“What’s your name?” he asked as we made our way down another sidewalk, stepping over glass and fallen streetlights. He seemed calm now, relieved to be in the presence of a grown-up, even if she was a stranger.
“Allison,” I muttered back, scanning the darkness and shadows for any signs of movement, human or otherwise. A gray fox glanced up from where it scavenged along a wall and darted into the weeds, but other than that the night was still.
“I’m Caleb.”
I nodded and turned down another road, finding the edge of what was once a plaza. Moss covered the remains of benches along the cracked sidewalks, and the stone fountain in the center of the square was dry and crumbling to gravel. Leaves crunched under our feet as we followed one of the paths past a gazebo with a fallen roof, toward the other edge of the plaza.
Suddenly, I paused, pulling Caleb to a halt. Behind us, amid the broken wreckage of the gazebo, I heard the quiet thump of a heartbeat.
“Why are we stopping?” whispered Caleb.
“Turn around,” said a voice, somehow, impossibly, at my back. “Slowly.”
Still keeping a tight grip on Caleb’s hand, I turned.
A human stood behind us, a few yards from the gazebo. He was lean, a few inches taller than me, with blond hair, and his eyes—a bright, piercing blue—never left my face.
Neither did the barrel of the pistol trained on my head.
“Zee!” Caleb cried and rushed forward. I let him go, and he hurled himself at the stranger, who bent down, hugged the child to his neck and stood. All without taking his eyes, or his gun, off me.
“Hey, rug rat,” he murmured, speaking to Caleb but still watching me intently. “You are in a ton of trouble, little man. Your sister and I have been looking everywhere for you.” His eyes narrowed. “Who’s your friend?”
“Caleb!”
A scream interrupted him, and a slender, dark-haired girl of maybe sixteen rushed up to us, holding out her hands. “Caleb! Oh, thank God! You found him!” She took the child from “Zee,” hugged him tightly, and set him on the ground to glower at him. “Where did you go? You scared us all to death, wandering off like that! Don’t ever, ever do that again, do you understand?”
“Ruth,” the blond boy said quietly, still keeping me in his sights. “We have company.”
The girl’s head jerked up, her eyes widening when she saw me. “Who…?”
“That’s Allison,” Caleb chirped, turning to smile at me. I smiled back, but my gaze was still on the boy with the gun. “She helped me find you when I was lost.”
“Is that so?” The boy frowned, shifting forward to put himself between me and his charges. “And what is she doing out here, wandering the town all alone in the middle of the night?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” the girl, Ruth, added, glaring at me over the boy’s shoulder. “And just what were you planning to do with my brother?” she demanded—very brave, I thought, for someone hiding behind a gun. “Who are you, anyway?”
I ignored her, knowing the boy was the one I’d have to convince. He watched me calmly, blue eyes taking in my every move. Now that I saw him clearly, I realized he was probably no older than me, with dusty jeans, a tattered jacket, and jagged blond hair that fell into his eyes. He returned my smirk with the unmistakable air of someone who knew how to handle himself. But maybe that was due to the weapons he was carrying. Besides the gun, still pointed at me, he wore a hatchet on one hip, a dagger on the other, and a strap across his chest, the hilt of a machete poking up behind his shoulder. I had no doubt he had a couple other weapons hidden somewhere, a knife in his boot or up his sleeve. I also suspected he knew how to use each and every one of them. A small silver cross dangled from a chain around his neck, glimmering against his ragged shirt.
His eyes flicked to the hilt over my shoulder, then to my waist, looking for weapons. I kept very still, wondering if I could reach him and yank the pistol away without getting shot in the face. If it came to that. The strange boy seemed wary but not openly hostile. I suspected he didn’t want a fight, and I didn’t, either. Not after…
I shoved that memory down and focused on the humans, still eyeing me cautiously. “So, are you going to shoot me?” I asked after we spent a moment sizing each other up. “Or are we going to stand around looking at each other all night?”
“Depends,” the boy said with an easy smile, not lowering the gun. “Who are you? There aren’t many people who go wandering around at night with the rabids. And you’re not from around here, I know that much. Where did you come from?”
“New Covington.”
He frowned, not recognizing the same. “One of the vampire cities,” I elaborated without thinking better of it.