the corner of my eye. His expression was grim and determined, but composed. Given the state of his home and all the horrors he’d seen and been through, I thought that was pretty remarkable. I hoped it wasn’t just a stoic front, a serene mask like the one Kanin wore all the time, and in reality he was about to fall apart. His city, his home, was in shambles, and everything he knew had been turned on its head. I knew what that was like, all too well.

Walking closer, I gently brushed his arm. “You okay?” I murmured.

He nodded once. “Trying not to think about it,” he said.

“About…them. About everyone. Mostly Caleb and Bethany, and how they used to sit next to me in church and tell me everything their goats did that week. And…I just failed spectacularly, didn’t I?” He gave a humorless chuckle and hung his head, running his fingers through his hair. “They’re the last ones, Allie,” he said, his voice pained as he raised his head.

“They can’t be gone.”

It was hard to think anything could still be alive out here.

It was foolish to hope, and to offer hope, when reality was dark and cruel and didn’t care about human attachments, or emotions, or what was right. I had dared to hope before, and it had nearly killed me. It went against everything Allie the Fringer believed; nothing lasted in the world, and the only way to survive was not to care, about anything.

But Allie the Fringer was dead. And Allison the vampire had a family now. A strange, undead, sometimes infuriating family, but she was no longer alone. She had lost the human boy she loved, only to find him again, back from the dead.

And, somehow, though he’d sworn that he would rather die than become a vampire, he was still here, walking right beside her.

So…maybe it was okay to hope, to trust that things could work out. Maybe…maybe that was what had kept me human all this time, that faith that I could be more than a monster.

When I lost that hope—that was when the monster won.

I shook myself. Epiphanies aside, I could not let myself be distracted. And I couldn’t let Zeke be distracted, either. If there was hope for a future, for all of us, we had to stop Sarren, before he destroyed all hope, forever.

“They’re tough,” I told Zeke. “Those little kids followed you all the way to Eden, through rabids and wild animals and the psycho raider king himself. If they’re alive, we’ll find them.”

“But Sarren comes first,” Zeke finished, nodding gravely.

“I know.” Meeting my gaze, he offered a grim smile. “Don’t worry about me, Allison. I have my priorities straight. I know what we have to do.” He paused, then added in a very soft voice, “But you have to be ready to do the same.”

I frowned at him, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Hey, puppy.” Jackal’s voice echoed over the rooftops, interrupting us. He and Kanin stood at the edge of the roof, looking back at us. In the distance, wisps of smoke writhed into the air from a much closer power plant. Jackal’s eyes glowed yellow, and he crossed his arms with a smirk in Zeke’s direction. “When you’re done making goo-goo eyes at my sister, why don’t you step on over here and show us where we’re supposed to go?”

Zeke gave me an apologetic look and moved forward, joining Kanin and Jackal at the edge of the rooftops. I followed, peering down from our perch, curious as to what lay below.

Several yards from where we stood, the crowded apartments ended, and a chain-link fence separated the buildings from a large, flat field. Across the open lot, surrounded by another fence, the power plant glimmered like a metal castle, wreathed in billowing smoke. Smaller buildings surrounded it, long and white, and Zeke pointed to one on the very corner, engulfed in the shadow of the plant.

“There,” he said, his voice grim. “That’s the laboratory.”

Where Sarren will be, I added to myself, feeling a chill crawl up my spine. Waiting for us. I swallowed as the realization hit hard: this was it. We were going in to face the terrifying, brilliantly insane vampire who wanted to destroy the world. No telling what we would find when we went in, but it would probably be awful, dangerous and as horrifying as Sarren’s twisted brain would allow. I hope you’re ready, Al ie. The last time you went down into his lair, one of you didn’t come out.

Kanin, standing motionless at the edge of the roof, observed the lab with impassive black eyes and nodded once.