Page 68
You may say, as an exterminator by trade, I’ve been training for this all my life.
I understand the argument. I just can’t support it.
Because it is one thing to have a rat race up your arm in blind fear.
Yet quite another to face a fellow human form and cut it down.
They look like people. They are very much like you and me.
I am no longer an exterminator. I am a vampire hunter.
And here is the other thing.
Something I will only say here, because I don’t dare tell anyone else.
Because I know what they will think.
I know what they will feel.
I know what they will see when they look into my eyes.
But—all this killing?
I kind of like it.
And I’m good at it.
I might even be great at it.
The city is falling and probably the world. Apocalypse is a big word, a heavy word, when you realize you are actually facing it.
I can’t be the only one. There must be others out there like me. People who have lived their whole lives feeling half-complete. Who never truly fit anywhere in the world. Who never understood why they were here, or what they were meant for. Who never answered the call, because they never heard it. Because nothing ever spoke to them.
Until now.
Penn Station
NORA LOOKED AWAY for what seemed like only a moment. As she stared at the big board, waiting for their track number to be announced, her gaze deepened and, utterly exhausted, she zoned out.
For the first time in days, she thought of nothing. No vampires, no fears, no plans. She relaxed her focus, and her mind dipped into sleep mode while her eyes remained open.
When she blinked back to awareness, it was like waking up from a dream about falling. A shudder, a startle. A small gasp.
She turned and saw Zack next to her, listening to his iPod.
But her mother was gone.
Nora looked around, didn’t see her. She tugged down Zack’s earbuds, asking him, and he joined her in looking.
“Wait here,” said Nora, pointing to their bags. “Do not move!”
She pushed her way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd waiting before the departures board. She looked for a seam in the crowd, some path her slow-moving mother might have left, but saw nothing.
“Mama!”
Raised voices made Nora turn. She pushed toward them, coming out of the dense crowd near the side of the concourse, by the gate of a closed deli.
There was her mother, haranguing a bewildered-looking family of South Asians.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68 (Reading here)
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114