He didn’t know the answer to that himself.

“I have to… go,” he mumbled.

“Where do you live?”

“North of town.”

“Alone?”

“No.”

“Who with?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

She laughed in a short rush. “You come out of nowhere, tell me how to kill you, help me evade the police, and then bring me here. Whereupon you’re the one who is leaving. You don’t think at least some portion of that is mysterious?”

“I want you to call me when you need me.”

As he recited his number, she interrupted him. “What is that, some kind of bat phone?”

“I have to go.”

“I know. You keep saying that. So go. You clearly don’t have to worry about the police, and something tells me you can handle all those weapons you’re wearing under that leather. So you’re free, free as a bird.”

“Call me when you—”

“Exactly what do you think I’m going to need you for.” She closed her eyes. “Actually, don’t answer that. I think I know, and PS, as pickup lines go, that is so not very original.”

Syn’s brain was telling his body to move. His body was ignoring the commands. And as he became trapped, she fell silent.

“You want some of this?” she murmured after a moment. “You keep staring at it like you didn’t have dinner.”

It took him a minute to figure out she was talking about the snack.

“I don’t know what that is,” he said.

“You’ve never had a Slim Jim?”

“No, but I wouldn’t mind trying one.”

And that was when he kissed her.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Back in the alley where the lesser had been consumed, Mr. F stumbled from the deep doorway he had hidden in. When he’d sensed the other slayer, he’d come as fast as he could. He needed to talk to someone, anyone, about what the fuck was going on, and for some reason, he had a beacon that helped him track and identify others like himself. If he could only get with one of the previous inductees, surely they had to know more about the ins and outs of his nightmare—the outs being what he was really concerned with.

’Cuz this shit was a bad trip without the LSD.

As he’d closed in on his comrade, or whatever the fuck you wanted to call the other guy, he’d had to stop and take cover. A vampire attacked the lesser Mr. F had been after, and he’d braced himself for what he somehow knew was going to happen—in the same way he’d known how to get into that house in that neighborhood.

Except instead of stabbing the undead back to the maker, something else happened.

An inhalation.

The vampire had gone mouth-to-mouth without the resuscitation, taking the essence of the Omega into himself, drawing the evil into his body. Afterward, he had collapsed. That was when the second vampire had showed up and there had been some kind of a light show. But there was no time to think through any part of it. The goateed member of the species, the one in the savior role, looked right down the alley at Mr. F, and that meant it was time to fucking go. Mr. F had learned long ago on the streets not to engage with something stronger than himself if he could avoid the conflict—

Between one blink and the next, Mr. F’s eyesight went on the fritz. Everything in front of him became wavy and indistinct, a vague sense of vertigo making him lurch on his feet. Where were the two vampires?

Fuck that. Where was the alley?

Keeping his gun out, he took off running, and it was a relief to find that as he beat feet in the opposite direction, everything he raced past became visually clear: the buildings on either side of the alley. The random trash. An abandoned car that—whoa—had one helluva a dent in the middle of its front bumper.

Mr. F ran for God only knew how long, making random choices of left or right depending on where the police sirens were coming from and where a helicopter with a spotlight was overhead. At least this fleeing thing he had familiarity with. He was used to getting out of the way of the authorities. But the rest of this shit? Oh, hell no. He wasn’t a fighter. He wasn’t a soldier. Even when he was real dope sick from withdrawal, crazed with nausea and the sweats, head spinning, veins burning, body whacking out, he never aggressed on anyone. He’d never, ever wanted to hurt anybody but himself, and even that brand of ouch was more an unintended consequence of his addiction than anything masochistic or suicidal.

For the last three years, ever since the wife had thrown him out for being a junkie and he’d fallen into homelessness, all he’d wanted was to score what he needed to level out and keep the peace.

That was it.

Rounding a corner, he was aware of not being tired in the slightest, but the endurance was no trade-off for the mess he was in. And anyway, it turned out he had nowhere further to run. A dead end came up at him, seeming to rush right into his face even though he was the one pulling the ambulation routine. And as he skidded to a halt in front of a literal brick wall, he was barely breathing—and it was terrifying that there was no pounding at his temples or behind his sternum from exertion.

He looked down at his chest and thought about what he’d found in that jar.

Ever since he had started on the drugs, there had been few moments of clarity for him and that was the point. Now, however, a thought occurred to him that was so crystal clear, he was momentarily unfamiliar with the cognitive anomaly.

Not it.

This was not fucking it. He still had no solid memory of exactly how he had found himself in this condition, remote-controlled by a third party he’d never met, lost in the familiar streets of Caldwell, chasing after echoes of what was inside himself in the shadows. But he knew exactly what to do about it.

Bending into his thighs, he jumped from the ground, his body propelled up the face of the wall sure as if he had been spring-loaded and set free. Gripping onto the top lip, he swung his legs over as if he were a trained stuntman, and the loose fall on the other side was longer than he would have guessed.

Jesus, he must have jumped up twenty-five feet or more.

Mr. F landed on the far side without breaking any bones in his feet or stressing his knees. And as he started to run again, he had endless reserve.

For a moment, he debated pulling a Forrest Gump and just going west on an endless trail of asphalt.

But he didn’t do that. He headed down for the river, to the bridges. To where he belonged.

He knew exactly what he had to do.

* * *

When the man in leather leaned down toward Jo, she assumed he was going to take a bite of the Slim Jim she was chewing her way through. So as he tilted his head, she went to move the jerky up. But that was not where things went.

His lips found hers without any hesitation on his part—and holy crap, she accepted the kiss without any hesitation on hers. FFS, she should pull back. Push him away. Get out of here now.

She did none of those things.

But she did move. She likewise tilted her head, slightly to the left… so that the kiss became more complete. And as his mouth moved against her own, her senses became hyper-aware, although not to the hard counter under her seat, or the musty smells of the cast-aside kitchen, or the sounds of more sirens passing them by.