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Despite all those things being true, I still hadn’t meant to run into that dimensional tear.

The thought never crossed my mind.

I didn’t stop to think about why, either, not until Black stood in front of it.

I knew, intimately, how such “doors” worked, so maybe that was part of it. I knew there was absolutely no guarantee I’d end up at the same place as Nick, even if I went through it right after him. I’d just as likely be lost somewhere else entirely, ona completely different and potentially deeply hostile world, with no way to get back to anyone I loved.

There was no guaranteeanyof us would end up on the same version of Earth, or even on Earth at all. Inter-dimensional portals were mysterious, finicky, unpredictable, ruthless, things. There was no possible way I would have risked that.

Moreover, I never would have left Black.

When I met his gaze, I saw something in Black’s face relax. He didn’t look happy, not even close, but the relief there was almost childlike in its intensity.

I knew falling through an inter-dimensional portal, ending up in a place even remotely like the one where he’d been raised, was Black’s absolute worst nightmare.

I was so busy looking at him, I didn’t notice at first, that the vampires had begun to move in the direction of the portal. I only realized when Zoe practically reached the place where Black stood––and then I leapt forward in mind-numbing terror.

I was scared out of my mind she meant to force Black through the opening. Black must have seen it on my face, because he leapt away so fast he crashed into Mika and Ace on the opposite side of our circle. All three of them ended up briefly on the cave floor.

Zoe barely seemed to notice.

She looked only at me.

“See you around, sis,” she said.

Her vampire-perfect mouth lifted in a faint smile.

She gave me a finger-salute then, like she used to do back when we were kids, when she thought I was being too bossy with her and not enough of her co-conspirator. Before I could speak, before I could wrap my mind around any part of it…

She vanished through the opening in the rock.

I yelled out her name, but too late.

My eyes instantly filled with tears, blinding me.

My throat closed so intensely I couldn’t breathe.

Gods. Zoe.

Why? Why the fuck would she do that? ForBrick?

I barely comprehended what was happening as the rest of the vampires who’d been waiting for us in the cave followed Zoe through that tear. I could have warned them, I suppose. I could have told them what I knew, that they had no idea where they’d end up, that they might not end up with their vampire king at all, or not the version they’d decided to follow to that other world––whether out of misguided loyalty, or duty, or whatever the fuck compelled them.

I didn’t warn them.

To be honest, apart from Zoe, I didn’t much fucking care if they got lost.

I was relieved to see them go.

I watched each one disappear through the cave wall, and I bit my lip, remaining silent. Black, who was back on his feet and now stood next to Kiko and Dex, his two lieutenants when I first met him in San Francisco, didn’t speak either.

None of the departing vampires, apart from Zoe, so much as looked at us.

None of them made a single sound as they got swallowed by that light.

When the last of them went through the door, the rift in the wall dimmed back to a dark green. The mist around it swirled, changing colors subtly.

It waited, although I knew not for what.