The ride back was quieter than the one before, but not because there was less to say. Rather, the weight of what had just happened was still settling over them.

  Lena sat with her arms crossed in the back seat, squeezed between Hazel and Mariah, wrapped in one of Alex’s oversized hoodies and a borrowed coat.

  Her golden-violet eyes stayed half-lidded, thoughtful, resting mostly on the man across from her in the far rear corner of the car.

  He sat stiffly, too scared to speak, his wrists now bound loosely with the morgue’s own linen wraps.

  It wasn’t fear of being killed that haunted him. It was the knowledge that she could’ve done it already. She hadn’t. And that somehow made things worse.

  “Are we sure I can’t just go ssh their throats and be done with it?” Lena asked lightly, as though she were asking if they could stop for ice cream.

  “No,” Hazel said calmly.

  Lena pouted. “Not even a few of them?”

  Hazel turned her head slightly, golden-amber eyes fixed on Lena’s. “They need to stay alive. Every one of them.”

  “Why?” Lena asked, genuinely curious now.

  “Because we need the truth to be patable,” Hazel said. “And that means the story we tell has to include this one—” she nodded toward the captive, “—as a misguided believer who grew a conscience.”

  Lena raised an eyebrow. “You want me to say he saved me?”

  Hazel’s voice didn’t waver. “That he fed you some blood, hoping to redeem himself. That you were found barely alive, but alive. That your body simply needed more to recover.”

  Alex leaned back against the window, legs crossed, arms folded. “It’s clean. It expins everything without accusing anyone directly. No reason to dig deeper.”

  Mariah tilted her head, skeptical. “And that’s believable?”

  Celine nodded softly from the front passenger seat. “It is. Because it’s human. People want to believe in small acts of kindness. Even from monsters.”

  The man squirmed at the word.

  Hazel gnced at him. “You’ll say you couldn’t watch her die. That you tried to stop the others but were overruled. That when everyone else left, you stayed behind.”

  “I—” the man began, but Hazel raised a hand.

  “Whether or not you actually did any of that doesn’t matter,” she said. “Only that you say it convincingly.”

  Mariah frowned but didn’t argue further.

  Lena sighed, leaning her head back against the seat. “Fine. We’ll py the redemption card. But I’m not smiling about it.”

  “No one’s asking you to,” Alex said.

  Celine looked over her shoulder. “We’ll need Verity’s help getting this version circuted. Quietly.”

  “She’ll do it,” Hazel said.

  The streetmps began to look familiar as they neared home, the night no less dark but the weight of it shifting—less uncertain now. More deliberate.

  As they pulled up to the corner near Hazel’s house, the car slowed to a gentle stop.

  The driver, still dazed but obedient, kept his eyes forward.

  Hazel reached into her coat and pulled out a slim leather wallet. She drew out two crisp hundred-dolr bills and tucked them into the cup holder between the seats.

  “For the ride,” she said, voice quiet.

  The man didn’t respond, but his fingers closed over the money a moment ter.

  Alex opened the door first, stepping out with the silence of someone used to moving unseen. Mariah followed, then Celine. Hazel waited, hand resting lightly on Lena’s arm to steady her before they exited together.

  The captured man remained seated, his eyes still wide, but no longer full of defiance.

  “You’ll remember what you did,” Hazel said as she leaned toward him one st time. “And more importantly—what you didn’t.”

  He nodded, stiffly.

  She left him there.

  ...

  The house was still.

  Stel was asleep, her light off, the air filled with that peaceful, living silence only a well-loved home could hold.

  They filed in quietly, not bothering with lights. Lena looked around with vague interest, eyes skimming over the details. She lingered near the door, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her hoodie.

  “Not what I pictured for a vampire den,” she muttered.

  Hazel arched a brow. “Would you prefer torches and red velvet curtains?”

  Lena smirked. “Maybe just one velvet curtain.”

  Alex locked the door behind them and peeled off her coat. “I’m making tea. Anyone?”

  “No thanks,” Mariah said, stretching with a groan. “I’m going to melt into the couch.”

  Celine settled beside her quietly, pulling a throw bnket over her legs.

  Hazel turned toward Lena. “Do you want to lie down?”

  “I want ten more blood bags and a bath,” Lena said. “But lying down sounds like a good third pce.”

  Hazel gestured toward the guest room, the one Alex had only recently vacated. “It’s yours, if you want it.”

  Lena blinked. “You’re just giving me a room?”

  “You’re not a prisoner.”

  “That’s what makes this feel weird.”

  Hazel gave a faint smile. “Get used to kindness.”

  Lena didn’t reply, but followed her to the door and slipped inside without another word.

  Alex returned a few moments ter with two mugs. She handed one to Hazel and took a slow sip from her own, leaning against the wall.

  “She’s strong,” Alex said softly.

  Hazel nodded. “And she’s not afraid.”

  “That part might be dangerous.”

  “She’s still healing.”

  Alex didn’t argue.

  Mariah was already half-asleep against the couch cushions. Celine sat upright beside her, still watching Lena’s door, fingers curled around the edge of the bnket.

  “I’ll stay up a little longer,” Celine offered.

  Hazel gnced toward the hallway. “Thank you.”

  Alex lifted her mug. “To not dying in cold basements.”

  Hazel clinked her gss against hers. “To the ones who come back anyway.”

  The night was still, the living room wrapped in a soft hush. Only the low hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the occasional creak of the walls as the house settled broke the silence.

  Hazel sat on the armrest of the couch, her long fingers curled loosely around her now half-empty mug.

  Alex leaned against the entryway wall, ankles crossed, the fabric of her dark clothes still carrying the faint scent of city chill.

  Celine perched on the ottoman across from Hazel, a bnket tucked around her legs, her hands csped beneath her chin in thought.

  “We need a reason,” Hazel said quietly. “An expnation for why we were at the morgue in the first pce.”

  Alex exhaled through her nose. “They’ll ask how we knew to look.”

  Celine nodded. “Verity might be able to vouch for us. Say she sent us—if she’s willing to risk it.”

  Hazel didn’t reply. Her eyes drifted toward the dark hallway, where Lena was resting, and then down into her mug.

  None of them spoke for a long moment.

  Then, from the couch, a low voice murmured, “We knew.”

  They looked over. Mariah, sprawled out with a pillow beneath her head, hadn’t opened her eyes. Her arm hung over the side of the couch, fingers twitching idly in the air.

  “We just felt it,” she said, voice half-ced with feigned exhaustion. “We knew she wasn’t gone. That something was off. And since no one else gave a damn, we checked. And hey—turns out we were right.”

  Celine blinked. “That’s... incredibly vague.”

  “Which makes it perfect,” Alex said, smiling faintly.

  Hazel tilted her head. “No one can disprove it.”

  Mariah stretched her arm above her head and groaned softly. “Exactly. No one’s gonna admit they left a half-dead girl in a freezer. Especially not if the guy who stayed behind suddenly remembers having a change of heart.”

  “We lean into intuition,” Celine said slowly. “The infected connection. Some sort of pull.”

  “We say it felt wrong,” Hazel added. “And when no one else would look... we did.”

  Alex crossed her arms and gnced toward the kitchen. “Let people believe in instinct. Or fate. Or divine guidance. They’ll choose whichever one makes them feel safest.”

  Hazel finally nodded. “It’s enough.”

  The silence returned, but this time it wasn’t hollow.

  It was agreement.

  Across the room, Mariah had already turned toward the cushions, mumbling something incoherent into the fabric as she drifted off. Celine rose from the ottoman, stretched once, then started to fold up her bnket.

  Hazel stood as well, the st of the warmth from her mug lingering in her hands.

  The story was set.

  Now they just had to live with it.

  Hazel stood quietly in the center of the living room, her fingers curling lightly around the edge of the mug before she set it down on the side table.

  The silence had become familiar now, wrapped in the soft rustle of bnkets and the low rhythm of Celine’s steady breath.

  Mariah was already dozing, curled up on the couch with one arm tucked under her head and the other resting loosely against her chest. Her hair had fallen into her face, and she made no effort to push it away.

  Alex was still leaning against the far wall, watching Hazel with something between amusement and quiet fondness.

  She hadn’t bothered to sit—her posture casual, as though conserving energy by simply being still.

  Celine, nearby, had knelt to retrieve a second pillow from the linen closet Hazel had directed her toward earlier. She looked up when Hazel finally spoke.

  “You can stay the night, all of you,” Hazel said gently, her voice a soothing thread that wove itself around the edges of the room. “There’s enough space. And I doubt any of us want to walk back into the dark again.”

  Alex raised an eyebrow, a faint smirk forming at the corner of her lips. “Stel’s going to lose her mind when she wakes up.”

  Hazel smiled—not one of her poised, composed half-smiles, but something quieter and more genuine. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  Celine tilted her head slightly, puzzled. “Stel... She’s your sister, right?”

  “Yes,” Hazel said, nodding. “She’s human. She doesn’t know everything. Only what she needs to.”

  Celine’s eyes lingered on the closed hallway door for a moment, as though trying to imagine the girl who lived behind it. “Will she be scared?”

  Hazel’s expression turned thoughtful. “No. She’ll be overwhelmed. Confused. Maybe flustered.”

  Alex ughed, quiet and melodic. “She’s going to come down the hall, see four vampires and a near-immortal trauma survivor lounging in her house, and walk right back into her room.”

  “I might have to catch her before she bolts,” Hazel murmured, the smile still lingering.

  “She’ll be fine,” Celine said softly, more to herself than anyone.

  The room was warm despite the hour, the soft hum of ambient light casting long shadows against the walls. It felt strange to be here like this—so still—after the cold sterility of the morgue, after blood, after dread.

  They had Lena back.

  Somehow, impossibly, they had brought her back.

  And in the guest room, behind a door left slightly ajar, Lena y in silence.

  Her body was rebuilding itself in yers—working methodically from the worst of it: the deep ligature wounds at her wrists, the gouges across her ribs, the damage done to her organs through repeated trauma.

  Her skin had already begun to flush with warmth again, faint color returning to her face. Her breathing was slow, but steady.

  She hadn’t spoken since they got home.

  She didn’t need to.

  The others settled into pce as if by instinct. Celine curled into the second chair with a bnket, her legs drawn up beside her.

  Alex finally sat at the end of the couch, stretching her legs over the ottoman with a quiet hum of satisfaction.

  Hazel stood in the doorway a moment longer, watching them all.

  It was strange, she thought—not how full the house felt, but how right it seemed.