Epilogue. Truly Nowhere.

—?—

Elias, pinned against the wall, naked, arms spread out.

Kyle, gripping the left arm. He smirks. “Ready?”

It isn’t Elias to whom the question is directed. It’s his partner, Drake, who holds the other arm. “Hell yeah.”

Elias sucks in air, steeling himself.

Kyle and Drake bare teeth, then plunge upon either wrist.

The grunt that Elias issues is deep and visceral—and charged with heart-pounding excitement. No matter how much he fights, he cannot free himself from Kyle and Drake, who hold him to the wall with comical ease. He’s their captive, to be drank from, to be fed upon, to be enjoyed and used as their blood boy for as long as they wish, in whatever way they wish, until they are satisfied.

And Elias wouldn’t have it any other way.

Kyle experiences every bit of Elias’s excitement secondhand. Every time he rakes his teeth over Elias’s skin, taunting him. And drags his tongue over a sensitive spot, causing his muscles to flex and tighten. It’s as much of a journey of pleasure to Kyle as it is to Elias, who relishes in being made to bear every second of it.

But the feeding pales in comparison to the sex that follows.

When Elias is most vulnerable, charged with frustration.

And Kyle and Drake are at their strongest, fueled by Elias’s blood coursing through their bodies.

Elias is now totally helpless, wrists strapped to the bedposts as tightly as he’s ever desired with absolutely no chance of escape. Only his legs are free, each of which Kyle holds as he pumps his cock inside his boyfriend with vigor. Straddling Elias’s chest is an equally energized Drake, whose own cock is pummeling deeply into Elias’s mouth, relishing in the slick, warm sensation.

The three of them are one.

Kyle thought he had discovered a new high when it was just his and Elias’s pleasure filling his heart. With the hot addition of Drake’s puppy-like excitement and limitless, unbound pleasure, it’s a wonder Kyle can bear it all without exploding in seconds.

But when they finally do, it’s incalculable how much pleasure Kyle is overwhelmed with. As their orgasms stretch on with wave after wave—Elias’s over his own abs, Drake’s in Elias’s mouth, and his own inside Elias—Kyle wonders if this feeling could last forever. Pure, boundless, incomprehensible bliss. The kind that, for a fleeting second, Kyle worries no one on earth is meant to know, like a sip of nectar stolen from the gods.

Kyle collapses against one side of Elias, spent. Drake on the other. Elias, the seed of three men all over him, inside him, full of sweat and out of breath.

“Wow,” moans Drake, running a hand through his blotchy pink-blond hair, wet from exhaustion.

“I feel so used,” groans Elias, happy grin spilling over his face. He turns. “How about you, babe?”

Kyle hasn’t quite recovered yet. All three of their emotions still rocket around inside of him. Playing with his heart. Dancing in his nerves. Swimming through his blood. They’ve done this so many times by now, and Kyle can never get used to it. It’s the first time, every time.

“Can someone untie me?” Elias then asks. “I think I can’t feel my wrists anymore.”

“You got it, blood boy,” calls out Drake, already back to full energy, hopping off the bed to oblige.

Sometime later, Kyle and Elias are in the bathroom together, cleaning up. Elias catches Kyle by surprise in front of the mirror, bringing his arms around him from behind. “You smell so good.”

Kyle smiles sleepily back. “Yeah?”

“It’s barely midnight. You look like you’re crashing.” He puts his head on Kyle’s shoulder, the two of them gazing at the sweet reflection of both of them in the foggy, post-shower mirror. “Still exhausts you, huh? All three of us and your Reach?”

“There are worse things to have to suffer,” says Kyle, leaning back against Elias and nuzzling his head against his shoulder.

“Like my sneak-attack kisses ?” asks Elias before demonstrating with an onslaught of them on Kyle’s neck, causing him to forget his aches and instead give in to laughter.

Elias has become so in tune with Kyle’s feelings, knowing just what he wants at all times, it’s almost as if he has his own Reach.

Perhaps that’s exactly what being trapped in a town together for nearly four months will do.

Has it really been four months already?

An hour later, the three of them, Elias, Drake, and Kyle, lean against the back of the couch, side-by-side, cuddled within the same big blanket, as they watch snow flutter past the window, a cup of coffee in Elias’s hand, a bottle of beer in Drake’s. Outside, a string of colorful Christmas lights dangle from the finished front porch, which nearly extends to the road and covers the entirety of the driveway like an awning. A long picnic bench sits in its center with a powered ceiling fan overhead. Along the edge of the porch are normally sitting an arrangement of potted plants—rosemary, aloe vera, lantana, prickly pear cactus—but all have been brought inside for the colder months, three of which surround the record player, currently playing a vinyl of AC/DC at low volume. Upon a pile of blankets by the front door sits their cat, bathing herself.

“I’ve always hated cold weather,” says Drake. Then he lays his head on Kyle’s shoulder with a sigh. “Maybe I just lacked the right people to enjoy it with.”

Kyle feels a pang of Drake’s sadness. Over the past months, it comes and goes. “Thinking about them tonight?”

Drake struggles with his reply for half a second before leaning toward the truth. “Not as … much as usual.”

“I tell myself a story,” says Elias, like a suggestion. “I decide Vegasyn fell like the Roman Empire. My mother is freed. No one can touch her anymore.” He shrugs. “See? Easy as that.”

Drake takes a swig of his beer, squints through the window. “The story I’ll tell myself is … my family found a way to survive. Laz isn’t as bad on his own as he feared he’d be. Salazo realized he didn’t need a pet at all. The rest of my aunts and uncles took up my suggestion of robbing a blood bank. Not ideal. Still ethically terrible. But the tradeoff is not hunting humans anymore. They’ve all taken off to California, holed up in a sizeable condo with their stolen riches used to pay for it, set for life, and the only thing they keep in their fridge is an endless supply of O-positive, and maybe a little AB-neg for rare occasions.”

Elias and Kyle sit with that for a while. “Disturbing in parts,” says Elias. “But acceptable,” says Kyle, nodding.

Drake smiles, satisfied. “Though …” His smile wavers. “If we are being honest here, I’m not sure where La-La fits into all that. Oh, I know! He’s a yoga instructor offering midnight sessions at a private resort where half-remembered D-list celebrities go.” Kyle and Elias remain silent. Drake peers at them. “Too soon?”

Kyle closes his eyes. In the house next door, he picks up with ease the fluttering heart of his brother and the calm and collected temperament of Raya. The pair have grown a lot closer over the months, and if it weren’t so cold and snowing, Kyle’s certain the five of them would be sharing a midnight meal right now.

There’s a third presence in that house. Nico’s energy runs hot and cold. He hasn’t adjusted well to being a demipire. His moods are all over the place and unpredictable. He sometimes won’t even wake up for the night, preferring to sleep straight through for days without eating. Kyle and Kaleb have had many conversations about what to do. Raya seems to be the only one who can get Nico to talk, and even then it’s a tricky endeavor.

Sometimes, Kaleb catches Nico crying in his sleep.

Nico keeps insisting he’s fine.

Drake slips out from under the blanket, heads for the kitchen. “I’m gonna bake a big, fat batch of cookies to take with us to the bar. We’re still going, right? No, don’t stop me,” he clips before Kyle or Elias say anything. “I don’t care how many of them Nico refuses to touch, I’m gonna keep making them until he finally decides to forgive me for saving his life and gets his booty out of that house one of these nights. I mean, it’s December. There’s a ton of snow. How does that not scream ‘come out and play’?”

Kyle slips from the blanket, too, then stands at the archway leading into the kitchen, watching Drake as he opens drawers and cabinets, pulling out all sorts of bowls and spoons and mixes. “He just needs time,” says Kyle. “It took me years before I was finally okay with my transformation. And I even asked for it.”

“I was fine the day it happened to me.” Drake drops a spoon on the floor, picks it right back up. “Five second rule.” Then he goes to the fridge for eggs. “Anyway, I already told the three next door to come to the bar tonight. It’s up to them. But cookies won’t eat themselves. Should I put chocolate chips in them? Cade and Layna love them. So does Jer. At least he seems to. Would be easier to know if he could speak or communicate at all.”

“Don’t forget Silas,” says Elias, now hugging himself with the entirety of the blanket. “He loves your chocolate chip cookies.”

“Who cares about that brat?” mumbles Drake as he cracks an egg over a bowl. “He’s been getting too close with Layna.”

“Was sure she and Jer would get back together,” says Kyle.

“Oh, you know teens,” says Elias. “Break up one sec, make up the next. What do you expect when your universe gets shrunken down to a small town you can’t leave? They’re playing musical chairs. Silas, Logan, Layna, Jeremy, Mariah. Just a matter of time before they all date each other. Hey, aren’t you guys cold??”

Kyle and Drake share a look. “Must be a demipire thing,” says Kyle with a shrug. “Yep,” agrees Drake. “I’m not cold at all. Still considering going out there right now and dancing in the snow.”

Elias narrows his eyes. “Demipire.” Shakes his head. “Still not a fan of the word. Sounds too much like the full thing. Or like you have a vampire mom and a human dad or something.”

“Well, Raya likes it,” says Kyle, “and we need to call ourselves something to distinguish us from Them .”

After saying that, Kyle peers at Drake, who is now busy at the counter stirring ingredients. He wonders suddenly if Drake might feel odd whenever he talks that way, casually referring to Lazarus and the other vampires as “Them”, as if his family is something to be detested, to be separated from, to be reviled.

Kyle has found himself wondering lately how many families of vampires are out there in the world. Or loners who don’t wish to belong to any family. Is it thousands like Lazarus believes?

“What do you think?” asks Kyle, coming up to the counter.

Drake shrugs. “I don’t care what we call us, as long as these cookies come out badass. And also that Silas chokes on one.”

Moments later, cookie dough sits spread out on two trays in the oven. Every cookie looks different, lumpy and uneven. Some blobs with just one or two chocolate chips. Others with too many.

Kyle and Drake stand back, watching them bake.

Then Drake sighs. “Yeah, fuck this, let’s dance in the snow.” He grabs Kyle’s hand and drags him to the front door despite his protests, Elias watching them as they fly outside, wide-eyed.

That’s how two men end up dancing in the snow covering the street in the dead of night. Kyle shouts out while Drake holds him by both of his hands, spinning around, then letting go, sending them flying back. This happens too many times, but soon, Kyle is laughing more than protesting, and then it’s him instigating the fun. A moment later, Elias comes out of the house bundled up in a puffy jacket, beanie, and scarf, and the dancing quickly converts into a snowball fight. The three men laugh as they battle each other in the street under the misty, starless night sky.

There’s a moment when Elias and Drake chase one another around with snowballs in hand—Elias shouting, “Come and save your boyfriend, Kyle!” and Drake laughing maniacally—that Kyle finds his eyes drifting to the house next door.

He thinks of Kaleb and his new life here. Raya, her departure from the House of Vegasyn—and from Tristan’s side. Nico and his difficult adjustment to being one of their kind now.

It’s times like these that make Kyle nearly forget the reality of the situation they’re all in. How so many citizens in Nowhere are still scared and unsure. Wondering if this is how they’re going to die, spending all the rest of their days in this town, waiting for supplies to run out. And despite all the mayor’s and Chief Rojas’s reassurances, no one truly feels reassured.

All they can do is make the most of their days—and their cold nights—by acting like they’re on a permanent vacation together.

A permanent vacation in the middle of truly Nowhere.

“Oh shit, I forgot about the cookies!” Drake darts back to the house as Elias and Kyle sit in the middle of the road on a mound of snow, watching him through the front window as he flies into the kitchen to salvage his babies. Kyle and Elias turn to each other as the snow gently falls.

“Do you ever feel like …” Kyle second guesses his question, changes his mind. “Never mind.”

“What?” Elias pulls away, brushes snow off the top of Kyle’s head. “Safe space, babe. Something on your mind?”

Kyle glances at the house next door again. “Something feels so different about tonight. I can’t put my finger on it. Like … this little paradise we built … is about to …”

“Fall apart?” suggests Elias too casually, then shrugs. “I hope not. I want this to last forever. Isn’t this amazing? No care in the world for what’s happening outside the shroud. All I want to do is have sex all day long, build covered walkways over the whole town so you guys can go where you want even during the day …”

“The shroud and the cold weather make it pretty overcast most of the time, anyway,” Kyle points out.

“Not overcast enough to prevent a tragic accident, and no, we won’t go there,” he adds with a laugh. “I don’t know what about today is special for you , but I can tell you, every day I spend with you here feels special to me. Perfect.” He gives Kyle a gentle kiss. “A part of me … hopes Cade and Layna … never figure it out.”

Kyle gazes into Elias’s eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He stares off the other way down the street, where in the far distance, the edge of town resides, the place where no one can penetrate to the other side. “I can’t help but worry … what may await us on the other side of that shroud. What might await us out there in the world. What if it’s changed? What if a war has broken out between all matters of supernatural beings? What if the whole human race is already wiped out and there’s just …” He lets out a sigh fringed with anxiety. “… nothing left out there?”

Kyle stares off at the dark, hazy nothingness, too. He doesn’t want to consider that possibility. He wants everything out there to be okay. He wants to believe the world is still there for them—if someday the citizens of Nowhere are allowed to rejoin it.

This can’t be the end of everything.

Drake bursts out of the house. “Cookies!” he declares, lifting them in the air cheerily.

Moments later, they meet up with the others at the bar, which is overly decorated for the holidays courtesy of Cade. Many from around town are also here, making the inside feel cozy and warm when the trio arrive. Drake and Mikey, who have become rather brotherly over the past few months in every way short of a secret handshake, meet by the jukebox and argue about the music. After greeting Leland and his girlfriend Becks at the bar, Elias and Kyle make the rounds to see the familiar faces. Jeremy and Mariah—formerly known as Blood 304—sit in a booth in the back corner, absorbed by something on Jeremy’s laptop, likely the computer game they’ve been bonding over, despite his still being unable to speak. Silas, one of the two teenage boys rescued from Vegasyn, sits at a table with Layna, both of them sharing a basket of nachos and laughing together.

“I’ve been so restless lately,” says Cade when Kyle joins her at the bar. “I keep going to my computer thinking I might chase one more lead digging into my family tree, then am reminded all over again that none of us have internet. You’d think the stupid shroud wouldn’t block all cell and internet service, too. Isn’t keeping us trapped here bad enough? No, no,” she quickly says, lowering her voice, “I’m not trying to work anyone up. I’m just tired of all the side eye my daughter and I get. Isn’t it better to be stuck here and alive than hunted and fed on by murderous vampires?”

Kyle takes Cade’s hand. “Don’t overthink it. No one in town is mad at either of you for what you did. You saved us all.”

“Yeah, well, be that as it may, we’re also everyone’s only hope of lifting this damned shroud.” Cade lets out a sigh. She’s clearly had a long day, and this night keeps getting longer. “Just when I thought Layna was on to something this afternoon, nope, it falls through. I think between me and her, we’ve tried something from every single page in that damned grimoire. Nothing, nada.”

“You’ll find the solution someday,” Kyle reassures her. This is a conversation they’ve had many times already.

“I swear, it’s like the book is a computer that just shut off. It’s not responding to anything we’re doing, and I’m out of blue and white candles and burned every last stick of incense there is in this place. Don’t even get me started on the sage.”

Layna laughs too hard at something Silas says, then casually peers over her shoulder at Jeremy in the corner of the room, whose complete attention is glued to his laptop, Mariah clinging to his arm, watching as well. When Layna returns her attention to the nachos and whatever Silas is saying now, she seems distracted, and each of her smiles comes forced.

Kyle feels the heaviness inside her heart. Not that it takes his Reach to see the misgivings in her eyes, too.

“It’s weird for me as well,” says Cade quietly, having followed his line of sight, words nearly drowned in the noise of the room. “If you ask me, I think Layna felt too much guilt over what she did to Jer Bear, and when Mariah showed up after losing her own boyfriend, the two just bonded in their mutual silence and grief.”

Kyle peers at her. “You don’t think they got weirded out by their own parents dating?”

Cade’s mouth drops. “What? Me and Juan? We’re not—!”

“C’mon. Everyone knows.”

“We’re not a thing!” she protests through an outraged laugh, realizes she caught Leland’s attention behind the bar, then lowers her voice to a whisper. “ We’re just friends, we had a sort of fling-thing months ago, it’s over, we’re just friends .”

“Does that include or exclude the secret walk in the park you two had just last week after closing the bar early and you—?”

“This conversation’s over,” Cade decides, gives Kyle a playful flick of her fingers on his arm, causing him to laugh, then heads off to work the room and catch up with others.

The curly-haired sisters who run the bakery enjoy the tray of cookies Drake brought, eating the majority of them. Drake and Mikey, who have finally agreed on the music, dance badly in front of the jukebox nearby. Leland keeps appearing to want to join them, but is afraid Becks will get on his case again about “acting like a man-child all the time”. Doctor Mei, who looks like she’s hit her limit in both socializing and drinking, catches Kyle’s eye just before slipping out the door, giving him a little wave as she departs with a couple of her friends.

That’s when Kyle spots someone unexpected outside through the front door: Patrick. He leans against a streetlight smoking a cigarette in the cold, wearing a long coat but not seeming to mind that it’s barely closed, his sunken eyes staring off, unshaven face, messy hair. It was a controversial but necessary decision on Chief Rojas’s part to finally pardon Patrick and release him from his jail cell. Seeing as he can’t depart the town anyway, Patrick is more or less still incarcerated, only now with a much larger cell.

The longer Kyle watches the man, the more bothered he feels. He can’t hold back anymore. Something about this night is spurring him on. Maybe playing in the snow earlier. Or seeing his friends having fun. Or the weirdness between Jeremy and Layna. Or the whacky dance Drake is trying to pull off now and the fact that Leland, at last, stopped holding back and hopped the bar to join them by the jukebox, much to Becks’ eye-rolling chagrin.

Kyle slips out the door into the street. Patrick notices him at once, flicks his cigarette, then sighs. “Fucking cold night.”

Kyle leans against the wall nearby, nods in agreement, even if he feels little of the chill himself. “This is my first winter here.”

“It’s when they come out, y’know.”

Kyle peers at him. “They?”

“Yeah. Veins as cold as ice. Hearts as cold as ice. The cold is their fucking temple. Bloodsuckers. Born out of demon’s ice, all of them, they come with the cold. It’s the night my wife and child went missing, a night just like this one, so cold, you can’t feel your toes.” Patrick takes a drag from his cigarette, blows into the biting air. He licks his lips, turns his head toward Kyle. “I’m not going in there, don’t worry. Not making that mistake again.”

“I understand,” says Kyle automatically.

“Even with our shared hell, no one in this town likes me, nor do they give a shit what I’ve been through.” He lets out a bitter snort. “Not after I held the precious chief’s son at gunpoint in that pawnshop however many ages ago. Not after shooting you in the face. Don’t they know I didn’t have a choice? Wouldn’t they do the same damned thing if their families were being held captive by a psycho vampire named George? What the fuck kind of vampire name is that, anyway? George? Fucking kidding me?” He lets out another breath of smoke, coughs, wipes his reddened nose. “I’m convinced my family’s dead now. I did it all for nothing. George killed them. And I’m stuck here in this place … stuck here like I might as well have died and gone to Hell. This town … everyone in it … all of it can just go fuck itself.”

Kyle lowers his eyes to the ground, to the snow. He isn’t sure where to start. “We’re all cut off from our lives now. Some of us have our loved ones here. Some of us don’t. We’re all in the same boat whether we see it that way or not. And besides—”

“Is it true you know George?”

Kyle freezes at the question, stares back at him questioningly.

“I hear things.” Patrick pushes away from the streetlight. He pitches his cigarette at the snow where it sizzles out. “You’re one of them . So tell me. You know George? You’ve spoken to him?”

After a second’s hesitation, Kyle sighs out the words, “Yeah. I know … who he is. I know the sick bastard.”

Patrick licks his lips, spits at the snow, rubs his nose. His eyes are like hardened chips of ice as he stares Kyle down. “Do you …” His words are soft suddenly. “Do you know what he’s … done to my family? Do you know if they’re … if they’re s-safe?”

He wasn’t serious earlier about thinking them dead.

Patrick is clinging to hope. He’s been desperately clinging to hope since the day he stepped foot in this town. It’s the only thing left that’s warm inside the man’s soul. That precious, fragile hope. Despite this tough act he’s putting on right now, behind his wall of bitterness and contempt for everything and everyone, he’s just a weak, terrified man who bears a mountain of pain and guilt.

Kyle can see it all in Patrick’s eyes.

Perhaps that’s the reason Kyle says: “Yes.” Patrick is glued to Kyle’s every breath. “Yes,” he repeats, “they’re … safe. I heard it. From George. I … heard your family … is waiting for you. They are somewhere safe. They … They can’t wait to see you again.”

Tears explode from the man’s eyes.

He clenches his teeth and turns away at once, pressing hands to his face. His body shakes from his sobbing. Kyle only stands by the door to the bar, watching Patrick, numb.

“Thank you,” says Patrick finally after collecting himself. He peers partway over his shoulder. “Even if …” He sniffles. “Even if you’re lying to me. Thank you.”

Kyle frowns. “Patrick …”

The man says no more, walking away, disappearing down the snowy street. Kyle stands there watching him go, wondering if he did the right thing.

And why it doesn’t feel good.

“Kyle!”

He turns, yanked from his thoughts.

Kaleb is approaching in a big hooded jacket and scarf, a bright smile on his reddened face, eyepatch covering his inoperative eye. Raya saunters next to him in a pair of jeans and a simple blouse—a shocking departure from her usual dramatic black bustier or lace dress, what with her limited options in this town. And, to Kyle’s surprise, Nico trails behind them, hands stuffed in his pockets, his short, dark curls of hair going everywhere.

Kyle smiles and gives his brother a big hug. “Come to join the party? Or just here for Drake’s cookies?”

“Just the cookies. And way better heating,” adds Kaleb. “It’s too cold in our house. I didn’t know deserts can turn into snowy wastelands so quickly.”

“Elevation,” says Kyle for a lackluster explanation. “Hey, our heating is pretty good, and tonight is the coldest yet. If you want to stay the night with us, you can. I’ve got a cushy couch, or that spare cot set up in the back room, whichever you want.”

“I’ll think about it,” decides Kaleb, then adds, “assuming you three aren’t … planning on being … uh … noisy tonight.”

Raya stifles a laugh.

Kyle leans in, nudges his brother in the ribs too hard. “We’ve already done our business, no need to worry about that.”

“Didn’t need to know,” laughs Kaleb.

It was in a conversation they had many months ago, near the beginning of their time here, when Kaleb admitted to Kyle that, even at thirteen, he had suspicions about Kyle’s sexuality. It was something about the way he clung to Brock, strange enough, and how the two seemed inseparable. Also, Kyle never brought home any girlfriends for dinner. Kaleb noticed these things. Perhaps that’s why it wasn’t that much of a shock when Kaleb discovered that now, Kyle not only has a boyfriend, but two of them.

Kyle throws an arm around his brother, hugging him again. “Evening,” he greets Raya. “You’re obviously here for the beer.”

“This wretchedly charming place offers little else,” she states, then stops. “By the way, could you please convince your brother that I don’t just love him for his music? And remind him that I’ve not heard him play in months because, of all things for this dismal town to lack, it’s a single fucking violin? Not even the pawn shop. Not even in someone’s closet. Nowhere.” She sweeps by Kyle on her way into the bar, door slapping shut behind her.

Kyle leans into his brother. “If you wanted a violin that badly, I’ll find a way to get you one. I’ll beg Cade and Layna to conjure one up. Magically turn some twigs and hair into one, I dunno. This town could use a musician. Other than Herb, whose out-of-tune guitar-strumming no one even pretends to enjoy anymore.”

Kaleb chuckles at that. “No, no, it’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” asks Kyle—then picks up a sudden twinge of discomfort inside his brother. It feels cold and gloomy, laden with troubled thoughts. “Oh …” He frowns. “You don’t want a violin.”

Kaleb’s face twists—a particular expression of his that hasn’t changed in nearly thirty years, making him for an instant look just like his teenage self. “It’s just … I guess I … There’re just a lot of different connotations with the violin now. Associations. Feelings. I can’t even think about playing a note without …”

The cage. The lion. Markadian. “You don’t have to explain,” Kyle reassures him, patting his back. “I understand.”

“I do want to play again someday. Just …” Kaleb looks at his brother. “… not yet.”

Kyle gives his brother a sympathetic smile, decides not to say anything further, and nods with understanding.

“By the way …” Kaleb frowns in thought. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately. About the past. I know this is kind of random, but, um, do you … remember that fortune teller lady …?”

“Who?” asks Kyle at once. Then a second’s thought retrieves the memory. “Oh. You mean that one Halloween …?”

“Yeah. Me, you, and your friend Brock. We saw that one old lady. You and Brock thought she was weird. I just thought she was nice. She gave me candy.”

“I can’t believe you remember that,” laughs Kyle. “You were so little when we saw her.”

“She read our futures,” says Kaleb, gazing off, as if picturing her. “She told me I’d love music, but that at first I would hate it. I remember that part. Maybe she said something else, too, but I … I guess it’s that part I keep thinking about.”

“Why are you bringing her up?”

Kaleb peers at Kyle. “It’s just that lately, I’ve been dreaming about that night, that one Halloween. A lot. Almost every night.”

That surprises Kyle. “Every night …?”

“Do you think she’s real? About reading the future? Like …” Kaleb’s voice lowers. “Like Cade is?”

“Nah, fuck this,” blurts Nico, surprising both Kyle and Kaleb, then he turns around abruptly and starts walking back, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

Kaleb slips from his brother’s arm. “Nico? What’s wrong?”

“Can’t. Can’t do it. Can’t do this lovey-dovey fake shit.” He keeps marching the other way back home.

Kaleb goes after him. “Hey, c’mon, stop. We’re just here to relax with friends, have a drink. It’s not fake.”

“Not fake?” Nico stops, turns back around so suddenly, Kaleb has to take a step back. “Everyone in that bar is fake. Everyone in this town. You’re all pretending to be happy, lying to yourselves all day long. What’s there to be so fucking happy about?”

“That we’re alive,” says Kaleb. “That we’ve all survived some of the most unthinkable things.”

“Yeah, except that isn’t true.” Nico comes right up to Kaleb’s face, jabs a finger at his own chest. “I didn’t survive.”

“You know what I meant. C’mon.”

“You want a glimpse of the future? Is that why you’re talking about fortune teller ladies? Want to know what’s coming? I’ll tell you what’s coming, I’ll tell you right now, plain as day. Another month from now, maybe even sooner than that, every human in this place is gonna starve. Then everyone is gonna be dead, one by one. Including you.”

“Nico …”

“And then who’ll be left? Your brother. Raya. That asshole motherfucker Drake. And me. The four of us, trapped inside this hellhole for the rest of eternity, until even we starve, lose our minds, and eat each other up. That’s our future. What a fairytale. I can’t wait.” Nico turns and heads off again.

Kaleb sighs. “This is actually about your brother and our big bakery dream, isn’t it.”

That stops Nico.

Kaleb takes a step, rethinks it, stays in place. “I don’t know how, I don’t know when … but you’ll still get to San Diego. You and Matteo will reunite. Maybe I could come with you, meet your brother, take in the scent of that delicious bakery. I dream of it every night. Cade and Layna … they will find a way past the wall, I promise you. You’ll get to see your brother again.”

“See me? You want … You want my brother to see me? Like this? Tell me, Kaleb. How am I gonna enjoy our life on the beach when I can’t touch sunlight without exploding? How am I gonna run a bakery with my brother when I can’t even—” He chokes on his words and shakes his head, silent for a time. “I’d rather just …” His voice tightens up. “I would rather have died a hero … than to live as this . As one of them . An abomination of nature.”

From the door of the bar comes Raya’s voice. “So that’s what we are?” she calls out dryly, eyes half lidded, annoyed. “We’re all a bunch of abominations? Your preacher friend you brought with you doesn’t think so. He spoke at the church last Sunday. It was a moving speech. I would have shed a tear were I capable. He said if this world is going to be saved, it will need people like us to stand against the ‘true evil’ … Demipire ‘ abominations’ like you and me.”

Nico moves past Kaleb, stops halfway to Raya. “Y’know why he flatters you? Same reason us Bloods once revered your kind as our gods and goddesses when we were just prisoners beneath your feet.” He leans in. “He—and all the rest of this town—are fucking afraid of you.”

Raya flinches, like his words are a needle that pricked her.

Nico burns Kyle with his eyes, then Raya again, and finally backs away, heading off once more.

Raya steps forward. “I took half that sword, too, you know.” Nico slows, stops again. She comes back onto the sidewalk, boots crunching in the snow as she approaches him. “I can still feel it inside me. I told the doctors I didn’t care what happened to me, just keep this guy alive, keep Kaleb’s friend alive. Is it really such a big deal what you are now? Who says you have to like us? I don’t like half our kind either. They betrayed me. Used me. Hey.” She stops in front of him, brings her face close to his. “Remember what I said the night you were changed? … When it was just you, me, and Drake in that operating room? Do you remember?”

Nico meets her eyes.

Says nothing.

Kyle feels the warmth between them. It swells as the two lock eyes, something special and personal that no one else knows.

Raya peers back at Kyle and Kaleb. “You boys go inside. I’ll have my beer another night. I think … Nico can use a midnight stroll through the snow.”

Kaleb comes forward, pats Nico’s shoulder. Nico peers at him with hardened eyes. Quickly they become soft again, and without a word, he gives Kaleb a hug, like a silent apology, then lets go just as fast. He and Raya walk away, leaving a trail of off-white footprints down the road until they disappear around the corner.

Staring after them, feeling contemplative, Kaleb quietly asks, “Do you think our parents … are proud of us?”

Kyle smiles. “Are we playing the what-if game again?”

“No, no. Not a game. I’m … I’m not wanting to imagine it. I want to be literal. Them, watching us from the place where dead people go … Mom … Dad.” He turns back to Kyle. “I’d like to think they’re happy we’re together again.”

Kyle nods, brushes snow off his brother’s head. “Me, too.”

“No parent can predict what will become of their kids. What challenges they’ll face. Even unfathomable ones. Like magic spells and secret societies of vampires. A pandemic. War. It’s why we see the future as the great unknown. No one can possibly know it.” Kyle nods thoughtfully. Kaleb kicks gently at the snow, twisting his boot into it. “Raya asked me earlier tonight if my definition of sadness has changed. It was a question she asked me when we first met in the House of Vegasyn cells … Tristan was there, too.”

Kyle’s smile fades. He listens, studying the subtle changes in his brother’s face, which tells a story parallel to the words coming out of his mouth.

“I told her sadness is like a brother of happiness. You have too much of one, you always feel like the other’s about to appear.”

Kyle’s thoughts are on Tristan now, imagining his demeanor when he visited Kaleb in his cell, accompanied by Raya. All of this time. Tristan’s deep, dark secret … “And which one am I?” asks Kyle. “Happiness? Or sadness?”

“I was thinking again about Tristan,” Kaleb goes on, “how he saved me so long ago, and how you and Raya aren’t convinced of the goodness inside him.” He peers at his brother. “Drake told me the story of how you two met, how you insisted on saving Mikey’s life even at the cost of your own. And now Mikey is trapped here, unable to get home, but at least he’s safe. A part of me believes, had I not been caught as a teen, maybe in time, Tristan would’ve reunited us. Don’t you think? Isn’t saving Mikey from the cave and Tristan saving me from the fire … sort of the same thing?”

Kyle’s first instinct is to say no. To cling to his anger. To hate Tristan because it’s so much easier than the conflicted, tortured love he bore for him for so many years.

Instead, Kyle says something entirely different: “There’s this spot that’s just outside of town … a special rock in the desert,” he describes. “It holds a lot of meaning to me. Elias, too. It’s actually where we met, funny enough, moments before the sunrise.”

“That’s a story you haven’t told me yet,” says Kaleb, amazed.

“I buried something there.” Kyle glances at his brother. “It’s a ring … my silver pinky ring.”

Kaleb’s mouth parts. It’s an astonishing experience, to both see and feel the memory rush back into his brother’s heart as if it was just yesterday. “I … I gave you that ring,” he says, wide-eyed. “You kept it? All this time?”

“Yep. And I buried it by that rock. The moment they figure out how to lift the shroud … I’m gonna go to that rock and dig it up. I want you to have it back.”

Kaleb touches his own finger, as if remembering its texture. Then he smiles at his brother. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

“And we’re both happiness,” says Kyle, deciding. “Who needs sadness when we’ve got each other?”

Kaleb snorts. “Corny answer, but I’ll take it.” With a laugh, the brothers hug once again. “Now can we go inside and eat some cookies already? I feel like my nuts are getting frostbite.”

The two of them head towards the door, with Kyle stunned at his brother’s words. “You … are spending way too much time around Drake,” he decides, as the pair become swallowed in the merry noises of the bar, and not a single one of their worries are thought of for a merciful matter of countless happy hours.

By the time the party breaks up and everyone starts making their ways home, dawn is on their heels—which is expected for a night out when they’re concerned, as so many in the demipires’ social vicinity have adjusted to the late-night schedule. Among the last to leave are Kyle, Elias, Drake, and Kaleb. Cade is caught up in conversation with Elias, so she tags along with them on their way home, not minding the long detour. Layna, who is caught up telling Jer an embarrassing story about Silas and Carlos (which is actually just an excuse to be around him longer, worried about how he’s truly feeling), follows the others, making it a party of seven wandering the snowy town toward Kyle’s street.

It isn’t until they reach the end of the street that Layna stops in her tracks with a gasp. Cade turns to her. “What’s wrong?” Kyle and the others turn as well, their banter interrupted.

It’s Jeremy who seems to notice what Layna sees, pointing a finger silently ahead, surprising them all. When the others follow where he points, they discover a lone bird perched upon the snow, several paces ahead. A lone black bird, all by itself.

Kyle looks ahead.

Beyond the bird stands a tall woman with short spiky hair and tons of loop earrings that surround both her ears, shiny, silver.

Three more birds appear, and behind them, a second person emerges, a curvy, stout person, ambiguous in gender, pretty eyes, broad shoulders, plump lips, dressed from head to toe in green.

A dozen other birds fluttering onto the roof of a house next to them, and below that roof, a male has appeared, crouching atop a snow-covered vehicle, his eyes blindfolded with a length of black silk, his tight grey shirt and pants boasting an athletic shape.

Then, from behind them all, as if through a hole in the misty haze, one last figure emerges: an elderly woman with long silver hair, brown papery skin, and otherworldly mismatched eyes, in an unremarkable beige blouse and billowing white silk pants. Around her like a dark halo, an abundance of birds that float overhead as she approaches through the misty gloom.

The appearance of these four mysterious individuals inspires fear in everyone, Kyle feeling it in a multitude through his Reach. It’s as if his own fears have made themselves true. That today, on this inexplicably special night, just when he felt like everything had become good again—something bad would finally happen.

But as his Reach swiftly does its usual fare of examining the newcomers, Kyle discovers they are not vampires. He also finds he can’t accurately read any of them. The moment his Reach closes in on one, the emotion slips away like smoke in the frigid breeze.

He’s only felt this emotional texture with one other.

Mance.

“Witches,” Kyle mutters under his breath.

To his surprise, Cade steps forward, squinting. “Wait a sec,” she says when Layna tries telling her not to approach them. “No, no. I’ve seen her. I saw her. In my research. I … I know you,” she then says more definitely, pointing at the silver-haired woman in the front. “I know your face. But … how did you get through?”

“How did I get through?” asks the woman back, a surprising tone of amusement in her voice. “As easy as opening a door. After all, what sensible witch wouldn’t recognize their own spell?”

Cade’s eyes grow double. She swats Elias’s arm. “It’s her!” she hisses, amazed. “The owner of the grimoire! Here!”

“H-Holy crap!” shouts Jeremy—earning him a stunned look from everyone at hearing his first words in months, Layna most of all, who slaps a hand over her mouth.

The woman’s strange eyes fall upon Kyle, and finally Kaleb. A fondness enters them, her lips spreading into a warm smile. “Ah, so lovely it is to see your faces again. Tell me, Kyle, how is your long life? Have you made friends who slay your foes yet? Or only the foes who slay your friends? I’m happy we are reunited, but I’m afraid we have a problem. See, I have recently suffered a rather unspeakable vision that spells the end of every life here. Including my own. I need your help in ending the problem permanently.” Her smile is gone. “And its name is Tristan.”

To Be Continued.