Hadley opened her eyes and wished she hadn't. It wasn't just that there was a building on top of her, pinning her hopelessly under dusty, crumbly rubble.

They were gone!

They were all gone!

Billy, Crystal, Jael, Yuvan, Kade, Brielle, Jamila...

Her daughter.

Tears stung Hadley's eyes. She sobbed, coughing up a lungful of dust as she did, which caused a tremor above her that dumped a new cloud of concrete and dust over her. It didn't matter. She wished she could die, but even now, she could feel cuts and bruises healing all over her. She wondered how it would feel like, slowly starving in the depths of hell until her blood couldn't sustain the healing. She wondered if it would even feel an inkling close to the pain and hurt crushing her insides at the absolute loss she was already enduring.

What was left for her in this world without her daughter?

She couldn't even mourn because her daughter was still alive, on her way past the stars to a new planet. Hadley's goal to save her daughter from her mother's demoralising influence had just ended up ushering her into the arms of her father, a stranger with an extremely questionable moral standing at best and whom she couldn't trust not to corrupt the little one's soul.

The pain creeping past her adrenaline from the concrete block crushing her from the waist down couldn't hold a candle to the pain of her infinite guilt.

Wreckage from that final massive earthquake covered every inch of space around her and the concrete boulder on top of her made it impossible to swivel and use her hands to search through the dusty, musty darkness. The darkness she had once been so afraid of swallowing all her emotions forever was now physically personified in the most horrific way, swallowing her whole being. She would die here. Alone. Having lost and lost to everything and everyone that ever mattered to her.

Alone.

Alone in the most complete sense of the word.

Until she felt it...

...that familiar brush against her mind.

Ruqwik?

"Help! Help me! I'm here! I'm alive!" Hadley yelled as loud as she could while trying not to drown in the clouds of fine dust she breathed in, pouring urgency into the pleas as she too reached out for the vampire's mind!

Hadley counted out the seconds of silence that followed.

One.

Of course, no one was out there. Ruq was dead. Hadley had seen the arrow hit its mark. She'd seen the lines spread out from the wound. No vampire survived Hadley's dead blood! She was imagining the telepathic brush. A hallucinogenic consequence of being at death's door.

Two.

Even if the vampire was alive, Hadley was several storeys underground, in a bunker located past what Barret had called the Dead Zone, a region where no one living in the Enclaves and rainforests would ever willingly cross. How would the vampire even find her here?

Thr...

"Hadley?!"

No!

Surely, she'd imagined the voice.

How?

How was Ruq in the depths of hell with her?

"Ruq?! Is that you?" Hadley yelled back, still convinced no one would answer back. "Help! Help me! I'm stuck!"

"Hadley, keep calling out!" the vampire yelled through the darkness almost immediately. A lifeline. A hand grabbing for her in the dark. Again. "I'm coming for you!"

She could suddenly feel the vampire's mind, urgently asking her to hold on.

It was too much for Hadley!

The giant lump in her throat and the overwhelming relief washing over her made it hard to speak.

All she could do was open the doors to her mind and let the vampire in, expressing her pain, loss, grief and sorrow through their link in all its debilitating depth, relieved that words were of no use when they were this close, and that she could fully share this burden.

It wasn't long before a large piece of wreckage was cleared a few centimetres above her. Hadley found Ruqwik's face in the shaky light of a torn off, sparking fluorescent bulb dangling from whatever was left of the caved in ceiling. It was also then that she realised just how desperate her situation was. The pain from the concrete boulder over her lower body smashed through her, the adrenaline keeping it at bay stretched too thin. Her left leg was completely crashed at the shin, directly below her knee. Questing tendrils of pain trailed up towards her hip. Her right leg was wedged under the boulder too, but the boulder was uneven and so her right leg was pinned, but not crashed. Still, she was properly trapped!

"Get it off, Ruq," Hadley pleaded, feebly trying to push the boulder off her flattened shin. "Please, please. Get it off me."

It was way too big. Even Ruq, with her superhuman strength, couldn't lift it off her.

Panic became a vice squeezing Hadley's chest.

Ruqwik gently tilted Hadley's jaw so that Hadley was now staring into red eyes with faint blue and green rings around them.

"This is going to hurt, Hadley," Ruq whispered.

Hadley steeled her jaw and nodded.

The vampire kissed her. It was quick and anxious.

Foreboding.

"Close your eyes, okay?" Ruq said.

"Okay."

Leaving a butterfly soft kiss on Hadley's forehead, the vampire stood up and disappeared to one side of the boulder, out of Hadley's field of vision. As instructed, Hadley closed her eyes and took a deep, dusty breath.

But nothing could have prepared her for this.

Hadley's scream was a foreign sound. For a few seconds, she didn't know what the sound was or where it was coming from, only that it disturbed her deeply. Nothing seemed connected to her. She was floating. Going away. Heading for the stars. For her daughter.

She couldn't wait to tuck the little one in.

Tell her stories.

Stories about her adventures beyond the Compound walls.

Hadley suddenly hurtled back into her body, an elastic band snapping back after an extensive stretch. Ruqwik was rolling the boulder off her and it was mashing her leg, crunching bone, grating off skin. She was engulfed in a burning, stinging, stabbing, pinching, twisting pain that got worse with each punishing beat of her heart. Her teeth were ground into white sand and no amount of regenerative healing would ever smoothen the deep lines of agony that now cut across her face.

The vampire gave the boulder a final push. A slow, measured, excruciating push.

Finally, Hadley's leg was free.

Ruqwik collapsed into a heap next to the stone.

Hadley wanted to call out, but the pain was at a crescendo, painting everything black.

She embraced the nothingness.

Then the world rumbled again, shaking her awake.

Ruqwik was above her, shielding her from falling debris.

A few seconds later, everything went silent and still.

"Is it over?" Hadley whispered, though she wasn't sure if she'd said the words or thought them.

"It's over." the vampire whispered back.

Relief surged through Hadley, bringing with it colour, and sound, and taste, and feel.

"You're hurt," Hadley said, raising her hand and gingerly touching a patch of blood on Ruq's torso that was slowly growing larger.

The vampire should have been healing.

Why wasn't she healing?

"You need blood," Hadley continued, her hand carefully reaching for the vampire's face. She studied the rings of blue and green around the red irises. They were thicker than before. Much thicker.

"I'm fine," Ruq lied. "It's you I'm worried about."

"I'm okay," Hadley said. She tried to look down at her leg and regretted the movement as waves of pain cascaded through her. She'd lied too. "I can already feel it heal."

She looked back at the vampire, pulled her close and kissed her. Slow. Lingering. Filled with a tome of words.

Their shared minds were an incoherent, chaotic jumble of feelings, not all hers.

"Thank you for coming to find me," Hadley breathed, her forehead against Ruq's and her eyes closed.

The vampire stayed silent, but her mind spoke volumes.

Hadley had lost her once without saying the words. She couldn't let that ever happen again.

"I love you, Ruq."

They stayed like that for what would have only been a few seconds, but poignant emotion distorted time, so that it seemed as though minutes passed in the paradisical bliss.

"Let's get out of here," Ruq said, breaking the moment by suddenly standing up and holding her hand out to help Hadley up.

Hadley noticed a change in Ruq's demeanour that didn't fit the moment. The vampire also shut her mind closed, cutting Hadley off. Hadley didn't say anything, afraid that voicing her concern would make it real. Instead, she smiled and accepted the vampire's hand.

Hadley's right foot was okay to walk on and she used Ruq as a crutch while holding up her left leg as it healed. She was still in pain, but she was adapting to it. She was hating every second, every new breath, every shard of broken bone shifting in her shin, but was adapting. Wearing it. Adjusting to it like an ill-fitting coat. It would take a while for the crushed bone in her shin to fuse back together. Pain would be her companion until then. There was nothing else to do but get used to it.

With their injuries slowing them both down, it took a while to twist and squeeze through the spaces in the rubble and finally get through the hallway to the elevator, where Kade and Jamila stood. Hadley's heart skipped several beats at seeing Jamila, standing tall in black cargo pants, a matching cropped tank top and combat boots, her hair in a single long braid that reached past her tailbone, holding an axe across both hands, looking like she would fight any demon to dare challenge her. Hadley didn't remember Jamila ever looking so regal.

So strong.

I have never had a more dedicated Scavenger soldier than her. In the few months that I've trained her, she's easily tripled my abduction numbers without breaking a sweat! I even made her a training captain.

Hadley's eyes moved from Jamila to Kade. Her world was piecing back together. Her friends being returned to her. Kade looked...

Hadley stopped, pulling Ruq back.

Kade had something in his arms. A bundle in a yellow blanket.

A yellow baby blanket.

"Is that...?" Hadley whispered.

Her eyes were glued to the yellow blanket.

"That's your baby, Hadley." Ruqwik answered.

Unbridled joy slammed against Hadley, a physical more than emotional feeling. It was so powerful it made her buoyant. Nothing mattered. Not her shattered shin or the depths of loss that had been seeping into her marrow for the last few hours. She hobbled to the blanket, annoyed she couldn't run. But when she got there, she got scared. So, she turned to Jamila first, holding that axe, standing next to Kade and her baby, protecting them – her daughter's brave second mother.

"I thought you were dead," Jamila said, putting the axe down and embracing Hadley, holding her tight.

"I'm right here," Hadley said, laughing and crying.

Then Hadley pulled away from Jamila and hopped around to face Kade.

"Hi," Hadley whispered.

"Hey back," he said. "I'm glad you're okay."

Hadley nodded to the bundle in his arms. She choked, words struggling to pass through the lump in her throat. She cleared her throat.

"May I?" she finally managed to say.

Kade handed her the baby and Jamila hugged her from the back, placing her hands on Hadley's waist to keep her steady as she held the child with her shattered leg. They stood like that for a while. Tears streamed down Hadley's face, though she was also smiling so hard, it hurt. She turned and looked at Ruqwik, calling the vampire over with a nod. Ruq staggered over. The cut on her torso wasn't bleeding as much anymore, but the fact that it was still bleeding worried Hadley.

"Isn't she gorgeous?" Hadley said, her voice slightly clogged.

Ruqwik smiled and was about to say something, but Kade spoke first.

"He is," Kade said, as the baby wrapped a tiny hand around his finger. "He's a boy. Strong too, just like his mum."

The words struck Hadley – a punch in the gut forcing the air out of her lungs.

That couldn't be right.

"I'm sorry, what?" Hadley's voice shook, only being able to take in short, sharp gasps.

"Hadley, you had a son," Ruqwik said. The vampire was smiling. So was Kade. And Jamila.

The genuine smiles were a betrayal that cut deep.

How could they?

How dare they?

She clutched at desperate thoughts. This was a different baby. Her daughter was on her way to the stars with her grandfather. It wasn't ideal, but it meant that she was alive. That she existed. That her place in the world wasn't usurped by...

"A... a son?" Hadley's voice was straining now. "No. No, that's not right..."

Heart hammering panic twisted her insides. Hysteria clawed itself up from the depths of her soul.

"Hadley?" Ruqwik's voice sounded like it was reaching Hadley through a thick wall.

"It can't be a..." Hadley turned to Jamila. "It's always a girl. Always a girl. My daughter..."

Then she turned to Ruqwik.

"Were they twins? Like Kiara?" Hadley demanded. "Where's the other one? Where's my daughter, Ruq?"

The vampire gave Hadley a pitiful stare, which Hadley absolutely couldn't handle right now, so she turned to Kade.

"No," Kade shook his head. "Anette forced me to help you birth him. But it was only him. No twin."

"Hadley..." Ruqwik started.

Hadley didn't care to listen to whatever the vampire was going to say. She shoved the child into Ruqwik's arms and backed away.

"I don't want it..." Hadley whispered, the pain of her grief taking away all the colour, and sound, and taste and touch, plunging her once more into a senseless, hopeless world. "I can't, Ruq. It was always a daughter. That was the plan... always the plan."

Every idea, every dream of the future in Hadley's head of a happily ever after included her daughter. A little girl with her smile and drive and, after learning what it meant, her father's Teroi's eyes, which she adored, and now would never see again. A girl with hair tousled in large ringlets. A girl with a giggle that could bring light to the greyest of days and the darkest of nights. It was always a girl! Always a girl! Hadley had been surrounded by girls and women all her life. It was all she knew. All she was prepared for.

All she had ever wanted!

Tears fell as she looked at the child in Ruqwik's arms.

Ruqwik was smiling at it. Talking to it.

Telepathically projecting.

Even from here, Hadley could see that the vampire's words were more than those that left her lips. The vampire and the child were mind-linked.

Hadley's hatred for the child increased tenfold.

She hated her son.

Hated everything about him!

Ruqwik handed the child to Kade. The little one cooed as Kade took him. It was hard to hate him when he made that stupidly adorable sound.

Ruqwik gently placed her palms on Hadley's shoulders.

"Hey, it'll be okay," the vampire said, drawing Hadley closer. Hugging her. "You're not going to be doing this alone."

Ruq made it hard to hate, painting their mindscape thickly with hope and faith.

Hadley looked at Kade and Jamila in turn.

They made it hard to hate too, both smiling softly at her.

"Look around you," Ruqwik continued. "You already have a village to help you raise this child. We won't let you fail. I promise."

They made it hard to hate, but the hate still burned through Hadley. An acid eating through every organ that kept her alive.

A son?!

How was that even supposed to work? Hadley knew nothing about boys. Didn't want to know anything about raising them. Everything she'd gone through... It had always been about her daughter. About being a better mother to her. About bonding with her, loving her, and making sure she grew up to become a good mother herself and taught her granddaughters the same. Hadley had survived everything she had from the moment she'd stepped beyond the Compound walls because she was determined to create the mother and daughter duo that she had never been part of herself but had desperately wished for!

That had always been the plan.

Not a son.

Ruqwik's words were meant to be a salve to the raw open wound that was Hadley's mind, but this was a wound that no words and no amount of special blood could ever heal. Even with that promise – the assurance that Hadley was not alone in this – Hadley's world was falling apart around her, as surely and as physically as the building that had dropped on her head before.

Hadley's mother's voice played in her mind in garish detail, mocking every minute of the last nine months. Hadley backed away from the baby, ignoring the sharp pain shooting from her shattered shin bone as it crunched under her weight, the words danced all around her, taunting her.

Life beyond the wall holds nothing but heartbreak and pain!

Life beyond the wall holds nothing but heartbreak and pain! Life beyond the wall holds nothing but heartbreak and pain! Life beyond the wall holds nothing but heartbreak and pain!

Heartbreak and pain.

Heartbreak!

Pain!

"No," Hadley whispered. She shook her head and wiped her nose, her gaze stark and her spirit broken. "Get it away! I don't want it."

"Hadley..." Ruq tried.

"No!" Hadley said, her voice firm. Stern.

This wasn't the deal!

She'd had enough of everything going wrong!

This was the last straw.

This was where she put her foot down.

No!

Not a son!

She didn't deserve this.

Wouldn't accept it.

"No." Hadley reiterated. Moving further back.

"Okay. Okay, Hadley. I'll take him," Kade said softly, cradling the cooing boy. "Is that okay? And when you're ready..."

"I don't want it," Hadley said, flippantly, cutting him off. "Take it! And I don't care what you do with it."

Then her voice cracked, and she couldn't hold back the sob that forced its way from her throat. Hadley's hands went to her mouth, trying to keep the sobs from escaping. Trying and failing. She sank to the ground and broke, inwardly cussing at not being able to find the darkness within her anymore. Her mind was a torture chamber of emotions, and they all wanted to be let out, even as she fought them. Through a waterfall of tears, Hadley couldn't see Ruq and Jamila move, but they were now beside her, wrapping her inside a cocoon made of arms and legs, their foreheads against her temples.

Hadley let them hold her and stopped fighting.

The dam of emotions broke, and Hadley allowed herself to feel it all. To drown in the suffocating loss. To grieve the daughter she didn't have and the life they would never share. Before the feeling overwhelmed her, Hadley felt Ruq's presence in her mind, bearing it all with her. At the same time, she heard Jamila silently sob beside her.

Hadley's mother was wrong.

There was more beyond the heartbreak and pain.

A lot more that she'd been blind to. There was friendship. And there was support. And there was more love than she would ever deserve.