“What’swrong?” I swiped angrily at my still-damp eyes. “That monster made it into ourhome. Within feet of our daughter, hours after she made US soldiers open fire on a room full of teenagers! If I hadn’t been here, she could have brainwashed anyone in there into killing the rest of us! Including Alina!”
Gallagher shook his head. “First of all, I wouldneverlet that happen. Second, we have no evidence that the surrogates are capable of that kind of influence on crytpids—we’ve only ever heard of them acting against humans.”
I pushed myself upright on the mattress, propped on one arm. “That’s ahellof a risk to count on, with our daughter’s life on the line.”
“Andthird,” he continued, “if you weren’t here, she wouldn’t have been drawn here in the first place.”
“So I’m the reason my daughter was in danger? That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
He frowned at me over her sleeping form. “Comfort is not the purpose of truth, Delilah.”
“I know.” It was terribly frustrating to argue with someone who couldn’t tell a lie. Even to make me feel better.
“I want to give you comfort. But I have sworn to give you truth. I’m not sure how to proceed when those two things are at odds with each other.”
I ran one finger over the edge of Alina’s cap. It felt dry to the touch. “Yeah. Me neither.”
“What Idoknow is that our daughter was never in any true danger tonight. We were both here to protect her, and I didn’t even have to lift a finger. Because you are a fearsome warrior.”
“But that monster made it into the house, Gallagher. And tonight won’t be the last time. For whatever reason, the surrogates are being drawn to me, and on their way, they’reslaughteringpeople. They’re—Oh my God.”
“What?”
I sat straighter as the truth pulled me upright. “I’mthe reason this second reaping is spiraling in on us, tightening like a noose around our necks. The surrogates are being drawn to me, and the longer we stay here, the more of them will find us. And the more of them that are gathered in one place, the more dangerous they’ll become. They killed more than a million children spread out all across the country. Acting as individuals, one household at a time. Imagine what they could do in large numbers. Now that they’re grown. A second full-scale reaping could killmillions.”
“You’re describing war.” The grim depth of his proclamation was stunning.
“Not just war. Open-ended destruction.” I extended one arm in the direction of the main room, where our intruder had died. “She said they don’t want to eradicate humanity, they want to feed from it. They’ll keep feasting on our pain and chaos for as long as possible. They’ll keep turning teacher against student, nurse against patient, soldier against civilian. Stealing trust and security from us. Making us fear the very people who should protect us.”
They could spread out from the US and take their plague worldwide.
Or at least they could try.
“Gallagher, they seem to think the ‘corpse of humanity’ is a never-ending buffet, but humanity isn’t going to fall for this a second time. People already understand that locking up the surrogates—locking upallcryptids—didn’t work, and now they’re shooting cryptids found in the wild. It’s only a matter of time before they decide to kill us all, even those in captivity, just to be sure they got the dangerous ones.No onewill be safe then. We’ll look back on the days of chains and cages withnostalgia. And Alina...”
I couldn’t say it.
But I didn’t need to.
“That’syour ‘why,’ Delilah.” Gallagher’s dark eyes seemed to shine at me from the other side of the bed. “Thisis your purpose. You were spared from one reaping to stop a second one. To keep them from feeding on humanity. And to keep humanity from slaughtering us in retaliation.”
“So I’m supposed to kill them one at a time? When they break into the house in the middle of the night and put all of us in danger?”
Gallagher shrugged. “That seems to be working so far.”
“For however long that lasts. But if we’ve figured out the pattern, so will the government. They may not be publicizing it, butsomeoneat the Cryptid Containment Bureau knows the surrogates are roaming around free. They’ll be looking for a way to catch them. Or kill them. And they’ll see this pattern in the chaos. Maybe they already have. They may not know that these events are converging on me, but they’ll eventually see that theyareconverging. And they’ll come here looking for whatever magnet is attracting this plague upon humanity to their corner of the world. But they won’t just find us. They’ll find her.” I ran one hand over Alina’s soft red cap, and she jerked a little in her sleep. “I can’t let them find her, Gallagher.”
“I would never let that happen. We’ll leave,” he growled. “We’ll go south. I’ll find a way over the border for us, even if I have to tear a hole through the wall with my bare hands.”
“There are too many of us.” I gestured at the front room with another sweep of one arm. “And most of them can’t pass for human, even at a glance.”
“We’re going alone,” he whispered. “I can’t put you and Alina at risk by chaining you to the others.”
“Gallagher—”
“I told you that if it came down to it, I would choose you over them. I will not argue about this, Delilah.”
And that, like everything else he’d ever said, could only be the truth.
