I ended up giving Lydia my coat. The longer we walked, the more seeing her in that nightgown trudging through the snow aggravated me. I didn’t have anything to punch. So I took off my coat and wrapped it around both Lydia and Charlie. They were going to get sick otherwise. A little cold wasn’t going to affect my immune system. Years cooped up with so many others at the Vamp facility had exposed me to the worst of everything.

I hardly ever got sick, which was good because the Vampires killed people who grew too ill. No sense in endangering their food supply. We had basically been cattle. I forced the thought away. My memories haunted me a lot lately. Without Genesis to annoy and distract me, I had way too many moments to remember my past.

Lydia’s hips swayed in a very distracting way—first in that nightgown and now in my coat, which was thicker but somehow sexier at the same time. How did she get her body to move like that while she carried Charlie? Micah had gone back to his being quiet thing, and the whole deal with the three of us clomping along in the snow was starting to feel awkward. I didn’t do that kind of discomfort very well.

“Do you want to give me the kid?”

Lydia side-eyed me. “Excuse me?”

“Hand me the kid? He must be a lot to carry for you. I can do it. I’m stronger.”

Micah smirked and covered his mouth. What the hell was funny? Lydia looked down then at me. “Okay, thank you for the kind offer.”

She slipped Charlie onto my shoulder then tried to give me the jacket back as well. “You keep it.’

“You don’t have one, and now you have my brother, too.”

I shrugged. What was confusing about this? “I got it. Keep the coat.”

“You better keep the coat, Lydia. He’ll just get testy. And besides it looks better on you.”

I waited for her to blush. They all did when Micah flirted. They started to giggle and finally, outright laugh. Then he had them. Lydia didn’t blush. She looked up at the sky instead. “I’m afraid we’re going to have a lot more snow before this winter leaves us. I hate the snow.”

“Me too.” Of course, she didn’t need me to agree. I’d never mastered small talk. I didn’t get it. You said stuff or you didn’t.

Holding Charlie was certainly warming me up. The kid was like a mini heater. He squirmed, his head coming down more squarely on my shoulder. I rubbed his back. I was good with kids, always had been.

“So you were the only person in the whole town or wherever you’re from who could come traipsing out after Charlie? You don’t even have a coat.”

“I was asleep when he was taken. I woke, and I just ran. I didn’t even think. I mean, I know I can’t beat the Wolves. No one can. And with all the men missing…”

Micah turned to her. “Come again?”

“All of the men have been missing for a month. They’re gone.”

I understood two things at once. Sometimes insight came to me like that. Lydia was keeping secrets. That was fine. She was entitled to them. I didn’t feel so much like giving up mine. But also, she needed help. Since we were here, Micah and I might as well see she got some.

“The Werewolves took all the men?” I couldn’t even imagine that scene.

She shook her head. “We don’t know what happened. They were there, and then they were gone. Usually when the Werewolves come, it’s a giant mess. The monsters don’t care what kind of scene they make to get what they want. My house is an incredible jumble right now. Everything was thrown everywhere.”

Micah ran a hand through his black hair. “And there’s no chance they all simply took off?”

“What kind of men would do that?” Her tone was rough. She wasn’t going to believe less of her people, and I appreciated that in whatever world she lived in, men didn’t run off and leave their women to survive.

I wasn’t going to tell her that I’d known lots of men who would leave their families. Why soften her resolve? She had to get through the nights. “How old were the youngest men they took? What about the elderly?”

I wasn’t sure who the they in this scenario was, but I’d go with they for now. Why not?

Lydia smiled at me, and suddenly, I felt like I grew two inches. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough.” Her cheeks turned red and in the sun that was rising I could see the color well. Was she blushing? Why was she doing that? And she’d never answered my question. With her gaze down, she spoke again. “The youngest was sixteen, the oldest sixty-two. Our oldest villager.”

That was an impressive age to reach. I sighed. This whole bit didn’t make any sense, so we’d have to just see what the deal was when we reached the town. Wherever that turned out to be. How long had she chased the Wolves, and why had they let her?

Probably, they figured they’d just eat her. It was likely very amusing to them that some human woman thought she could stop them.

Micah sucked in his breath. “Deacon. It’s an actual town. With houses. Houses that aren’t empty, houses people live in.” He stopped moving altogether and just stared. I followed his gaze. He was right. There were rows and rows of small cottage-looking houses with gray smoke coming out of the chimneys. A stone wall marked the boundaries of the first town I’d seen outside of the tent city that was Genesis, and giant trees surrounded it on all sides. Currently, everything was bathed in white. In winter, that was the shade of death. I didn’t want that for these people I still had yet to meet. There was life here. I took a deep breath. This was what I was looking for. Outside of Genesis, there was life. Not just touches. But a group of people…

I blinked. So the hell what? I didn’t know these people. Lydia was… nice… and Charlie smelled like fresh air and powder.

“Hey.” I caught Lydia’s attention. “That thing you did with the stick. Fighting back the Werewolf? That was the single bravest thing I’ve ever seen. I wanted you to know.”

Was it just me or did Lydia seem to glow? She nodded once. “That thing you did? Jumping on the Werewolf? That was the single bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It was nothing.”

Micah rolled his eyes. “He is brave. Even if he doesn’t know it.”

I felt the Werewolf alarm move through me like an assault. One second, nothing, then the next it was all over me. I almost doubled over from the pain, but I had Charlie, and he couldn’t be hurt. I shoved his sleeping form at his sister. I wished I could be gentler, but time was of the essence. Micah darted to the side, both of us freeing our machetes from where they were strapped to our backs.

“Deacon,” Micah shouted at me. “At least five.”

“Maybe more,” I replied.

I put myself in front of Lydia, pushing her slightly backward until she was up against a gray stone wall. If she needed to run, she could go left or right but nothing would come at her straight on. Not while I lived and breathed.

A Werewolf jumped out of a tree. He was in his full Wolf form. I rolled my eyes. “Look at you. Big, tough dog. Come to play with me?”

It growled and lunged. So did I. I sliced off its head, although it took me two good swings to sever the spinal cord. I hoped it hurt the fucker. I hoped he suffered. I jolted to the left, missing a clawing. Lydia cried out.

“Deacon, watch yourself.”

I smiled at her. “I’m hard to kill.”

“No.” Her face was serious. “You’re not.” Charlie cried, and she pulled him closer.

Over and over, Micah and I fought back the Werewolves until they were gone. At the end, Micah and I stood together, heads down, panting.

“You beat me in this one.” Micah chuckled. “You got the three, I only took two.”

“Yeah.” He was right but that was beside the point. “Your Werewolf was harder.”

Lydia came up behind me, wrapping her free arm around me. “You’re okay. I was so scared. Not for myself. But for you.”

“I—” Before I even knew what I was doing, I hugged her back. “I’m fine.”

Micah snickered, raising one arm in the air. “I’m good, too.”

We’d drawn a crowd, and I hadn’t even realized it. I let go of Lydia, who was apparently a hugger. I turned toward the new arrivals. A group of women and young children gaped at us, twittering to themselves quietly, until a loud shriek sounded.

“Lydia,” a woman shouted. “Lydia.” The way the woman said Lydia’s name sounded off to my ears. She said it like it wasn’t just Lydia she was saying but like it broke up into more than three syllables. Ly-Di-ee-Ah.

Charlie and Lydia were then pulled into the embrace of an older, frail looking woman who shook while she held them. “I thought you were dead. I thought you were both dead.” She cried. Lydia cried. Charlie cried. It was a big tear fest.

I stepped back until I was shoulder-to-shoulder with Micah. I had parents, and despite the odds, they’d somehow survived our time with the Vamps. They loved each other, and they clearly loved my sister and me, or at least at one time they had. Now it wasn’t so clear. But no one held me like that. No one ever had.

That was what it looked like to be truly loved. I pulled my gaze away. I didn’t know these people, probably never would. I would never forget the sight of it for the rest of my life.

“Mama, everyone,” Lydia called out, “I would be dead. Charlie would be dead. But these two men—Deacon and Micah—they’re such heroes. They killed Werewolves. You just saw. They did it before, too. And Deacon threw his body on a Werewolf, wrestled it to the ground. They’ll save us all.”

Now, wait a second. I had not promised to save anyone. Had I? With this woman, I seemed to be saying all kinds of things. Micah elbowed me, his voice low. “How’s it feel to be such a hero, Deacon?”

“Eat it, Micah.” I rolled my eyes. “Lydia…”

I never got to finish that sentence. The crowd of women cheered. I could hardly identify one face from the next before they were pulling us into the center of town and into a home.

“Ah, ladies—” I didn’t really like being touched all that much. Lydia’s hug aside, I preferred strangers keep their hands to themselves. We had to set down our blood soaked machetes outside before we went in, which was awkward. We washed our hands, and then we were all but shoved into chairs where a bowl of soup was placed before each of us.

“Just go with it, man.” Micah winked at me. “Women like to fuss. Let them fuss.”

I knew a whole slew of Warrior women who wouldn’t particularly enjoy being grouped into that category of women. Although, I doubted Micah was really chauvinistic when it came down to it. His mother could kill as well as any man I knew. Micah spoke again, this time to the women. “Thank you for the soup, ladies. It smells divine. We haven’t had anything homemade to eat in two weeks.”

The way they all sucked in their breath, I would have thought he said two years.

Lydia sat down in a chair next to me. She’d changed her clothes, wearing dark pants and a white shirt with buttons. Her blond hair fell along her shoulders. I didn’t see Charlie, but maybe he was with her frail mother. How sick was the woman?

Lydia touched my arm. “Are you hurt?”

“Ah… no.” She really was… pretty.

The thing about Rachel, the only other woman I’d ever spent time thinking about, was that she hadn’t been gorgeous. I’d thought she was beautiful, but it came from her guts and her glory. She was a survivor. Lydia was hands down the loveliest woman I’d ever seen, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. How was I supposed to deal with the kind of looks this woman had? Compliment her all the time?

“I asked because you took down all those monsters. Saved me over and over. You’ve come out of nowhere and been such a hero.”

I hated that word. “I’m not a hero. Trust me, I have done more fucked up stuff than you can ever imagine.” I wished I hadn’t said fucked after I said it. But Lydia didn’t wince. She just stared at me with her blue eyes, and I wanted to do better. “I’m a Warrior.”

“The kind that come out of the ground?” a second old woman with a cane called from across the room. Everyone hushed. She must be someone important. “The stuff of legends?”

Micah fielded this one. “We’re not legends. We’ve been through some stuff, but we’re real. Yes, at one point Deacon and I came upward. Not necessarily together but, yes.”

Micah’s exodus had been forced upon him when Genesis revolted against Icahn. Mine came when Rachel saved my ass.

“I see the prophecy is coming true.”

Micah closed his mouth and looked anywhere but at the older woman, which left only me to deal with that very strange statement. “The what now?”

She wobbled toward me. “The prophecy the man in white told my grandfather and the whole town long ago. If we just held out long enough, the Warriors would come and save us.”

I took a long breath, steady until Lydia placed her hand on mine—her skin was really soft. “Look, Micah and I don’t know anything about a prophecy or about saving any of you. We’re Warriors from Genesis, and we’re traveling to find out what else is in the world, basically. I’m glad we were around when Lydia and Charlie needed us. If we can spend the night, we’ll be on our way tomorrow.”

A flurry of conversation started again. In Genesis, the Warriors had mostly kept to themselves, and in the Vampire hold, we’d had to keep our voices down. Having this many people speaking loudly all at once was exhausting.

We were brought to an empty home where apparently newlyweds stayed when they first got married. The ladies took all but one set of our clothes with promises to wash them. I hoped they weren’t really stealing them in some sick ritual. It would be just my luck to end up in a twisted town where they preyed on barely clothed guys in their sleep. Why shouldn’t this go badly? Everything always did.

There was just one large bed, and Micah and I lay down in the darkness, pillows separating us. I thought he was asleep until he spoke.

“So Lydia really likes you.” He sounded amused. Why was that funny?

“I’m not exactly sure why.”

“Well, I think we were tied until you threw yourself on top of the Werewolf. It was an impressive move. You didn’t even hesitate. I know he’s not your favorite person, but that was a Chad move. Boom. On top of the Werewolf. I was impressed. She must have gotten stars in her eyes. We know it can’t be your charming personality or pretty face.” He laughed like he’d made a joke. “You are sweet to her. Telling her she was brave, which she was. But you actually saying it? You were like a different Deacon.”

I wasn’t comfortable with this conversation, so I decided to change it. “Where do you think the men are?”

“Well…” Micah cleared his throat. “I really hope they weren’t in the soup we just ate.”

I really—and I meant really—hoped so, too.

The next morning, we stumbled out of bed at the first touch of sunlight, wearing the clothes we’d been in the night before. The fire in the fireplace had kept us warm for a long time, and I should have felt rested. The move I’d made with the Wolf was probably why I wasn’t walking well and my back ached. I stretched, but it didn’t help. Great.

I opened the door to find everything else we’d brought folded and laundered. Since there was no electricity, somebody had spent the night cleaning. I’d have loved to know whom so I could say thank you.

The sky was the gray of early morning in winter. I missed the reds and purples of summer. The clouds were spotty with little white dots that really looked brown more than anything else. It was cold, bitterly so. I bent over to pick up the stuff, dinging my already sore back, and came back inside the house.

Micah accepted his cleaned articles with a nod, and then the two of us were ready to go.

A knock sounded, and Micah grabbed my arm. “We need to be sure how much we want to be involved before you open that door. They’re missing all their men. The Werewolves are attacking regularly. They’re living in poverty compared to Genesis, and it’s rough there. We don’t know who’s in charge.”

Another knock. We had to answer before we got rude. “How involved do you want to be?”

Micah ran a hand through his hair. “I’m following your lead on this one. You tell me. I set out for an adventure, for something other than Genesis, for a life. If this is what that is, then so be it. I’m up for helping. It’s better than the endless drab existence of fighting, sleeping, eating and doing it again.”

I hadn’t realized he felt that way. “We’re going to talk about that. Later.”

“Sure.” He rolled his eyes. “Let’s have a big chat about it.”

I answered the door. Lydia stood there, two mugs in hand. She beamed. Wow. She was somehow even prettier in the morning than she’d been in the dark. I hadn’t slept very much, maybe two hours. Was I starting to lose it?

“Hi,” she said with a grin then walked past me into the cabin. “I saw you were up. I mean, I saw you come out and get the clothes.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

She smiled again. “So I thought you might like coffee.”

“Coffee?” Micah practically skipped past me to grab his mug. “Thanks, gorgeous.”

I really could have done without hearing him call her that. She was. But Micah and his flirtations always got the girl.

“You’re welcome.” She lifted the mug. “Deacon?”

I didn’t usually drink the stuff. It could sometimes make me jittery. I took it because she’d made it. “Thanks.”

“Well, okay.” She rocked back on her feet. “I was hoping you’d come meet with the council. Or what’s left of the council. With all the men gone, it’s kind of a makeshift situation.”

Micah raised his eyebrows. He wanted me to decide. Well… all right. “Sure. When did you want us there?”

“Oh, great.” She touched my arm, and it was like she imprinted her fingers on me somehow. “Thanks. A couple of hours.”

“Sure.” Micah nodded as he imitated my wordage. Asshole. “Where?”

She walked to the window and pointed. Lydia was still in the same outfit as the night before. Had she not slept? “Down that block. The big house.”

“Hey, did you get any rest?”

She shook her head. “Too wound up. I’ll crash eventually. Thanks. Again.”

I waited until she left the cabin before I turned to Micah. “Thoughts would be appreciated.”

“She makes a damned good cup of coffee considering they have no electricity.”

It was too early for violence. “That’s not what I meant.”

He set down his glass and yawned. “I think we both know what it really means when people go missing. Our resident psychopath, Dr. Icahn, who was responsible for all our woes is gone, or at least we think he is. I suppose it's possible he was cloned a bunch of other places. He always said there were other scientists. Maybe there are. The entire male population removed? That seems like an experiment to me.”

“I keep searching the skies,” I confessed to him. “A tower. A big building. Something like the way Icahn ran things. If they took the men, they had to bring them somewhere. No way do you make a bunch of guys walk for more than a few hours without someone getting away or someone dead.”

Micah walked to the window. “There’s nothing as far as the eye can see.”

“Which means nothing.”

He tapped on the window. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s underground.” I pointed. “Where the eye can’t see.”

Where I had spent the first eighteen years of my life. In the darkness, sometimes being brought to the surface to be walked around like an animal they had to occasionally show the sun. In a place where a bright light like Lydia would be snuffed out the first time she blinked the wrong way.

“We find the men. Or at least what happened to them. We help them learn how to defend themselves then help them make themselves safer. Then we move on?”

I raised my cup. “That sounds like a plan.”

“I like a plan.” Micah nodded. “Two-mile radius. I’ll go north and east. You go west and south. We search. Find the opening in the ground. Since I have no other ideas, expect that it will look like Genesis’ does.”

Maybe by the time we got to the council, we’d have something to tell them.

I hadn’t made it very far down the road before Lydia caught up to me. She had on a coat. Not mine, since that had been returned to me with the pile of laundered clothes. Hers was brown and seemed both sturdy and warm. “Where are we going?”

I didn’t know exactly. This was probably going to be a boring day of searching, but everything always had the possibility of exploding at any time. I didn’t want her involved. How long could she stay awake anyway? Worry was an odd emotion for me, but I was doing it just the same. “You should get some sleep.”

“I can’t explain it, Deacon. But since you got here. I just feel like things are going to get better. You are what we’ve been waiting for.”

I stopped moving. “Lydia. You… you say the sweetest things, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m not used to it. I’m not a hero. I’m not even close to one. Truth is, I’m not even that nice of a guy. I hurt people. A lot of them. A good person died. I’m going to try to help you as long as you realize that I’m just as likely to make things really bad as I am to make them better. If we’re on that same page, we’ll get along.”

Her face didn’t fall. She nodded, but I couldn’t be sure she registered what I said to her at all. “My family has been here in Geronimo since the monsters came. Living with the people here, starving sometimes with the people here, dying with the people here. Until yesterday, I never thought there would be anything to live for, anything to believe in. I hold on. That’s what I do. I take care of Charlie. I help my parents. I teach school. There was no hope. Now there is. Maybe you’re an imperfect hero, but you’re the first one we’ve had in a long time. Can you teach us how to fight?”

“Yes.” I sighed. “That I can do. That I will do. Hey, Lydia, what’s your last name?” I didn’t even know it.

“Lydia Matthis. And yours?” I had to give her credit. She could walk fast and have a conversation at the same time. She kept up perfectly.

“Deacon Evans.”

The more I saw of the town, the more I could see what she meant about mess. Everywhere I looked there were claw marks. The Werewolves had been very destructive. That was going to stop, too. They could be overwhelmingly difficult but not insurmountable. These people had put up with being picked apart for too long.

“What are we looking for?” She stared up at the sky.

“The entrance to hell.”