Wrapped in a blanket, I listened to the sounds of the Warriors fighting in the nighttime. My muscles still shook from the physical exertion of the shovel earlier that day. Lydia curled up next to me, her head on my shoulder. We weren't saying much, which was much better than trying to fill the silence when quiet was the appropriate response. I was still sick, probably would be for days yet, but I wasn’t going to think about it anymore. At some point, it was mind over matter. That was how I’d survive this.

A fire crackled in front of us. Usually, we hid when we were outside the habitat. But given we were such a large group, the monsters knew we were here anyway.

“What are you thinking?” Lydia lifted her head to look at me. “I can't fathom your thoughts. Haven't been able to since they took you into that place.”

I brushed her hair off her face. “My thoughts are really not important right now. You’re the one who just lost her mother.”

“I've been losing her for years. Don't get me wrong, I am going to miss her tremendously. But she's been sick so long I almost don't remember what it was like when she wasn't. Charlie likely won't remember her at all. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.”

I sighed. “The problem with memory. Do we want it? Do we not want it? My days in the Vampire holding feel like someone else's life. I think that's because Icahn messed with my head so much. Although, I know they happened, I have no memory of it. Do I even want the memory at all?” I stroked her hand. “You should try to hold on to those few memories you have where she was alive and healthy. Keep them somehow in the front of your mind. Don't let them go.” I shook my head. “Not that I am in a position at all to give anyone any advice, whatsoever.”

“You always do that, act like you have nothing to contribute when you have a vast amount of experience in a lot of ways. I like to hear what you think.” She kissed my cheek. “I know I should be thinking about Mom all the time, but my mind keeps wandering to other things.”

I loved this woman so much. “Is there a should in this moment? Who is to say what you should or shouldn’t be thinking about?”

She gave me a small smile. “Fair enough.”

Somewhere, one of the Warriors let out a triumphant hoot. I smiled. Sometimes the takedowns were worth hooting about. “What are you thinking about?”

“How amazing it was that you had the hole done by the time I was done explaining to Charlie what was going on. How you took care of everything, even getting Patrick to say some nice words about a woman he'd never met.” She stopped. “How I want to get to where we're going because what I really want is a wedding night with you. I need it, I think, to get the memory of you on that table out of my mind. When we got there, I thought you were dead.”

“Lydia, I'm so—”

The pain of Vampires slammed into me. They were close and even though I was still not at my usual strength, my powers weren't going to let me ignore them if they were practically on top of me.

She looked around. “What is it?”

“Vampires.” I reached into my pocket and tried to grab my stake. My hands shook and didn't close around the wood. This was not good, not at all. “I'm really out of commission. My hand doesn't seem to have the ability to hold the right grip.”

My wife stood. “I got this.”

I wanted to throw up right there. She was as trained as anyone I'd worked with. I'd trusted her to keep everyone safe in Geronimo, and she'd had my back already more than once during a fight.

This was different.

“Lydia, there are going to be a lot of them. I can feel it.”

“Got it.”

She really didn't. Or maybe I didn't. I wasn't prepared for her to die while I sat around like a baby and watched. I dragged myself to my feet. “I'm helping. I’ll get it done.”

“Not if you can't hold the stake.”

Keith used to say necessity was the mother of invention. I knew enough to understand he hadn't invented that expression. Still, he'd taught it to me, and tonight it certainly applied.

I took the blanket I'd been in and using my machete with shaking hands, I sliced a piece of it up. If I couldn't hold the stake, I'd tie it to my hand so it wasn't going anywhere.

“We'll do this together.”

She nodded. “Don't worry, honey. I won't let anything happen to you.”

I believed her.

The Vampires rushed at us. There were four of them. This close to Genesis, they were likely from the habitat Icahn used to run. It was clear of humans now, and without Icahn to keep the bloodsuckers subdued, they were hungry, angry and out of control. The ones at Geronimo had been bad enough. This was going to be rough.

Lydia charged one. I realized right then it was possible to be super proud of someone, amazed by their bravery, and frozen stiff in utter terror. All three of those things were possible in the same moment.

She was fearless, or at least she hid any anxiety really well. The movements I'd taught her were smooth as she staked not one but two Vampires. Watching the second one turn to dust should have spurred me forward, yet it wasn't until one of the others was practically on top of me that I remembered I had the ability to move at all.

My hand closed around the stake. I didn't trust myself not to lose the grip again. I wasn't nearly myself and wouldn't be again until whatever this mess I'd gotten inside of me was officially gone. I trusted the blanket would keep the stake where it needed to be if my hand wanted to cooperate. Not wanting to give the universe any reason to screw with me anymore, I took down my Vamp just in time to see Lydia take out the fourth.

As the wind picked up the dust of what had been the undead, she nodded at some internal dialogue going on in her own head.

“Lydia.” My voice shook. “You're so fucking beautiful.”

I meant what I said. Never in the time of all my wasted years had I ever seen anything as truly striking as the sight of Lydia disposing of Vampires on that cold, winter night. She'd lost her mother just hours earlier. How could she be so self-composed?

She chuckled at me. “Deacon, you look like you're going to fall over.”

And she was honest. There was something to be said about that.

Lydia banished me back inside the truck. I yawned. Well, I'd been outside for hours. That was something. Strength would return. So much for my plan to ignore discomfort.

“Seems kind of easy, doesn't it?”

I jumped. In front of me was a person I’d never expected to see again for the rest of my life. Jason Kenwood. He'd been Rachel's first boyfriend and a pain in the ass Werewolf. He'd died saving her from Icahn. I'd been there but too lost to the craziness at that point to even remember it well. Icahn had tried to shoot her. I'd done nothing, since I was basically a loser then, and Kenwood had taken the bullet.

Rachel had destroyed Icahn's cloning machines. There was no bringing Jason back, which made him a figment of my imagination.

Yet, there he stood like he was real. Blond, blue-eyed and pretty. I'd always hated him. I still did—even though I didn't want Rachel.

I just hated him on principle for being a Werewolf and therefore inherently evil.

Why was I imagining him now?

“Going to answer my question? Doesn't it seem too easy?”

I cleared my throat. “Doesn't what seem too easy?”

“The way you got away.” He shook his head. “And I agree. I'd rather you weren't picturing me either. Your brain needed someone you would listen to and apparently that was me. This is too easy. You got strapped to a table and injected with drugs. Don't you think it was mighty easy for your friends—if that's what they really are—to come and rescue you like that?” He walked toward me slowly. “In fact, I think all of it is downright too simple. What do you think the chances are you're even here at all? You were born in what basically amounted to a dungeon.”

I swallowed. “What's your point?”

“Take a look at yourself, Deacon. You were in a cage, and you were supposed to die. Then Rachel shows up and saves you. You have adventure after adventure. Make bad choice after bad choice. Yet, somehow here you are? With the nicest wife imaginable who seems to get you even though you're basically a piece of shit? Come on, Deacon, wake up. You're not here. You would never have a girl like that. Why would she waste her breath on someone like you? Face the facts, none of us are real. The Vampires released the fumes so you wouldn't fight the cage. You're in there now being fed on by the sick bloodsuckers. Wake up, Deacon. You've never been anything but food.”

And just like that, I was back in the cage. It was that night and the Vampires were all over me. Their claws tore at my skin, their teeth pierced my body. Blood spurted out all over me. This was what I'd been born for. My parents had been allowed to breed, to love each other so I could die just like this. I was food, and this was a human slaughterhouse for the Vampires. It didn't matter how much I screamed. No one would help me.

That didn't stop me from yelling to the moon, like the big yellow ball in the sky could help me. My eyes blurred. This was it. Everything was going to end and none of it—not one minute I lived—was going to amount to anything at all.

“Deacon.” I shook. Or no, someone shook me. “Come on. Deacon. Wake up. Come back.”

Lydia...

I blinked, and she was in front of me. She had me in her arms. I was on the floor of the truck, my head in her lap. “Come on, love. Come back. What's wrong?”

Margot stared down at me. “It's to be expected. For the next few days. Even as his liver and kidneys remove the filth from him, he's going to have some residual problems. It will stop. People come back from this if they're not killed in the process. Probably doesn't help he's being all superhuman and fighting monsters after digging holes when I've said he needed to stay in bed.”

“I don't appreciate your tone. He doesn't have it in him to sit around. This is like a punishment for something he didn't do to himself. I thank you for your continued help. But the snide tone? I can do without it and so can he.” Lydia's gaze flared as he she dressed Margot down.

The doctor gasped, and then tears slipped from her eyes. “I'm sorry. You're right. I'm… out of line. I don't mean to be so heartless. Where I'm from, people are not rewarded for basic human kindness. I think I've forgotten how.”

Lydia let out a breath. “Margot, forgive me. I have no right to be yelling at anyone. I am pretty much a horrible person. Can we start again?”

“Are you both real?” I couldn't stand it any longer. “Which one is true?” I pulled myself off Lydia's lap and crawled to the door. “Am I here or in the Vampire cage?”

Lydia got on her knees. She reached for me. “Come back, love. This is real.”

“Such an insidious drug”—Margot grimaced—“to screw with his head like this.”

“Stop it,” I hollered. “I can't breathe.” As I said it, I realized it was true. “I can't catch my breath.”

Margot shook her head. “You're breathing just fine, Deacon. If you weren't, you'd never be able to yell at us like that.”

She was right.

“I...”

The world tilted sideways. Red flames filled the night sky around us. This time, however, my wife and the doctor seemed to see them, too. They both grabbed the side of the truck, and I groaned.

The last thing any of us needed right then was the signal I received. “Werewolves. They seem to like burning shit lately.”

Everything went black.

I woke alone in the car. There were shouts outside, and given that the door to the truck was open and the flames still blazed, I didn't think much time had passed. I dragged myself to my feet.

Enough was enough. I wasn’t still in the Vampire cage, fortunately, that crazy had passed. But I was done. The monsters needed to be gone. I was going to gut through this.

I stumbled out of the car. There was a discarded, half-broken machete on the ground. I heard howls, shouts, and growls in the distance. It wasn’t Full Moon, those fuckers didn’t have to be here causing problems. They just wanted to and that pissed me off more. I picked up the broken machete, apparently having the strength to do that at the moment. Or maybe it was adrenaline. This would have to do. I didn’t know where mine was.

A blade was a blade was a blade.

If it took the head off the frickin’ monster’s neck, then it was all great as far as I was concerned. I limped. Couldn’t run if I needed to. The trick would be, then, to not need to. All of it seemed very simple.

There was a large group of Werewolves, three dozen at quick count, attacking Warriors. I stood still and watched for a second, looking for who I wanted. It didn’t take long to spot the Alpha. Those furry asshats loved their Alphas more than they did anything in the universe, more than their mates, more than their lives.

With a group this big, there was no way the Alpha wasn’t around and no way were they going to let him fight. Behind two big dog-monsters, stood the Alpha, two lengths of the forest back, observing the scene from higher ground.

Well, wasn’t that cute.

They’d set the woods on fire and threatened my people. Again. They could all go fuck themselves. I limped past the scenes of battle. They weren't interesting to me, and I could make them all stop now and permanently. The only thing I needed to accomplish what I planned was fire. The same stuff they were using on us, I would use on them.

I took my broken machete. A big stick would get the job done. More and more, I was discovering how little I needed fancy stuff. I grabbed a low-hanging branch off a tree and stuck it in one of the flames. This was how I’d met Lydia—Werewolves and fire.

I turned to catch a quick glance of her in the crowd. She fought next to Rachel and with three other Newbies, including Trevor. Chad was somewhere in there, too. That was great. They'd take care of her until I made this problem disappear.

“Hey,” Micah called, running up to meet me. He was bleeding from his temple. It dripped down his face. Something had caught him with a claw. “What are you doing?”

“You're hurt.” In battle, sometimes we had to state the obvious.

He shrugged. “It's blood. I didn't take a blow to the head, just a scratch.”

“Can you take off heads?”

Between the fire and the moon, I could see Micah as well as if it were daytime. “Sure. Anytime, any day.”

I pointed at the Alpha. “Take the one on the left.”

“You think this is the smartest move? There are battles to be won. He'll leave once we've beat them back a bit.”

“Sure, giving his royal assholeness enough time to plan again. I'm not interested in him having any more time on this Earth. This is the only play.”

Micah grabbed my arm. “He's not Alpha because he's weak.”

“I'm not still alive because I'm stupid.”

“Not stupid, no.” He didn't let go. “But coming off an extreme amount of injury and sickness. I'm not sure you're in your right mind.”

I laughed. “Micah, I'm not even sure what the fuck that is. Come with me or get out of my way. This is happening.”

Even among those of us who were Warriors, who were tough, who fought all the time, there was a hierarchy. Sometimes it came from battle wins. To give Clancy her due, she was as high up as she was because she kicked major ass over and over, survived things that would make other people die, and arranged the death of Isaac Icahn by offering herself up in return.

Patrick Lyons' kids had seniority based on their name alone. As much as I didn't hate Chad anymore, I wasn't sure if he was as badass as everyone else made him out to be. But Micah? I'd come to learn that every bit of power he had in our group was well earned. Most of the time, I'd back off and run his play in battle. Not today. He could get behind me or get out of my way.

He nodded. “One of the left? Got it.”

“Good.” It certainly would make it easier to have him with me than to do it alone.

As we approached the Alpha his two guards snarled, their canines bared, their hackles up.

“Mine,” I called out lest Micah forget.

He snickered. “It's like football. You're calling the play.”

I shook my head. “Not sure what that is.”

Because the machete was wobbly, I had no choice but to hold it tighter around the top of the handle.

“It's like you're choking up on the thing.”

“Use comparisons I understand, or shut the fuck up.” With one loud howl, the fully black Werewolf on the right launched himself at me. He was huge and fast. Not surprising. The Werewolves guarding the Alpha would be among the very best. I swung at the Werewolf. He ducked, darting left, and jumped toward me. I had to roll right to avoid him. He was faster. I was more motivated. I swung the machete again and hit the creature's neck. He howled. The sound elicited no sympathy from me.

I dug deeper, cutting through bone and muscle. There was blood and gore. This was not an easy swipe. I ended up dropping my branch, which was fine, I'd retrieve it later. I needed leverage. I got on his back. Micah was right; this was becoming my move. I continued to chop off the monster's head.

The Werewolf on the left must have gotten the hint this was not going to go well. He leaped at me. I didn't even look. Micah had said he had him, and I believed he did. The fact I wasn't dead lent credence to my faith in Prince Lyons.

My Werewolf finally died. I fell to the ground, rolled, and got to my feet. I wasn't feeling anything, so my adrenaline had to be through the roof. Or I was having another side effect.

The Alpha charged me. I'd had a plan, and I needed to execute it, which was easier said than done.

Still, I had no choice. I could do it or die. I wanted to see Lydia again. Maybe the Werewolf had a mate. We'd see which of us came home to our woman.

I grabbed the stick and dropped the machete. I took the branch and let it catch fire in one of the nearby burning trees. It caught aflame easily, considering how wet it had been. But a dead branch was a dead branch. It might not make a great campfire, but it could burn Wolf.

I jumped onto the back of the Alpha. He snarled, tried to turn his head to bite me, and bucked. I had to squeeze my thighs hard to stay on top of him.

“Hey,” I shouted as loudly as I could. “You want your Alpha to die?” I held up my stick. “Keep fighting. You want to see this son-of-a-bitch again, and you'll stop. Now.”

Silence hit the area hard. I'd never heard it go from such noise to nothing so fast before. The Alpha was still trying to knock me off his back. “I will burn him to the ground. I will burn him so fast all you'll hear from him are his screams as he dies. You love your Alpha? Back the fuck away, now.”

I hoped my fellow Warriors were on their game. They'd better understand what I planned to do here. We had no history of attacking Alphas. Generally, we tried to survive encounters and what I was doing didn't fall into Patrick's constant strategy of live to fight another day. I planned to make it through this. But it wouldn't be because I played it safe.

Howls started. That's good, boys, talk to each other. Back the fuck up.

One after another they started to obey. I wasn't going to fall off their Alpha. They could see it. Sometimes I took the day, sometimes the monster did.

Come on. Come on. Someone realize what I want to do.

It was Chad who moved. He sprung forward, slashing the Werewolf near him until the neck fell off his body.

There was a howl, and then I set the Alpha on fire. From the back of his neck, I struck over and over until even his rolling on the ground couldn’t extinguish the flames. I burned and burned and burned him until he fell backward.

It was so much more brutal than taking off his neck. I wanted him to know, I wanted them all to see, just how vulnerable they could be. We were not weaker, and I was not afraid.

A wall of Warriors formed around me. Any stupid wolf that didn’t run would face them. They wanted to set us on fire? Fine, I would burn them to ash. If they came at us, I would come at them ten times harder.

The Alpha died. Eventually. It took a long time. When it was over, I threw down my stick into the snow and sat down, not caring if I got soaked or not.

Micah was covered in soot. At some point he must have encountered some flames. He sat down right next to me. “Fuck. Man. Wow.”

Yeah, that pretty much summed it up.

A shadow fell over us, and I looked up to see the unsmiling face of Patrick Lyons. “When we get home, boys, we’re going to have a long talk.”

Micah stared at his father for a moment before he burst out laughing. I didn’t know why. There really was nothing funny, except that listening to Micah laugh so hard was kind of funny unto itself. Soon, I was also cracking up. Right there in the snow with the dead Alpha nearby.

Maybe we were both deranged.