She is

trapped

in another memory the night is black and she is in her mother’s car white noise blaring

through her head her mother’s cheek against the wheel Where are you?

she wonders as red eyes multiply beyond

the broken glass and there again

is the anger the pain the burning need to—

Stop, she thought, dragging her mind, not back, not out, but through.

Pressure in her head, against her palms as—

—back in the car

her mother’s eyes

open wide

marred

by a single

silver

crack

—Where are you?—

she asks

and the car

the night

the vision

shudder

and give way

to cold

to nothing

and—

It moves

in and out

of shape

of shadows

through a place

singing

with promise

a city

carved in two

so many

dark thoughts

so many

monstrous minds

so much

kindling

just waiting

to catch—

Kate lurched backward, out of the vision.

Her nose was bleeding, and her head pounded, and her hands ached from gripping the sink, but none of it mattered.

Because Kate knew where the monster was going.

Knew where, somehow, it already was.

Verity.

Six months, condensed into a single bag.

The same one she’d first brought with her to Prosperity, the same things inside: cash, clothes, fake ID, a pair of iron spikes, a silver lighter with a hidden switchblade, a handgun.

It should have made leaving easy, but it didn’t. She told herself it was just a mission, told herself she was coming back, even as the echoes of a city she had once called home burned against her retinas, and the cold shadow twisted through her head. Kate didn’t know how to fight this thing, didn’t know how to kill it, but she knew she had to try.

She scooped up her tablet from the coffee table and sank onto the couch. The device booted to reveal the carnage from the restaurant, still on display where Riley had left it.

Twelve dead. A violent thought turned into a violent deed.

And now the monster was in Verity, a place that thrived on violence, that fed and nurtured it, and Kate couldn’t shake the idea that she had led the shadow there. That she had let it see into her mind, had shown it a place rife with potential.

Moth, meet flame.

But where had it come from? There had been no massive attacks, nothing on the scale she imagined necessary to create something like this. Was it the product instead of Prosperity’s slow poison? A city’s decay?

And what would a thing like this do in a city like hers? She’d already seen what it could do—hell, she’d felt the effects herself. The darkness stirred in her even now, a want whispering through her pulse, telling her to reach for the gun in her bag.

Instead she took a deep breath and opened a new message window. She addressed it to the Wardens and dropped every photo she had of the Heart Eaters into the file, along with a message: Pure metal only. Aim for heart.

Her finger hovered over the SEND.

It wasn’t enough, she knew that. The Wardens weren’t hunters—but they would find one. Someone stupid enough to do what she’d been doing. Maybe even someone better.

She told herself she had to go.

Had to warn the FTF. Warn August.

She hit SEND, and rose to her feet, shoving the tablet into her bag. By the time she reached the door, her phone was ringing.

Riley.

She didn’t answer, didn’t let herself stray from the task at hand. It was just like any other hunt, she told herself, letting her limbs take over, moving with a purpose she wasn’t sure she felt. She didn’t know what she felt, but she knew how to move. She paused at the door, scribbled out a note on a pad of paper.

She locked the door behind her, and slid the key beneath, listening to it skid away across the wooden floor, out of sight, out of reach.

After that, she didn’t let herself look back.

Running was just like every other habit.

It got easier with practice.

Riley’s building had a parking garage in the back, and as Kate scanned the rows of cars, she regretted ditching her father’s sedan when she got to the city.

She could have kept it, but everything about the car said Verity, said money, said Callum, down to the gargoyle on the hood, so she’d left it on the side of the road twenty-five miles from Prosperity’s capital in case anyone came looking for her.

In the end, no one did.

And now she was stuck searching for a ride out of town. Thank God the weather was nice, she thought, stumbling across a coupe with the windows halfway down. She didn’t even have to break the glass.

She tossed her bag into the passenger seat and climbed in, overwhelmed by sudden déjà vu. Another life, another world, August breathless and Kate wounded, her fingers shaking from the fight with the Malchai as she threw the car into gear.

Her cell buzzed in her pocket.

Kate didn’t answer, kept her hands busy prying off the ignition’s cover and splicing the wires. The engine sparked, sputtered, sparked, started.