“No,” I said. “No, I don’t.”
I climbed the steps, hearing my mother whispering something below me. I walked into my room and shut the door behind me. My gaze fell immediately on the wooden Rumspringa money box Elijah had made for me. It sat on the floor. I knew it was empty. I kicked it under the bed.
Ginger sat up in bed, hands folded on her lap. She stared vacantly at the wall, her mouth turned down.
“Ginger?”
Her eyes slowly turned to mine. “Hello, Katie.”
I came to sit beside her on the bed. I fingered the crochet work in her basket. “This is pretty.”
“Thank you.” Her hand stroked it softly, as if it were a kitten.
Her sadness was so real, so tangible. And more. I could see in her dead gaze that she’d given up.
I reached for her wrist, shook it. “Ginger.”
She lowered her eyes. There was no spark of hope left in them. No tears, even. Just aloneness.
“The vampires are here, aren’t they?” she whispered.
“Yes, Ginger. They’re here. You know that they’ve been here. They took the cows.”
She nodded to herself, stared at the quilt. “That’s good. It’ll be over soon.”
I grasped her wrist harder. “You can’t just lie down and give up,” I insisted. She’d grown despondent since her cell phone had been destroyed. Without that link to the Outside world, she’d fallen into a deeper and deeper depression—one I could not shake her from.
She gave a small shrug. “There’s nothing left for me. This isn’t my world.” She looked down at her dress. “This isn’t who I am. I’m just”—she sighed—“waiting.”
I put my arms around her, but she didn’t cry. She just sat there, still as the bodies of the women I’d handled yesterday.
Waiting for the end of everything.
We may have been dead.
But I was determined to live.
I had gone to bed without Nachtesse, wrapping myself in a bundle of quilts. My mother attempted to speak to me about Elijah, about how he meant well. I just shook my head at her until she retreated back to the kitchen. Ginger sat in the falling darkness, staring at the wall, while I pretended to sleep.
I didn’t move as Sarah climbed into bed beside me.
Through slit eyes, I watched the light below our bedroom door move, then become extinguished as my parents went to bed. I heard the murmur of their voices beyond, but I could not make out what they were saying. I think that they were arguing, but I was not sure. Eventually, their voices faded. I heard the creak of bedsprings as one of them turned around to present their back to the other.
I stared out the window, waiting for the moon to rise and paint silvery light inside the room.
I looked at Ginger. She had not moved, was still sitting upright. I climbed out of bed, padded toward her.
“Ginger?” I whispered.
She didn’t respond. I didn’t know if she could. Tenderly, I pushed her back down on the bed, facing the ceiling. I pulled the quilt up around her neck. I could see the glassiness of her open eyes shining in the dimness, though her pupils didn’t seem to follow me as I snatched my dress from the laundry. I reached inside the pocket to reassure myself that the Himmelsbrief was still there, but I left my apron and bonnet behind.
I slipped down the stairs, through the dark kitchen. I grabbed my shoes, opened the back door . . .
And plunged into darkness.
The day had rendered this place gold, but the night was cool and silvery. I ran past the pumpkin patch, through the tall grass. Overhead, I could see the Milky Way, the trail of the dead, as I swam through the tall fields and heard crickets singing.
I scanned the silvery darkness for the vampires, but I was not afraid. Not like before. I had been terrified of the violence. But now I had already seen what there was to see. I knew that they could not harm me as they harmed the others. I had the Hexenmeister’s power, however long it lasted.
Even so, I sensed that my time was measured. I wanted to wring every last experience out of it like juice from an orange, to feel, to touch, and to taste the juice as it ran down my chin. I did not want to lie down and wait for death like Ginger and the others, with their veil of ignorance drawn around them and surrendering their will to live to others.
I wanted my life to matter.
And I wanted to choose how it mattered.
I shoved the heavy kennel door open. Idly, I wondered if the vampires had discovered this place, if they had circled it in the dark. I knew that Alex was without light, without warmth, without any way to call for help. I wondered if that was part of the reason why he was leaving the settlement.
And I wondered if the other part was me.
“Bonnet? Is that you?”
I spied movement in the back. The moonlight illuminated him walking toward me, barefoot, shirtless, one trouser leg wadded up around his shin. His tattoos seemed to absorb the light, black and squirming against his pale flesh. Relief that he was still here flushed through my skin.
“Ja, it’s me.” I turned to haul the door shut, blotting out the light.
“What the hell are you doing, wandering around at night?” I could hear the spark of anger in his voice.
The door bounced a little against the frame, opening an inch and letting the moonlight stream in. I could hear his breath behind me, felt as it disturbed the loose hair on the back of my neck.
His hand rested on the door beside my head. His voice was softer: “Bonnet.”
I turned to face him, bumping up against his chest.
“What are you doing here?”
I reached up with both my hands, lowered his stubbly face to my mouth, and kissed him. His lips were frozen, still, under mine. At first, I was afraid that he would reject me, tell me to go home—or worse, send me back to sleep with Sunny and Copper.
But then he sighed against my lips, kissed me back. He didn’t kiss me like Elijah did, with that persistent fumbling I was accustomed to. Alex kissed me with his whole body, not just his mouth. His hands on the door, framing my face, inexorably pulled in and tangled in my hair. He leaned against me, the warmth of his lanky frame against mine, his tongue pressing past my lips.
My hands slipped down to his bare chest, timidly, to the ankh burned over his heart, circled behind him to finger the Djed column along his spine. I expected the skin there to feel different. Hotter. But it was as evenly warm as the rest of him.
His kiss slipped from my mouth, trailed along my jaw to my neck. One hand cradled my head while the other circled my waist, pushing my breasts against his chest.
“What did you come for?” he murmured.
“For you.”
He reached up to brush a strand of hair from my eyes. “Are you sure that this is what you want?”
I nodded. I slipped my hands up over his bare shoulder blades.
“I’ve still gotta leave . . . I can’t stay.” He was being honest.
I appreciated that. “I know.”
“But—”
I laid my finger to his mouth. I knew that he wanted me, too. I could hear it in the rough sound of his voice, feel it in the hard press of his body against my thigh.
“Just be gentle,” I said. I was afraid. But this was what I wanted. Him.
He murmured against my finger. “I will.”
Tenderly, he took my hand in his, turned it to kiss my palm.
I let him draw me down to the straw of the floor, down to darkness.
I did not believe much of anything that anyone else told me anymore.
But I believed him.