I stepped out of the alleyway, and the world I knew was gone, replaced by something that looked like a surgical complication.

  The street didn't just look messy; it looked alive. Thick, pulsating veins the color of a fresh bruise were crawling up the side of the Starbucks on the corner, wrapping around the streetlamps and pulling them toward the ground. The air was a heavy, translucent purple fog that tasted like static and old pennies.

  "Don't breathe deep," I said, pulling my shirt over my nose. "The fog is a catalyst. It speeds up the transition if you have a weak constitution."

  Behind me, Miller made a choking sound. Sarah said nothing. She just gripped the pry bar I’d given her, her eyes scanning the rooftops. She was learning. She was looking for the high ground. But she was also watching the way I stepped over the black vines without tripping, as if I knew exactly which ones were dormant and which ones would twitch if touched.

  "We’re going to the library," I said, turning North.

  "The library?" Miller wheezed. "Jax, the police station is three blocks the other way. There’s a precinct right there. They have guns. They have—"

  "They have a morgue, Miller. And right now, that morgue is waking up." I didn't stop to look at him. "The precinct will be overrun in twenty minutes. The library has thick stone walls, high windows, and a basement storage unit with a manual ventilation system. It’s the only place in a ten-block radius that won't become a nest by nightfall."

  "How do you know about the vents?" Sarah’s voice was like ice. It was the first time she’d spoken since the alley.

  I paused. I could feel her gaze burning into the back of my neck. I couldn't tell her that I’d spent three weeks trapped in that library two years from now. I couldn't tell her I’d helped dig the latrines in the reading room.

  "I read the blueprints when we did the marketing pitch for the city’s historical society," I lied. The "Veteran's Calm" made the lie sound like a boring fact. "Move. Now."

  We crossed 5th Street. The carnage here was different. It wasn't the frantic slaughter of the office; it was the aftermath. The Strays had already begun their territorial marking. They hadn't just killed the people in the cars; they had dragged the bodies into the center of the intersection, stacking them in a crude, spiraling mound.

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  It was a warning to other packs.

  "Don't look at the pile," I commanded as Miller started to gag. "Look at the shadows under the cars. If you see a reflection that isn't metal, yell."

  We moved through the city like intruders in a museum of meat. I knew the "safe" paths—the alleys that led to dead ends in the old world but had broken fences that allowed for a quick escape in this one. I led them through a hole in a chain-link fence behind a dry cleaner that shouldn't have been there yet.

  I didn't think about the fact that I shouldn't know the fence was cut. I was on autopilot. My soul was navigating by a map drawn in blood.

  "Jax, wait," Sarah whispered, grabbing my arm.

  I stopped. Ten yards ahead, a group of survivors was barricaded inside a pharmacy. They were shouting, banging on the glass, trying to pull a gate down. They were making enough noise to wake the dead.

  "We have to help them," Sarah said, her voice regaining some of its old heat. "There are kids in there."

  I looked at the pharmacy. I saw the red outlines in my vision. Level 1 survivors. Panic-induced heart rates. And behind them, in the dark of the medicine aisles, I saw the pale, twitching limbs of a Stray that had already made it inside.

  "They're already dead, Sarah."

  "You don't know that! We have the crowbar, we can—"

  "In five seconds, the glass is going to break," I said, my voice dead and flat. "In six seconds, the pack that’s been following the noise from the rooftops is going to drop. If we move now, we can cross the street while the Strays are distracted. If we stay, we die with them."

  "You're a monster," she whispered.

  CRACK.

  The pharmacy glass shattered. Not from the outside, but from the thing inside bursting through the survivors. A second later, three grey shapes blurred from the roof of the cinema across the street, shrieking as they descended.

  "Move," I said, not looking back.

  I felt the Trust notification flicker in my vision again. Another 5% drop. I didn't care. I couldn't afford to care. Every time I saved her, she hated me more, but at least she was alive to feel the hate.

  The library came into view—a massive, neo-classical fortress of granite. The heavy bronze doors were shut. Two men were standing on the balcony above the entrance, holding sporting bows and a flare gun.

  I walked right into the middle of the plaza, completely exposed.

  "Jax, get down!" Miller hissed.

  I didn't. I knew the man with the flare gun. His name was Henderson. He was a history professor with a hair-trigger temper and a hero complex. In the last life, he’d shot me in the leg because I looked "suspicious."

  "Henderson!" I shouted, my voice echoing off the stone. "Don't fire that flare! You’ll pull the Alpha from the park! We’re three survivors, unbitten, and I have the keys to the service elevator in the alley!"

  The man with the flare gun froze. He lowered the weapon, staring down at me with a mix of confusion and fear.

  "How do you know my name?" he yelled.

  "I'm the guy who’s going to keep your walls from falling down," I said. "Open the door, or the things that just hit the pharmacy are coming for you next."

  Ten seconds of silence passed. Then, the heavy bronze doors began to groan open.

  I looked at Sarah. She was staring at me with a look of pure, unadulterated dread. I had just named a stranger and identified a hidden entrance to a building I supposedly only knew from "blueprints."

  "Inside," I said.

  I led them up the steps. As I passed Henderson, I didn't thank him. I just looked at the bow in his hand and said, "Tighten your nock. The Strays here have leathery skin. You’re aiming too low."

  I walked into the darkness of the library, the "Veteran's Calm" finally beginning to fray at the edges. I had reached the first Milestone. But I knew the look on Sarah’s face. I wasn't her boyfriend anymore. I was a ghost story.