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Trish laughs once, but the sound cracks apart before it can become anything useful. “I just hope my parents are okay.”

The wind scrapes loose paper down the street.

No one says what could be waiting for us.

Hope is dangerous. So is not having it.

I think of Mom’s hands on my face when my girls were kidnapped, grounding me while my heart split open. I think of Clair’s fingers curled around mine and Poppy asleep against my side afterward, refusing to let go even when her arm went numb. I want Trish’s parents to be alive. I want her to get one good thing. I want all of us to get one good thing.

Clair reaches for Trish’s hand and squeezes. “We’re going to find out soon.”

Trish nods too fast. “Yep. Great. Love that. Very emotionally stable.”

Clair glances back at me, and the corner of her mouth lifts. “She’s fine.”

Trish points her pistol at the sidewalk. “I am aggressively fine.”

I sign, “Aggressively fine is still fine.”

Trish gives me a look. “Do not encourage my unhealthy coping mechanisms, Lumberjack.”

I shrug.

A scream cuts down the street.

My body moves before thought catches up.

Clair jerks back, eyes wide.

Trish is already running. “That was Joanie.”

We sprint toward the sound, boots sliding over ice and grit. Clair stumbles once, and I catch her elbow without slowing. The scream comes again, sharper this time, followed by Barbara shouting Joanie’s name and Jacob’s voice over the walkie, fast and broken with panic.

“Lyla, get here now! Alley behind the diner. Now!”

My pulse turns to a hammer.

We round the corner so fast my shoulder clips the brick wall.

The alley opens in a narrow strip between the diner and pharmacy, packed with overturned trash cans, frozen sludge, and windblown paper. Joanie is on the ground near the back door of the diner, one boot braced against the chest of an undead man in a torn tank top. He must have been huge before death took him. Broad shoulders. Thick arms. Half his face hanging loose from one cheekbone.

Jacob stands over the corpse with his gun still aimed at its head. The skull is open now, dark matter leaking into the snow beneath it. One of its hands is still curled around Joanie’s pant leg, fingers swollen and split. The other arm twitches once, then stops.

Barbara is three feet away, both hands lifted, face white. “Joanie, honey⁠—”

“Stay away!” Joanie screams.

The sound tears through the alley.

Barbara freezes.

Joanie scrambles backward on one hand and both heels, the other arm clamped tight against her chest. Blood pours between her fingers, bright red against the dirty snow.

My stomach drops.

Jacob turns toward us, and his face does something I have never seen before. It empties. Drains. His mouth opens twice before words come out.

“He came out from under the dumpster,” Jacob says, each word tripping over the next. “I didn’t see him. He was frozen or stuck or something. Joanie shoved Barbara out of the way, and he got her arm.”