The fragments of Hadley's mind slowly gathered and pieced themselves back together as a wall formed around her mind. She sighed, noticing that she was on the ballroom floor. All she wanted to do was fall asleep and never wake up. She was okay with that. With letting it all go. With coming to peace with everything that had happened. Her failed adventures. The daughter she would never have. The love she would never feel again. It was alright.

A good a time as any to die.

A shrill cry pierced through her mindscape and Hadley bolted upright. She instantly recognised the sound.

He was the wall around her mind.

The boy.

Her son.

And he was upset because she wasn't getting up!

She had to get up!

Get up!

Now!

"Okay! Okay!" Hadley whispered, shakily pulling herself to her feet.

Beside her was Ruqwik, her eyes closed, her face to the heavens and a huge grin on her face, savouring the telepathic destruction she wrought!

Jamila's axe lay where she'd left it when she had gone to grab the chair to break the ballroom's window. Hadley hobbled to the axe, picked it up, dragged it as she limped back to Ruq, lifted it, and swung as hard as she could.

Ruq's head fell to the ground with a sickening thud, her body collapsing at Hadley's feet, washing her in an ocean of blood.

It was like a rubber band snapping back hard!

Hadley's mind was awash with life. An electric buzz that brought it all the way back. She fell to her knees, gulping down air like she'd been in a vacuum for days. The wall protecting her mind was gone. Unnecessary, now that the vampire was stopped.

The vampire!

Ruq!

Hadley dropped the axe and picked up the vampire's head next to her. She lifted it to the torso and fit it back in place, desperate to see the seam heal!

She couldn't lose Ruq!

Heal!

Come on, Ruq!

Heal!

Come back.

Please!

It was then that Hadley noticed movement in her periphery.

She wasn't the only one who's mind had been released from the edge of blank nothingness.

The ghouls were standing up around her!

"Come on, Ruq. Heal. I can't hold them off. I can't do this!" Hadley whispered. Her voice broke as she spoke her next words. "Not alone. Not without you."

Just as Hadley was losing hope, reaching for Jamila's axe to fight a battle she would definitely lose, a group of people burst through the doorway of the ballroom!

A few were unmistakeably vampires, but one of them caught Hadley's attention.

Hadley had never seen such grace embodied in a single person. The vampire moved like lightning fast smoke, pulsing around the room, cutting down bumbling ghouls clambering back to their feet.

The vampire's name immediately jumped out at Hadley from earlier.

The one they'd been waiting for.

Kitari.

And behind her were those who Jamila and Ruq must have been referring to when they were talking about 'the others'! Brielle was among them. She walked to Hadley and hugged her tight. There were drying streaks of blood on her face, from her eyes, her nose, and her ears. This was the same on every one of their faces. Even outside this room, they had felt Hadley's power.

Yet another reminder of just how powerful – and not human – Ruqwik was.

"I didn't know you were..." Brielle said, her voice cracking. "...Anette said... I thought you were dead."

Kade walked in through the doors from behind the others. The little boy was still strapped to him, pumping his little feet and hands past the wrap, smiling and giggling.

He was reaching out for Hadley!

"You're alive!" Kade said, moving forward to give Hadley a hug, as best as he could with the child strapped to his chest.

The child grasped Hadley's cheek, his gaze solemn, glued to Hadley's eyes. She took a step back, away from the child's reach. Hadley then looked around at the others. Behind Kade was the group of Scavengers, led by the girl that Jamila had called 'Nadia'. They'd come back for her.

For them.

With her heart racing, Hadley suddenly hobbled away, ignoring the ghouls stirring around the room and everyone's adamant admonitions to leave. Hadley headed for the ballroom window. She froze when she saw the blood. Jamila had collapsed across the window. A jagged piece of glass from the broken window's edge was sticking out of her throat, her body lifeless. Blood bubbled out of the wound, over the window frame, falling as slow crimson rivulets down the wall.

Hadley choked on tears, sobs wracking her body.

Someone grabbed her shoulders.

"We need to leave, Hadley!" Kade's voice sounded far away and insignificant.

"Kade!" another distant sounding voice. Brielle. "Carry her if you have to! We need to leave now, or we won't be able to! They're almost all awake!"

Hadley struggled against Kade, slipping out of his hands. She rushed back to Ruq's body, dodging the hands of ghouls reaching for her, falling to her knees and sliding over to where the vampire lay. To Hadley's relief, miniscule strands of skin were pulling the vampire's head and torso together.

Hadley shrugged off Kade's hand when he tried to help her up.

"I'm not leaving without her!" Hadley screamed. Then she looked up towards the window, where Jamila's body lay. "Without them."

From Hadley's periphery, Kitari walked over knelt next to Hadley. Hadley gasped softly at the woman's elegance even in that mundane action. Kitari gently placed a hand on Hadley's shoulder. Kade left Hadley with Kitari and joined Brielle and the others who were fighting the waking ghouls. Hadley couldn't help but stare into the green ringed crimson eyes of the ethereal vampire next to her. They held Hadley's attention like nothing else did.

The vampire's gaze was both familiar and unfamiliar. The air around them was soft and unreal. Hadley knew a version of this feeling from experiencing Ruq's telepathic projections, but this energy was calming. She suddenly trusted Kitari with her life and didn't know why. It was an unsettling feeling, although it was trying hard to be a feeling of welcome respite. It was as if the energy was alive! Hadley had a feeling that she wasn't supposed to be aware of the feeling. That it was just meant to be.

"Hadley, when she wakes up, Ruq will find you," Kitari whispered. "But you have to be alive for that to happen."

"I can't..." Hadley sputtered through tears and snot. "I can't leave them."

"Okay, Hadley," Kitari said, her voice reaching parts of Hadley that needed soothing and provided it. "We won't leave them here. I promise."

Hadley nodded.

"But you need to go, now." Kitari added.

Hadley looked back towards the window, where Jamila's body lay.

"And will you..." Hadley pleaded, but her voice trailed off and she turned back to face Kitari, hoping her eyes spoke the words that she couldn't.

Kitari nodded, the look on her face sombre. She knew exactly what Hadley was asking. "I will."

Hadley sighed, got to her feet, and allowed Kade to lead her away from The Hotel.

*

It took almost a week to get back to Ruqwik's Enclave. It felt surreal, walking through those streets again. After everything she had gone though, Hadley was back where it had begun.

Full circle.

And yet, it felt right.

The Enclave was changed. There were a lot more vampires around, watching as Hadley and the others walked through. Hadley learnt that this was also where Kitari lived, and Kitari's vampires, who'd been their protectors and guides from The Hotel, through the Dead Zone and through the rainforests, made sure no one disturbed them as they walked the Enclave streets. Kitari and a few Freelancer vampires who'd stayed behind with her hadn't caught up with them yet, which was a little concerning. Hadley hoped the ghouls hadn't killed the graceful vampire before she'd fulfilled her promise to Hadley.

"Wait!" Hadley said, placing a hand up to stop Mileki, the vampire that Kitari had left in charge.

Mileki was Kitari's fledgling and had only been recently turned. He was the image of what Hadley would have been if Ruq had been successful at turning her – crimson eyes, superhuman strength, unearthly beauty, uncanny abilities, an aversion to ultraviolet radiation and the inability to bear children. After the introduction to her son in place of her daughter, Hadley wondered if maybe she should have just let Ruq turn her all those months ago, thus avoiding a lot of heartache.

Mileki turned to look at Hadley. "We're almost at Kitari's house. You and your friends can clean up and finish healing there. There's everything there that you will ever need. That was Kitari's orders."

"Thank you, but Kitari has no power over me to give me orders," Hadley said. She turned and looked at the other humans around her. Kade and the baby, Brielle, Yuvan, Nadia and all those who'd made it out of The Hotel alive. "If you want to go to Kitari's, please, go with Mileki. But there's somewhere else I need to be."

Hadley bid goodbye to the others before she began walking in a different direction from them, escorted by two of Kitari's freelancer vampires, under Mileki's instruction.

Someone ran and caught up to Hadley. "Wait! I'm coming with you."

"I can't take you where I'm going, Kade," Hadley said as she turned and smiled, although she felt next to no emotion. She looked at the little boy in Kade's arms. Hadley had been forced to feed the infant through the trip from The Hotel, which was traumatic. The boy was Kade and Kitari's problem now. "There're no men allowed. Go back to Brielle."

Kade looked at the child in his arms. "You promised we'd take care of him together."

Hadley looked at her son, then back up at Kade.

"I can't do that Kade."

Kade glared at her for a long time. "Don't abandon him, Hadley."

Hadley turned away from them and took a step to leave.

Before walking away, she sighed.

She could feel the little one in her mind. The feeling had grown stronger every time she'd fed him. Just like Hadley, the boy had Ruqwik's blood in him, and as he'd grown within her, the blood had imparted some of the vampire's abilities as well – a reality Hadley didn't fully understand. Hadley turned back to look at the boy's face. He was asleep, cradled in Kade's arms. Even asleep, he was reaching into her mind, lazily scrolling through it, curious, but content.

She had already lost so much. The boy was the only piece of Ruq she had to hold on to until the vampire returned.

Despite her trepidation at allowing the child in her life, she wasn't strong enough to lose anymore.

"Fine," Hadley finally said. "But your presence will be resisted. It's not me you have to convince."

Before long, they had arrived at their destination.

"Are you sure about this?" Kade asked.

"I am," Hadley said, looking up at the camera connected to the large gate.

The main gate to the Compound was closed, which Hadley took as a good sign. On their trip back to the Enclave, Mileki told Hadley that the Compound had somehow survived the dogs they'd left behind. As Hadley and Kade waited for the gate to slide open, she began to wonder if she deserved to be welcomed back here. They wouldn't know the truth, but she would always know that she was the one who brought about tragedy to the Compound, forever altering its existence for the selfish need to birth her daughter in the Wildling tribe of her mother's people.

And of everyone she'd led out of the Compound, she was the only one returning alive.

Would they ask about the others, holding the futile hope that she was the first of many missing to come back?

Would Hadley have the strength to tell them the truth? To give closure to their loved ones?

Hadley and Kade waited outside the gate for a full two minutes, but nothing happened, giving Hadley more than enough time to pickle in the existential dilemma of being back here. Hadley sighed. This was a bad idea.

How had she even imagined this would work?

She turned around to leave. Kade prepared to follow.

"We can go to Kitari's," Kade suggested. "And when you're ready, maybe we can make our way back to The Lodge. Leave all of this behind and join Jax on The Ark."

Hadley was about to agree when the giant gate began to slide open behind them. She held her breath and turned around as it slowly revealed the person on the other side.

"Mother?" Hadley gasped, the air knocked out of her lungs.

Mileki had said nothing about who had survived. Just that the Compound had. Hadley had expected to see one of the vampires who were in charge of the Compound – colleagues of the vampire killed by that first vampire dog, the one Ruq had called Hiltro.

"Hello, Hadley." Aadya replied with a smile.

It was then that Hadley noticed her mother's missing left arm, from just below the shoulder. The sleeve of the jumper she'd won had been pinned to her shoulder, out of the way. For some strange reason, the first thought in Hadley's mind was who'd performed the surgery to clean her stump, and if they'd made sure to manage her chronic pain well. Then the horror of what Hadley had allowed to happen here hit her and she felt sick to her stomach.

If her mother was the one opening the gate, then Aadya had access to the security office. To the camera feeds. Monitors that would have undoubtedly captured exactly what had happened here. That would have told her Hadley was responsible for it all. For the loss of her mother's arm.

Why had Hadley come back?

Her mother was never going to accept her to rejoin them!

"Welcome back Leelee," her mother said, that warm smile widening. "I missed you."

Hadley hadn't heard her mother use that name since Hadley was five, right before her first Initiation Ceremony. Something seemed to have taken residence in her throat, and she couldn't get any words out. The same thing was poking her eyes, making them water.

"And who's this little one?" her mother asked, cooing at the baby in Kade's arms.

A sob forced itself from Hadley's throat. She couldn't have stopped it even if she wanted to. Her mother embraced her, and Hadley broke, sobbing on her mother's shoulder for what seemed like forever. Eventually, they walked into the Compound together, the gate quietly sliding shut behind them and her mother's good arm still wrapped tightly around Hadley.