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“But what she did for Mark, she could do within the bounds of mortal compassion. What
she sees when she sees you is the enormity of her own loss—and the enormity of yours.
What she feels for you is tied in all ways to the interior of the life she lived—and
wanted. That life is over, boy.”

Nathan says nothing.

“And she has not yet accepted it. Seeing you here, seeing you
almost
in the flesh, seeing the boy she loved as if he had never died, she won’t accept
it. And if she can’t, then there is no hope.”

S
ILENCE.

The silence of cars, of snow against streetlamps. The impersonal sound of wind in
branches, the constant friction of leash, the rising white clouds of dog breath. Moonlight.
Stars.

Emma looked at the time; it was almost 11:30. She hadn’t lied to Michael’s mother;
Eric had brought his car. He just hadn’t driven it to Mark’s house.

“Your mother’s worried about you,” she said to Michael.

“I know.”

“Do you think you’ll be okay now?”

He exhaled and turned to her as if he’d lost ten years. She could see the echo of
Mark’s face in his. “I don’t understand people.”

“Do you understand what happened to Mark?”

Michael nodded slowly. “She didn’t mean to kill him.”

“No.”

“But he died anyway.”

“Yes.”

“He shouldn’t have died. It’s not fair.” He closed his eyes and stopped walking; Emma
stopped as well. Her hands ached, but some feeling had returned to the one that had
been Mark’s anchor. “You’re going to tell me life’s not fair.”

“I don’t have to,” she said, her voice soft. “I don’t need to tell you things you
already know.”

Michael’s nod was stiff. “There’s no justice in the natural world.” He said it without
bitterness, as if stating fact. “Justice is a human construct.”

“And humans aren’t perfect.” It was an old conversation. Old, familiar, and, tonight,
painfully true.

“But if we don’t keep trying, there’s no justice at all.” He inhaled, opened his eyes.
“Thank you for taking Mark home. Thank you for taking me with you.”

“I promised,” she said. “But if I don’t get you home, your mother’s not going to be
very happy.”

Petal nuzzled Michael’s hand, and Michael turned his attention to the dog. Emma did
as well, but the sound of Eric’s phone drew it away.

“Are you going to answer that?” Emma asked.

Eric grimaced; he was already fishing the phone out of a pocket. “I hate these things,”
he said, as he looked at the phone. His grimace froze in place. “It’s not the old
man.”

Emma froze as well. She glanced at Michael, at Petal, and then back at Eric.

He answered his phone. “Hello?” Pause. “Amy?”

At the sound of Amy’s name, Michael rose, his hand still attached to Petal’s head
as an afterthought.

“You’re where? Now?”

Emma fished her own phone out of her jacket pocket; her hands were shaking. It was
off. She’d turned the phone off before she’d entered Mark’s house. It took her four
tries to turn it on, and as she fumbled, her father appeared by her side.

“Dad—”

“I’ll go to Allison’s,” he told her, understanding the sharp edge of her sudden fear.

“Can you get there—” but he was already gone.

Michael didn’t carry a phone. His mother had tried to give him one. Or, more accurately,
three. He’d lost each and every one. Emma checked hers. There were four missed calls,
all of them from Amy.

Eric wasn’t doing a lot of speaking—but he was on the phone with Amy, and in general,
Amy did the talking when a phone was involved. “Where will you be?” Eric finally asked.

The tone of his voice made Emma want to grab the phone out of his hand.

“No, there were too many people, from the sounds of it, to be Necromancers.” Eric
sucked in air. “Yes, they’re capable of hiring people—but it doesn’t generally end
well for the people they hire. Look—you’re all right? Your family is—” He inhaled
sharply again. Emma couldn’t hear what Amy said, but she could hear Amy.

“Emma and Michael are with me. Emma just turned her phone back on. No, we weren’t
someplace where a phone would have—yes, I’ll ask her not to turn it off again until
we’re all in the same place. Have you spoken with Allison?

“Okay. Meet us at my place. We’ll head there immediately. Hello?” Apparently, Amy
had hung up.

Emma was so cold she felt like warmth would never reach her again. “What happened?”

“We need to get to the car,” Eric replied.

“We need to take Michael home.”

“We can’t.”

“We need to—”

“Phone Michael’s house,” Eric told her, his voice that little bit too tight.

“Emma?” Michael said.

Emma turned to Michael and handed him Petal’s leash. He looked at it as if it were
entirely foreign.

“Emma, what happened to Amy?” Michael’s voice was softer.

“Amy is fine,” Eric said, voice tight.

“And my mother?” Michael asked, voice rising at the end.

No
, Emma thought.
No, no, no.
“I need to go home,” she whispered.

“It won’t help. If your mother is fine—if nothing’s happened—and you go home, it probably
won’t stay that way.” Eric stared at his phone and cursed under his breath.

“Where’s Chase?” Emma all but demanded.

“Good question. He’s not answering his phone.”

“I’ll call Allison.”

“She’s not answering her phone, either. Not according to Amy.”

No
.

* * *

Emma called Michael’s house. She called before she’d planned out what she might say
if someone actually answered the phone. Michael was rigid with anxiety, and because
he was, Emma couldn’t afford to be. She almost cried with relief when his mother picked
up.

“I’m glad you called,” his mother said. “I was beginning to worry. Someone came to
the door to speak with Michael about fifteen minutes after you left.”

“Who?”

“I didn’t recognize him. He said he’s a friend of Michael’s. He left homework for
Michael. Michael’s homework,” she added. “He said he’d borrowed it. He apologized
for being so late to get it back.”

Emma wanted to tell her to burn it. Most homework was done electronically; it didn’t
need
to be returned. In person. By a stranger. She covered the mic with her hand. “Your
mother’s fine. She’s worried about you,” she added, “but you kind of expect that from
mothers.”

“Michael is not going home,” Eric said.

“Michael doesn’t exactly do sleepovers. What do you want me to tell her?”

“Whatever you need to tell her.” He turned to Michael. “Can you talk to her without
explaining too much?”

Emma knew the answer, but she looked to Michael anyway. He was less rigid than he
had been, his unvoiced visceral fear for his mother’s safety giving way to a more
common fear. Michael was not one of nature’s liars. He was practically the anti-liar.

“Are any of us going home?” she asked softly.

“No.” Eric exhaled as they reached his car. “I’m not going to kidnap you. Either of
you. You know what’s at stake. You know who your enemies are. If you insist on going
home, I can’t stop you. But, Em—I can’t protect all of you either. There are too few
of us.”

“Could you protect Michael and his family if I don’t go home? Could Michael go home?”

Michael said, “I’ll stay with Eric. I’ll stay with you, Emma.”

“But your mother—”

“She’s still on the phone,” Eric reminded her.

Michael frowned. “I think she knows that.” To Emma he said, “I don’t want to make
my mother worry. I don’t want to scare her. But I don’t want her to die. If I tell
her—if she knows—she’ll call the police. She’ll call the school. If she calls the
school, the Necromancers will know she knows.

“I don’t think they kill people randomly.”

Thinking of Allison’s brush with death, Emma disagreed. “I don’t think they care.”

“They do, or they wouldn’t have to kill people who know about them.”

“Can I suggest,” Eric said, unlocking the door and opening it, “that this is not the
time for this argument?”

Michael frowned. “We’re not arguing.”

Eric slid behind the driver’s wheel. Michael opened the back passenger door. “Can
I talk to my mom?”

Eric stiffened. Emma said, “Of course,” and handed Michael the phone. She didn’t tell
him what to say—or what not to say. His entire posture made it clear that he knew
what was at risk. He probably saw it more clearly than Emma did; he had the ability
to be both terrified and observant at the same time.

“Mom,” he said, while Eric’s jaw clenched, “I won’t be coming home tonight. Something
is happening. I can’t explain it. But Emma needs me to be here. She’ll be with me.
I don’t want you to worry. I’m okay. But we have to figure out what we need to do.”
He fell silent, listening. Emma couldn’t hear what his mother said to him and was
grateful. “I need you to trust me,” was Michael’s reply. “No, I can’t explain—it would
take hours, and even then it would be hard.

“But I
will
explain it, when it’s over. I promise. I have to go. No, everything’s not okay—if
it were, I’d be coming home now. But it would be worse if I did.” He hesitated and
then handed Emma’s phone back to her, which she’d been dreading.

“Emma, what’s happening?” Mrs. Howe demanded.

“I can’t explain it. What Michael said is true. It would take hours, and even then—it
would probably take more hours on top of that. I won’t let him out of my sight.” She
started to say,
I won’t let anything bad happen to him
, but she couldn’t. Instead, she said, “The only thing Michael’s worried about right
now is you. And me, a little. He needs you to be okay.”

“Where are you going? Where are you going to be?”

“We’re—” She shook her head. “If I can, I’ll call you and let you know. Everything’s
up in the air.”

“Emma—”

“—I’m sorry, I have to go.” She hung up.

“She’s going to worry,” Michael said, with quiet confidence.

“Love,” Emma replied, “makes worriers of us all. Yes, she’ll worry.”

“Are you going to call your mom?” he asked.

Emma compromised. She tried to call Allison.

There was no answer.

* * *

Amy was at Eric’s when they arrived—or at least her SUV was. They walked past it;
Eric hadn’t chosen to park in front of the house. Petal was antsy; it was clearly
past Emma’s bedtime, which meant it was past his. She let Michael handle the leash
and handed him the last of the Milk-Bones that served as dog bribery.

Eric didn’t lead them directly to the house, either. He didn’t exactly skulk—something
bound to cause suspicions in anyone who happened to look out their window at the wrong
time—but he walked with purpose in the wrong direction, dragging Emma and Michael
in his wake.

“Em.”

She turned at the sound of her father’s voice. The world was all of night, and the
single syllable he’d made of her name made it too cold, too harsh.

“Ally?” she asked. The word made almost no sound.

Eric slowed. Michael couldn’t see her father—but he could see her. He stopped. Petal
wound the leash around Michael’s legs.

“Allison’s alive. She’s with Chase. Chase,” he added, looking briefly at Eric, “is
also alive.”

“And the rest of the Simners? Her brother? Her parents?”

Silence.

“Dad? Dad!”

“Her brother was shot.”

“Is he—”

“Emma, I’m not a doctor. I don’t know. Emergency crews are on the way.”

“How do you—”

“The neighbors. You don’t shoot guns in that neighborhood without raising alarms.”
His hands slid into his pockets; they were fists. He hesitated, then said, “you’ll
have to tell Allison about her brother. She wasn’t there when they broke into the
house.”

“How do you—”

“I found her. Chase got her out. Allison heard the gunshot, and she tried to go back.
Chase . . . wouldn’t let her. I wouldn’t want to be that boy if her brother dies.”

“Was Chase hurt?”

Her father nodded. “Not by Allison, not yet. I think he meant to bring her here.”

“Where are they now?”

“Chase didn’t drive.”

Eric cursed. “Can you take me to them?”

Her father nodded.

Eric turned to Emma and Michael, who were so silent they might not have been breathing.
“Stay here. Go inside, and do whatever the old man tells you to do. Don’t argue with
him. Don’t argue with me.”

“If Necromancers are there,” Emma began.

“If?” Eric said, with a laugh that was worse than his swearing. “You don’t have the
training. I do. Chase does. Go into the house, Emma. Amy’s probably waiting, and we
can’t afford to have her kill the old man. I’ll bring them back.”

A
LLISON COULDN’T BREATHE.

It wasn’t the running—although she wasn’t much of a runner, and her sides had been
cramping on and off for the last half hour. It wasn’t the cold; she was numb enough
now that the air no longer chilled her or shocked her when she drew it into her lungs.

She couldn’t hear her own breath. She couldn’t hear Chase.

She could hear the echo of the gunshots. She could hear them over and over again,
shattering the quieter noises of a normal night in a neighborhood that saw violence
on television, contained in a frame, made distant because it was meant to be entertaining.

She knew Chase was bleeding. She’d asked him why; he hadn’t answered. He was a redhead;
his skin was normally pale. Tonight it looked ashen, his eyes too dark.

He had come to save her life.

She
knew
he had come to save her life. She was certain that he probably had. And she hated
him for it. Right now, right in this moment, fear had turned any gratitude she might
have felt to ash. Her face bore the mark of his open hand; his bore the smaller mark
of hers—and a scratch that had welted.

It was silent. It was too silent. If she broke the silence, she’d scream. Or she’d
cry. Or both. And even if she hated herself for her cowardice—because that’s what
it was, this running, this silence, this abandonment—she
wanted
to live. Another thing to hate about herself.

Chase checked her coat; he checked the heavy necklace she’d been given what seemed
a lifetime ago. His lips were almost white. He said nothing, but she knew what he
feared: not men with guns, but Necromancers. He was certain they were here, somewhere.
He was certain that they were hunting.

The snow didn’t help. Its pristine, untouched surfaces held on to footsteps like accusations;
there was nowhere they could walk—or run—that didn’t leave an immediate, obvious trail.
Only the sidewalks had been cleared, and Chase wanted to avoid them.

So did Allison. If they were seen—if their neighbors saw them, if anyone tried to
help or interfere, there would be more deaths. No. No, not
more
. Not more. Please, god, not more.

She shook. In any other circumstance, she would have pretended she was cold; it
was
cold. Her hand was stiff; it was locked in Chase’s, as if he didn’t trust her to
follow, as if he thought she’d turn and go home at any moment.

He had taken the lead. This was the neighborhood that had been home for all of Allison’s
conscious life, but Chase knew it too. He knew it at least as well—on a night when
the world had gone insane—as she did, but saw it differently. The houses were obstacles;
the driveways, the backyards, the cars parked in the street or the fronts, were cover
for changes in direction.

Chase carried a mirror; he used it, instead of sticking his head out or up, where
possible.

And he led them, in the end, toward the cemetery and the ravine. Allison knew there
was no safety in numbers, but she felt exposed. Even the sounds of passing cars—and
the intermittent whiteness of passing headlights—dwindled. Here, she could hear Chase
breathe.

It was labored, almost as labored as her own shallow breaths. She stumbled twice.
Her feet were numb.

“I don’t care if you hate me,” Chase whispered. “You probably will. There’s nothing
you could have done at your house except die.”

She wanted to argue but couldn’t—it was true. It didn’t making running feel any better
or any more justified. His grip tightened briefly, and then—for the first time since
he’d slapped her, or maybe since she’d slapped him—he let go of her hand. Instead
of his hand, she found herself holding the hilt of a knife; he’d placed it in the
palm of her gloves, and her hands were so stiff she almost dropped it.

“I know you don’t know how to use it,” he said, looking over her shoulder, his eyes
constantly scanning the shadowed trees. “You’re not meant to kill here. If someone
or something grabs you, stab it or cut it and run away.”

“Chase—”

“I mean it.”

“You’re—”

“No, I’m not. I’m fine.” He smiled. It was a lopsided expression; it contained a world
of pain and very little warmth. “I’m not afraid of Necromancers. They’ll kill me,
one day. I’ll kill them until that day. It’s been the whole purpose of my life. Of
what was left of my life.

“I know how you feel. I know why you hate me. I can’t honestly tell you it’s going
to stop any time soon. The only thing I wanted on the day I didn’t die—” He inhaled.
Exhaled. “I shouldn’t be talking. Stay here. Keep your back to the tree, breathe into
your sleeve.”

“Where—where are you going?”

“I need to put a few things on the ground. We’re going to stay here, within this area,
until they find us. Or until they give up. I’m hoping for the latter. Stay here. I
won’t be far.”

She nodded. She didn’t ask what she could do to help—he’d just told her. She could
stay out of his way. She could be as silent and invisible as possible. She could breathe
into her sleeve so her breath didn’t rise in telltale, visible mist. Invisibility
was something that came naturally to Allison, at least in her normal life.

But invisibility wasn’t the same as inactivity. It wasn’t the same as huddling in
silent fear. She bit her lip, held her breath. She examined the knife Chase had pushed
into her hands. It was simple, its edge notched in at least two places; the hilt was
rough and worn. This had been made by hand by people who didn’t have the time to prettify
their work.

People like Chase. Maybe Chase himself. He probably knew how to slit a man’s throat.
He certainly knew how to kill. She closed her eyes. He’d killed Merrick Longland.
But Merrick Longland hadn’t
stayed
dead.

Allison had no doubt at all that she would.

That her parents, if killed, would. That her brother would never open his eyes and
speak again. No. No. No. She took a deep breath and forced herself to exhale slowly
into her sleeve; it was damp. She felt the tree at her back as if it were the hand
of a friend. She could hear Chase moving across brittle snow. She could feel the ghost
of a tendril wrapped around her throat; could hear the echo of an equally brittle
apology for her coming death.

And she could hear Emma’s voice. The panic in it. The pleading.

She swallowed, bowed her head, and lifted her chin. If she died here tonight, it wouldn’t
be because she had just given up. She couldn’t fight; it was true. It wasn’t a skill
that she’d ever felt a pressing need to learn. Reading about fighting—and she’d done
a lot of that—wasn’t the same. She was on the outside, looking in.

She promised she’d learn. If it came to that, if she survived, she’d learn.

A shadow cut across the snow. Chase had returned. He glanced at the knife in her hand
and grimaced.

“It’ll cut through anything but the fire,” he told her softly.

His hands, she saw, were empty. She knew whose knife she carried. She tried to give
it back, but he ignored it. “Do you know why I like you?” he asked. She blinked. It
wasn’t the question she expected.

“No. I always wondered.”

“You remind me of home. Of the best things about home. I didn’t appreciate them enough
when I had them, and when I lost them—” He shook his head. Smiled. It was the first
real smile that had touched his face since it had appeared at her bedroom window,
hanging upside down.

“We don’t get a chance to do things over. Things happen. They’re in the past. We can
see them—over and over again—but we can’t touch them. We can’t change them. I
need
you to survive. I need you—just you, I don’t give a damn about anyone else—to make
it out of here alive. If you do—if you can do that for me, if I can even ask it when
I know what it’ll cost you—then I’ll feel like surviving myself had some purpose.
Not dying won’t be the end of my life. It won’t be the worst thing about it.”

She swallowed.

“You’re solid. You won’t turn your back on your friends. You won’t lie—I honestly
doubt you know how. Don’t try on my account,” he added, grinning. “It’ll just be humiliating.
You’re not like Emma. You’re not like Amy. People don’t stop in the street to give
you a second look.”

It was true. People seldom really gave her a first one. “I don’t need it.”

“No. You don’t. But the thing is, Ally, I don’t need it either. I don’t give a shit
what people see when they look at you. I don’t care what they miss. In my life—in
the life I’ve lived since I lost my family—it’s pointless. Most people would run screaming.
They’d hide in a corner. They’d forget what they’d seen.

“It’s safer for them. After tonight, you’ll understand why.” He turned away, and then
turned back. “I hate that you’re not one of them. But I like you because you’re not
one of them. You can’t fight. You don’t understand Necromancers. You really don’t
understand what we’re facing.

“But even if you did, you’d still be here.”

“And getting in the way.”

He nodded. “And getting in the way.” He reached up and brushed her cheek with his
fingers; they were cold, but she felt them as if they were burning. “I’m sorry I hit
you. My father would’ve killed me if he’d been alive to see it.”

“I hit you first.”

“I couldn’t let you go back. I’m sorry. I couldn’t. I never wanted you to be here.
I wanted you to be safe. To be safe, to be an echo of the things home used to mean
to me, where the rest of my life couldn’t touch or destroy it. I hated your best friend.”

“Do you hate her now?”

“Yes. Yes—but I understand why you don’t. And I understand, when I try to be fair—and
it’s work, so don’t expect too much of it—that she sees and loves what I see—and love.
You’re not superficial. You’re not trying to be something. You’re not trying to impress
me or Emma or even random strangers. I can’t expect her to walk away from you when
she’s known you for most of your life; I can’t walk away, and I’ve known you for weeks.”

His face was so close to hers. It was dark, but she could see his eyes, could see
his expression. “If someone comes, if I’m not here—remember what I said. There’s almost
no binding magic that you can’t cut through. You cut—and you run.”

“Chase—”

“Please. Please, Allison. Promise.” He hesitated and then said, “If you die here,
it will kill Emma. It will break her. If you can’t promise for my sake, promise for
hers.”

“That’s—”

“Unfair?”

It was. It was so unfair.

“Maybe we haven’t been formally introduced,” he said, grinning again, his face pale.
“I’m Chase Loern. Unfair is my middle name. I’ve been accused of worse when it comes
to getting what I want.” The smile fell away from his face. “They’re coming.”

Allison could hear nothing but Chase, yet she didn’t doubt him. He stepped back, stopped,
grinned again. Before she could speak, he kissed her. He was out of reach before she
could react.

“If you want to slap me,” he whispered, “you’ll have to stay alive.”

She would have stuttered if she’d had voice for words. Before she could find that
voice, she saw a pale green light illuminate the snow on either side of the tree at
her back. The Necromancers had arrived.