I step forward.
And I hug her.
Tightly. One last time.
She exhales, shaky and startled, and I feel her arms come around me.
When I pull back, I look her in the eye.
“The city’s yours now,” I say. “I hope you can find some peace in it.”
Then I turn and leave, the door clicking softly shut behind me.
I walk away lighter—not because it doesn’t hurt, but because I’m done carrying it.
Chapter 22
The kitchen is silent except for the crinkling sound of the blood bag as I squeeze the last of it into my mouth. It's still so damn weird how natural this feels. The metallic tang, the surge of heat and energy that follows.
I lean against the counter, eyes scanning the open space of the penthouse. Everything here is sleek and curated. Someone spent a lot of time and thought to make this place this beautiful. The furniture is expensive, probably costing more than I made in all of the previous three years. But none of it means anything to us. It was all here when Ares bought the place. We didn’t pick it together. We didn’t argue over color palettes, or how many people we wanted to be able to seat at that dining table. It was all just here.
Now, we’re leaving it behind.
Our suitcases sit by the door. Just two each. I shipped five boxes yesterday. That’s it. A life condensed. Our memories and meaning don’t live in these things, anyway.
Ares is currently with Sysco, who is helping him load Ares’ motorcycle up for freight transportation.
He was smiling when he left this morning, like he was starting to believe this might be real.
A new life.
We’re starting over.
But it still doesn’t quite feel real to me. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve literally never lived anywhere but this island, and that I’ve barely even traveled off it. It’s really hard to imagine a life anywhere else.
But I’m ready. I’m genuinely excited. I’ve been researching the city all night, looking up its different districts, its sports teams, what the seasons are like.
I think I’ll enjoy Chicago.
I look over my shoulder when the front door opens, and Ares walks in.
Something’s wrong. I feel it before I see the tension in his shoulders.
I straighten. “What happened?”
He closes the door gently, too gently, and drags a hand through his hair. “I saw her.”
My chest tightens. “Who?” But I have a terrible feeling that I know exactly who.
“The therapist. It was… it was just like you said. I couldn’t… I couldn’t make sense of anything. Even while I was standing there. Her face slipped from my fucking mind even as I looked at it. I felt like I was half-asleep or like I was walking through a memory I never made.”
My skin crawls.
“I might have cussed her out for what she helped make me do.” And that sentence alone ignites a wildfire of fear inside me. But Ares presses on. “She didn’t care,” he says with disbelief as he shakes his head. “She said it was the whole point, that I was just assisting with crowd control.”
“She seriously said that?” I ask, my lip curling in disgust.
Ares nods, the horror and disbelief of it all bright in his eyes. “She also said there are probably fewer than fifty vampires in New York City now. But she’d like to see that number drop.”
