The Stars Never Rise

I jerked my arm from her grip and took my bag when Finn held it out. “Who’s her boyfriend?”


“Maddock. We look a lot alike, in a certain light.” He turned to Devi. “She hasn’t met him yet.”

“But he’s okay?” Fear resonated in her voice, beneath an obvious strength and hostility.

“Like I’d let him get hurt.”

Devi looked far from mollified. “I want to talk to him.”

“So do I. We’ll both have to wait until we get to the safe house. Where’s Reese?”

“Keeping watch in the alley,” she said, and when Finn strode past her, headed for the back door, she grabbed his arm, and I realized she talked as much with her hands as with her mouth. “Finn. I want. To talk. To Maddock.”

That was when I decided I didn’t like Devi.

“We don’t have time for this. Come on.”

“Where’s Maddock?” I jogged to catch up with Finn, stepping over trash and dodging broken, oily machine parts while my satchel bounced on my back.

“You didn’t tell her?” Devi called, stomping after us.

“Tell me what?”

“I haven’t had a chance to explain everything yet.” Finn shot me an apologetic glance. “We’re kind of a complicated team, in case that isn’t obvious.” He pulled the door open and gestured for me to step into the alley. “You’ll meet Maddy and Grayson when we get there. For now we all need to concentrate on surviving the trip. Stick close to me, and if I say run, you run. Got it?”

“Finn!” Devi snapped softly.

Finn followed me into the alley. He never even glanced at her.

Though she was still clearly furious, Devi got quiet as soon as the door opened, obviously hyperaware that we weren’t the only ones who could hear her now.

“How do you feel? Are they any closer?” Finn whispered, and it took me a second to realize he was talking to me. And that he was using my transitional state like a radar gun for degenerates.

I closed my eyes and discovered that that panicky sense of urgency was still there. I’d just been too distracted by Devi—and kissing Finn—to think about it for the past two minutes.

“Don’t do that,” Devi whispered, so close to my ear that I jumped. I opened my eyes to find her frowning at me from the doorway, her long, thick, dark ponytail trailing over her shoulder.

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t close your eyes. You can’t fight what you can’t see.”

“How close are they?” Finn asked, and I tensed when footsteps reverberated from the darkness at the other end of the alley.

“Close.” Those footsteps set me even more on edge, but Finn and Devi didn’t look scared, so I was assuming I shouldn’t be either.

But then, maybe they never looked scared. Maybe fighting degenerates was so routine for them that they didn’t even remember what fear felt like. I wasn’t sure whether to envy them that or feel sorry for them.

The shadows shifted and a man stepped into the moonlight several feet from us. He was huge. At least half a foot taller than Finn, and nearly as broad as the back door of the warehouse. But when he came closer, I realized he wasn’t any older than the rest of us. He was just…big.

“Nina? Hey. I’m Reese.” He reached out to shake my hand, and his nearly swallowed mine.

“Hey.” In spite of the sizable new addition to our forces, it took every bit of my self-control to keep from bolting down the alley and into the street, then racing in whatever direction my legs chose.

Reese turned to Finn. “She looks antsy. She’s been triggered?”

He nodded. “About eight hours ago.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t take her to our local base,” Devi said. “As long as they can sense her, they’ll hunt for her, which will lead them straight to us.”

“You want to leave me?” Panic rang in my voice. I’d never successfully fought off a degenerate, and I could feel the horde getting closer, like I could feel the rush of my own pulse. But I couldn’t outrun them all.

“We’re not leaving her,” Finn said.

Devi’s dark eyes glistened in the moonlight when she rolled them. “Of course not. We need her, whether I like her or not. But maybe we should stash her somewhere until she finishes transitioning. Somewhere they can’t get to her, obviously.”

“And where might that be?” Reese crossed thick arms over an even thicker chest.

“I don’t know, but it seems stupid to point a big flashing arrow at our home. Right? You want to lead them to Grayson?”

Reese looked startled by the thought, and then he frowned, considering. “Wherever you put her, degenerates will circle her like sharks around blood, and a bunch of monsters clawing up the outside of a building would definitely draw the Church’s attention. It’d have to be outside of town. So maybe one of the ghost towns?”