“Who’s the girl’s father?” I asked, then froze, ice actually crystallizing in my veins. Dark suspicions were like a cascade of wind. What if she wasn’t my sister, but I was...

“Don’t know that, either,” he said.

Nana’s reaction to my questions...

Helen saying, “They’ll think that you’re...” to the little girl.

Dead, I finished now and knew I was right.

And Mr. Holland had called the little girl Samantha. Sami. The name Helen spoke the first time she appeared to me. At the time, I thought she was telling me her name. But she’d clearly been saying her daughter’s name...while looking at me. Calling me—

No!

I vividly remembered my mom—my real mom—telling me she’d named me after my dad’s mother at birth. So, why was I even traveling this path? It was impossible. I had no memories of Helen.

Well, except for the dreams.

I struggled to breathe. The truth was, I had no memories of the first five years of my life.

Five, not six.

The difference mattered. I couldn’t be Sami. I’d gotten it right the first time. Sister.

But...two facts niggled at me. One, there were very few pictures of my early years, and those we had were of me. Just me. I’d never thought that strange before.

I thought it strange now.

Two, I’d always felt like the odd man out at my grandparents’ house. Like they’d seen something in Emma they hadn’t seen in me.

I pushed out a breath.

Time to break down the facts. Helen had dated my dad. Probably slept with him. She’d disappeared soon after graduation. To escape the pain of seeing my mom and dad together—to hide a pregnancy?

Then, after her death, she’d come back to help a long-lost second cousin, the daughter of the man who’d betrayed her, and not the company she’d worked for? No. But someone with a closer connection to her? Far more likely.

And really, birthdays could be changed as easily as names.

If she was... If it was true... Can’t possibly be true. Why wait so long to reveal herself? Why come to me now and not, say, when I first lost my parents? Or when I battled Zombie Ali?

Questions, questions. So many questions.

“There you have it,” Mr. Holland said, drawing me back to our conversation. “Everything I know. Now. I want you to tell me why this information is so important to you.”

Did he suspect what I did?

I shook my head, even though I knew he couldn’t see the action. My gaze found Cole. He wasn’t looking at me, but over my shoulder, his eyes narrowed, his lips compressed into a thin line. If Helen was...my mother—no, she couldn’t be my mother; I refused to believe it—then the woman who had given birth to me had helped kill the woman who had given birth to him, and in a bid for revenge, his dad had murdered her for it.

It was a sick, twisted history. How could two people in a romantic relationship ever hope to recover?

I walked to the window and peered out into the dwindling light. The sun was hidden, the sky gray. The rabbit cloud was still there, only darker. Menacing, like my mood.

“I’m going to go now, Mr. Holland,” I said softly. I had a lot to think about—a lot I didn’t want to think about.

He sighed. “I understand. But we’re going to talk. Soon.”

“Soon.” I hung up.

Right now, I needed Emma. She would tell me how silly I was to worry. And that’s exactly what I was doing. What I’d told myself I’d never do. Worse, I was probably doing it for nothing.

“You are related to my mother’s killer,” Cole said, “and I’m related to your mom’s cousin’s killer, but we’ll get through it.”

He didn’t understand. Didn’t know what I suspected. Would he change his mind then?

My gaze snagged on the gate that circled the entire property line and widened. “No.” But the image didn’t change. Zombies were already out, and they were here.

“We’ll put the work in,” he said.

Hundreds of the creatures gripped the iron, shaking it. It had been doused in the Blood Lines and was solid to them, even though they were in spirit form. They couldn’t bypass it, but they could grow tired of waiting and turn their attention to the other homes in the area, killing innocents.

How had they gotten past Mr. Ankh’s reinforced security? He had monitors capable of seeing zombie evil—on screen, they glowed as red as their eyes—to alert him whenever a zombie horde approached. But right now, he had no idea. Otherwise, an alarm would have been blasting.

“Cole,” I choked. “Zombies. They’re here.”

He joined me at the window and peered out. He stiffened, saying, “We have to warn the others.”

As we hurried down the hall, he banged on every door, shouting, “We’ve got visitors. More Z’s than we’ve ever fought before.”

Behind the doors, footsteps pounded. Hinges squeaked and then our friends rushed out, dressing along the way, River and Camilla among them.

We congregated in the dungeon, where Mr. Ankh kept a stash of weapons.

“I thought you guys were boring,” River said, his tone jovial, “but you certainly know how to liven things up.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said with a nod. “We’re good like that. You’re welcome.”

Ignoring them, Kat said to Frosty, “Don’t go catching butterflies,” as he strapped a pair of short swords to his back. “Go to the roof and clip their wings with a rifle or something.”