The world suddenly shook around them, pieces of the ceiling falling on and around them, but Jamila and Ruq didn't let Hadley go.

Hadley finally looked up.

She found Kade sitting cross legged in front of her, cradling the child and holding that same soft smile from before, just for her. She turned to look at Ruq first and then Jamila. The vampire's face was stoic, but their shared mindscape was enveloped in compassion and care. Jamila's eyes shone with tears, but she held a determined look. Hadley turned to the child. The little boy cooed at her attention and gave her a toothless grin.

Hadley would never be able to love the child, but she was comforted by the fact that the little boy wouldn't grow up unloved.

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

Dust fell from the ceiling after a little rumble.

They were all going to die here if they didn't move.

But the others wouldn't budge. Not until they thought Hadley was okay. She was certain of that.

She gathered what remained of her strength and feigned feeling better.

"We should leave this place before whatever is still standing above us comes down on our heads." Hadley finally said. She was beyond drained, her voice still shaking with emotion. She cleared her throat and shelved her feelings, but they still bore heavily on her shoulders. Taking a deep breath, she looked down at her shin. "But I'm going to have to set my leg before going anywhere."

The pain from her injury gave her something solid and real to focus on.

She grabbed onto that pain and used it to steady her.

On her right, Ruqwik gave Hadley's cheek a quick peck before standing up. "I'll find some splints."

Jamila kissed her left cheek and stood up too. "We'll need something to tie it with."

"The cot in the room you found me in has cotton sheets," Kade said. "Will that work?"

Jamila nodded and went to fetch the sheets.

Kade turned to Hadley. He was still seated on the ground in front of her.

"Will you be okay?" he whispered.

She would never be okay.

"I'll be okay." she whispered back. "Will you teach him what I can't?"

"Only if you teach him what I can't," Kade said with a sad smile. He held out his hand. "Deal?"

The baby giggled. Hadley still felt a piercing sense of resentment and betrayal when she looked at the child. She hoped that time would at least dull the sharp, jagged edges of the feelings, knowing that she would harbour them for a lifetime.

She reluctantly accepted Kade's hand.

"Deal." She lied.

She just had to keep up the front until they got out of here safe.

Ruqwik came back with two flat metal rods that had rough, uneven ends. Jamila brought two cotton sheets. Ruq shredded thin strips from one of the sheets, then followed Hadley's instructions on how to use the remainder of the sheet to cushion the splints against her shin and secure them against her leg using the thin strips. In the meantime, Jamila used the other sheet to create a wrap that secured the child against Kade's chest, to allow Kade hands-free movement.

With her leg splinted and Ruq supporting her, and with the baby secured against Kade and Jamila armed with her axe, they headed to the elevator. It wasn't working, its sides slightly crumpled. Ruq and Jamila explained how it had crashed to this level when the first tremors hit and how they found Kade imprisoned in one of the rooms with the baby, before Ruq had rescued Hadley.

"This region doesn't lay on any fault lines. I wonder what caused that quake," Ruq said, as she helped Hadley lean against the wall so she could assist Jamila and Kade to climb through a hole in the elevator ceiling.

"The launch of a spacecraft," Hadley said nonchalantly. Her face scrunched in pain as more of her shattered shin bone slipped back into place. She looked up at Ruq. "Barret Fisher has been building it for years. It's also why the Scavengers were ordered to abduct all those people. He was gathering a work force and enough humans to ensure genetic viability for sustainable reproduction on a New Planet. He used my blood to create a liquid to store the humans in cryogenic stasis for the duration of the trip to what he called a 'Goldilocks Planet'."

Ruqwik stopped and turned to look at Hadley, ignoring Jamila's hand reaching into the elevator to help Hadley up.

"Are you serious?" Ruqwik asked, incredulously.

Hadley nodded.

Ruqwik shook her head then looked up at Jamila's hand.

"Well, call me a monkey's uncle," she whispered, more to herself. Hadley wondered what that meant. "That is the wildest shit I have heard in a very long time."

Hadley scoffed. "You haven't heard the best part."

"There's more?" Ruq guffawed.

"He left without Anette! She was not happy about that." Hadley said, with a smirk. "And then the lab came down on her head in the quake."

"That's some justice, at least," Ruqwik replied.

"How did you even find me down here?" Hadley asked as the others helped her get through the hole in the elevator's ceiling.

"Jamila." Ruq said. "She saw Anette disappear to this place and we followed the clues."

Hadley caught her breath at the top of the elevator, trying to ignore the shooting pain in her leg.

"But how did you find this Compound?" Hadley asked between gasps. "How did you find 'The Hotel'?"

Hadley remembered the journey from 'The Lodge' to 'The Hotel'. It was long. It was gruelling. It went past the confines of the vampire Enclaves and through the 'Dead Zone'.

How did Ruq find her?

How did Ruq always find her?

And would she always find her?

"Well, that took a little more work," Ruqwik said, smiling as she offered Hadley a hand. "Not that I mind. I'll always find you."

Hadley smiled, but inwardly groaned.

That was going to be a problem.

All Hadley wanted to do after this was to disappear to the ends of the Earth where no one would ever find her, to live out her life alone, in peace.

"I did have help," Ruq continued. "A lot of help. Even the damn dog pitched in."

"Dog? Brownie?" Hadley mused.

"The one and only. Without him, we wouldn't be here." Ruq said.

"And she didn't come alone!" Jamila contributed. "There're others out there, waiting for us. Kade? Brielle will be delighted to see you! Anette told us you were both dead!"

"That woman was pure evil. Good riddance to bad rubbish!" Kade said. Then, tentatively, he asked, "So, if Brownie is alright, does that mean Drew is okay?"

"Drew is perfectly fine. Brownie saved him from the Scavengers. I found them wandering the forest and took them home with me." Ruqwik explained. "He's eagerly waiting for us back at my Enclave."

"Right. You became Baron Ruqwik." Hadley said, remembering her talk with Tristan, Ruqwik's vampire friend. She shuddered, thinking about the last time she saw him, and wondered if she should tell Ruq that Barret Fisher turned him into a mindless Drone.

Not now.

But definitely before she disappeared.

"Please don't call me that!" Ruq said, laughing.

The levity was welcome. The climb up the elevator shaft was excruciating on Hadley's healing leg, but there was no time to wait for it to get better. The building was too compromised to delay leaving any longer. As if it had read her mind and wanted to corroborate, the building rumbled around them. Loud thuds and booms joined the rumbling drenching them in a shower of dust raining down the elevator shaft. Everyone froze, waiting for more. The rumbling stopped just as fast as it had started. The silence stretched out long enough to ease some of the tension, and they began scrambling up the ladder rungs again.

When they finally reached the level where they could access what Ruqwik told them was The Hotel's kitchen, the vampire turned to them from the top of the ladder.

"One more thing you should know, at least you two, Hadley and Kade," Ruqwik said. She looked at Hadley. "Something happened at The Hotel..."

Hadley cut her off. "Ghouls, right?"

"How did you know?" Ruq wondered.

"Josal turned Teroi into a vampire at some point. Then Anette made me watch her kill Teroi by blasting him with UV rays. Josal was in the same room as Teroi and he had to watch him die too!" Hadley said, her voice filled with bile. "Josal turned into a ghoul after that."

"Josal didn't die?" Ruq wondered.

The vampire had every right to be surprised by that. Hadley was still trying to process it herself.

"Anette used my blood to create a serum that makes vampires immune to ultraviolet radiation. She tested it on Josal. And after Teroi's death, it was just like you told me," Hadley continued. "Josal suddenly looked feral. He broke the chains that bound him then escaped the room, but that's also when the space craft launch began, and I lost track of what happened after that. I remember what you said would happen at the creation of a ghoul. About their need to spread their madness."

Ruqwik let out an uninterrupted string of cusses, her vocabulary rich in imagery. Anette was lucky to be dead.

"I really hope she died painfully," Ruqwik finally said. She sighed and continued. "That's right, we have zombies out there. And they will attack you. Don't let them bite you. And if one does, let everyone know, so that we can deal with it. Don't be stupid and selfish and try to hide a bite because that attitude will get us all killed."

The others below her on the ladder nodded in agreement.

"I'll go first," Ruq said. "Stay here until I say it's clear."

"Okay."

"Jay, can I borrow your axe?"

Jamila used one hand to pass the axe to Kade, who then handed the axe to Hadley, who then passed it on to the vampire. Ruq found stable footing and pried the door open slowly using the axe. She left it open a few inches, searching the room beyond.

"The fridge seems clear," she called out. "The door must have closed shut and kept the zombies out."

Ruqwik pried open the elevator door wider and kept it open using the axe's shaft across the upper portion of the sliding doors. She helped them all out of the shaft, then yanked the axe out and handed it back to Jamila. The lights flickered. Most of the shelves had fallen over in the cold room, their items littering the floor. A bit of the roof had buckled inwards and there was something gurgling as it poured from a tipped over five-gallon container in the corner. Ruqwik turned to Hadley.

"How's your leg?" Ruq asked Hadley.

Hadley tested the movement of her immobilized leg. Her shin bones were still mangled, but they weren't mash anymore, and the tightly secured metal splints gave her good support. Her leg wouldn't be much good in a fight, but she wasn't going to let Ruqwik know that.

"It's a lot better," Hadley lied.

Ruq tilted her head and raised a brow, sceptically. The vampire dropped one of the shelves around them, kicked off the wire trays, leaving behind the four poles making up the frame, then broke off one of the poles and handed it to Hadley.

"That should help," said Ruq.

Hadley gave her a guilty smile and tried the pole as a crutch. It worked as well as a straight stick without a softened head could, but it'd have to do. Kade picked one of the other poles and uncrewed it at the middle, separating it into two pieces. He dropped one of the pieces and brandished the other like it was his katana. The baby strapped to him cooed and giggled, completely undermining the seriousness of the situation.

"Will my blood kill them?" Hadley asked, looking around for a blade she could use to slash her skin.

Ruq shook her head. ""

Hadley took in the information and grit her teeth. She was badly hurt, which presented a major liability, and not even her special blood could help her or the others this time. She was their weakest link and would get them all killed.

Unsurprising.

Leading her friends to their death was apparently the only thing she knew how to do.

She swallowed the thought, holding it down so it wouldn't overwhelm her.

"Okay," Ruqwik called them to attention, while not being able to resist smiling at the giggling baby strapped to Kade's chest and gently bopping its nose. "I'll stay up front. Kade and Hadley, you two stay in the middle. Jamila..."

"I got your backs," she swished the axe and smiled.

"Let's get out of here," Ruqwik said with a finality in her voice.

"Wait!" Jamila walked up to Ruq and kissed her, then she walked up to Hadley and kissed her too, before gently cupping the back of the little boy's head and landing a soft peck on his forehead, which was received with a new burst of giggles and the cute wriggling of chubby toes and fingers. "Okay. Let's go!"

Hadley looked away, shoving the spike of spite down the same hole she'd been burying everything else.

Ruqwik paused at the door, like she was considering letting them stay in the refrigerator. It made sense. There was food and water, a source of blood for Ruq, whose eyes showed ever thickening green and blue rings at the edges, Hadley's leg would heal...

Maybe they could wait it out.

Facing a horde of zombies didn't sound like much fun at all. Hadley remembered Josal's face on the monitor. That wasn't a creature that embodied an inkling of empathy or compassion. Those eyes had been more than just lifeless. They'd been soulless. And vengeful.

A shiver ran through Hadley at the memory.

Another deep rumble of the building was an unwelcome extension to Hadley's shiver. The walls cracked around them and the ceiling dipped further inward, a brown liquid stain suddenly spreading across the saggy ceiling of the cold room. The building shook once more, almost knocking Hadley and the others off their feet. The brown liquid filling up the soggy ceiling began to press lower, threatening to spill over them. They couldn't stay here, even if they wanted to.

"We have to go, Ruq!" Hadley shouted when the rumbling finally stopped.

"Stay close! I mean it!" Ruq shouted back before pushing the door open. Behind them, the ceiling drenched the room with a foul, deep brown liquid the instant they had all walked out!

The zombies in the kitchen immediately attacked. Ruqwik punched the first, then grabbed its head and smashed it into the corner of a kitchen counter. Its skull caved in, the zombie falling dead at her feet. Hadley had watched Ruqwik tear apart vamp dogs with her bare hands but watching her dismantle a humanoid creature was eery.

A disconcerting reminder that Ruqwik wasn't tame.

Wasn't human.

It was in that moment that Hadley realised she hadn't really digested that fact before.

The zombies kept coming, thick and fast. Some had been Scavengers. Others had been vampire Drones who staffed the Hotel. The vampires were the more dangerous of the two. Stronger, faster, and harder to kill. Ruq focussed on those.

"Ruq!" Jamila shouted into the din. They had finally made it out of the kitchen. "The ballroom! It's on your right!"

"Got it!" Ruqwik shouted back.

Ruq led them to whatever a ballroom was. Hadley hoped it would be a refuge from the madness. She was covered in slime and gore and was now using the shelf pole more as a weapon than a crutch, doing her best to keep the ghouls at bay. At some point, her and Kade had become a team. Hadley would use the pole to destabilise a zombie rushing at them by stabbing a hip or swiping a knee joint and Kade would bash the stumbling ghoul, stabbing into skulls via ear canals with his half of a shelf pole.

All the while the baby giggled and clapped its chubby fingers as it bopped against Kade's chest.

Behind them, Jamila was a force of nature. Her axe was taking down a river of casualties as she moved like liquid through them. Hadley could watch her move all night. Her and Ruq. The vampire was a blur, not only mowing down the nightmarish creatures, but sparing moments between it all to find the little boy on Kade's chest and bop his nose or play with the little fat fingers reaching out for her. Hadley realised that the vampire was in the child's mind, keeping him at ease, just as she'd done with Jamila after Mrs. Smith's basement.

As they moved towards the ballroom, Hadley noticed that not all the Scavenger humans had been turned. Some were fighting back and taking down hordes of ghouls. Jamila suddenly tossed her axe, lodging it into a zombie behind one of the Scavenger survivors, splitting its skull.

"Nadia! We're heading to the ballroom!" Jamila called out.

"We're right behind you, Captain," the girl answered, pulling the axe out of the ghoul, and tossing it for Jamila to catch.

Hadley's mind taunted her with a memory.

"Hi Jay. How's your day going?"

"Hey Nadia. It's much better, now that you're here."

Watching the young, beautiful Nadia and Jamila fight in perfect synchronicity, Hadley tamped down on the jealousy uncoiling her stomach – a strange, cold, augural feeling that left a hollowness within her. Thankfully, having to deal with a zombie launching itself at her meant Hadley didn't have the chance to mourn the fact that she'd lost so much time with Jamila that her lover was virtually a different person – a stranger.

The realisation hurt more than the zombie who suddenly crushed into her midriff.

With the Scavenger survivors adding to their numbers and surrounding Hadley and baby carrying Kade, they all managed to get to the ballroom mostly unscathed. Hadley was past exhaustion when they finally crashed into the empty, massive space that turned out to be the ballroom, and quickly closed the doors behind them. Despite everyone leaning back against the locked door, it buckled precariously under the weight of an ocean of zombies beyond.

"This won't hold them back for long." Nadia said.

"It doesn't have to," Jamila replied. "Just long enough for the others to find us."

"Nadia, where're the others?" Ruq asked. "Where's Kitari?"

Hadley was confused. She wasn't the only one. Kade looked just as lost.

But Hadley had heard that name before, she just couldn't place the memory.

Who was Kitari?

"We heard the building collapse and watched something shoot into the sky. We didn't know what was happening! It's why we came back. But we were swarmed by the ghouls and split up," Nadia explained. "Kitari's group was still fighting the ghouls outside when we found our way inside through the back."

"They should have been in here by now." Ruq pointed out.

"Not if they tried to get in using the front door," Jamila replied.

"That's where most of the monsters are." Nadia confirmed. "We came in from the back. The others split to come in through from the front – they'll be up to their eyeballs in monsters! They won't be able to find us here."

There was a beat of silence, punctuated by the banging of zombies against the ballroom doors.

"We'll jump out of the ballroom windows and go outside," Jamila instructed, taking full charge of the situation. "We'll find Kitari and the others, create a bigger army, and make sure we kill all the zombies! We can't let them spread to the outside world. Only after we kill them all do we leave The Hotel! Is that clear?"

Nadia and the others nodded.

Hadley had never seen the golden beauty in this light. As she kept watching in awe, Jamila pushed off the ballroom doors, ran to a table in the corner of the empty room, grabbed a chair and threw it against one of the ballroom windows.

"Come on!" Jamila ordered. "You first, Kade! Then the others."

Kade left Hadley and the others. Pushing off the door, he rushed to the broken window, and jumped, the little boy strapped to him still giggling and whooping the whole time. Nadia followed and then the other Scavenger survivors, leaving Ruq and Hadley holding back the Ballroom doors.

"Hadley! Ruq! Now!" Jamila called. "Come on!"

However, with a sharp crack, the door buckled behind Hadley and the vampire! The two pushed back against the door, keeping it from completely falling apart.

"Jamila, go!" Hadley yelled. "We're right behind you!"

"Hadley," Ruq called her name softly. Hadley turned to face the vampire and gasped. Ruq's eyes didn't hold a single hint of red. She was completely drained. The vampire pleaded with her in a soft voice. "You have to go. Please."

"I'm not leaving you, Ruq," Hadley's voice was uncompromising.

Despite everything the vampire had put her through, out of everyone else, Ruq was the only one who hadn't changed. The only one who didn't feel like a stranger. The only one who didn't need Hadley to speak a word to explain how she was feeling.

Her constant.

Her anchor.

Hadley couldn't lose that.

"I can't stop it, Hadley," Ruq whispered. Hadley could barely hear her. "I can't stop the Venom. Please!"

Before Hadley could answer, the door gave way behind them, and they were both launched off it into the room. Hadley got back to her feet and hopped around, balling her fists, ready to face the ocean of zombies that spilled through bare knuckled if she had to!

"Hadley!"

Jamila's gut-wrenching scream was the last thing Hadley heard before everything came to a screeching halt!

Every zombie that had made it into the room froze in place.

Like a switch had been flipped.

The feeling started as an ice-cold dread at the pit of Hadley's stomach. A sharp knife being pulled up from the bottom of her gut, upwards. She knew exactly what it was the instant she felt it, but she had never felt Ruqwik's power projected this way before. It didn't just cloud the air like invisible smoke, as it usually did. It drilled inside her. Forcing itself down her throat, into her lungs, suffocating her.

And then it was in her head.

Hadley looked up.

Every being in the room, living and undead, was experiencing exactly what she was, their hands desperately grabbing their heads.

Warm liquid oozed out of Hadley's ears and nose.

Her fingers confirmed it was blood.

"Hadley!"

The voice was weak.

Hadley whipped her head and saw Jamila fall to one knee, her hands against her temples. Then Jamila collapsed, with blood pouring down her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

The zombies around her suffered the same fate.

Hadley turned to look at Ruqwik.

The vampire was on her knees, staring lifelessly ahead, the blue from her right eye slowly bleeding into the green of her left. Hadley hobbled, stumbled, and crawled to the vampire, fighting the excruciating pain that was slowly crippling her. She could barely see past the bloody red of her own eyes, but Hadley reached up to Ruq, kneeling in front of the vampire and cupping her face.

"Ruq! Stop! Please!" Hadley shouted, flecks of her blood hitting the vampire's face. "You're killing us!"

The vampire's gaze suddenly focussed on Hadley.

"I can't stop it," she gasped. "I never could."

"You have to try, Ruq!" Hadley pleaded. She turned to the ballroom's smashed window then back to Ruq. "You're killing her! You're killing Jamila. Remember what we said? Either one of us hurts her and the other kills the guilty party."

Ruq winced and closed her eyes. When she opened her eyes again, Hadley watched the green in her left eye slowly gain power over the blue.

"I'm sorry, Hadley," Ruq said, despair distorting her face. "I'm sorry that I'm not your hero."

Ruq's head snapped back, her face to the ceiling and her eyes screwed shut once more. When she opened them again, she lowered her eyes to face Hadley once more. The blue in right eye smashed into the left, completely taking over the green. Ruq's next words came out in staccato, interjected by a gasp after each phrase, as the vampire fought for control.

"I'm sorry... that I can... only ever be... yourmonster."

She exhaled and closed her eyes once more.

And when she opened them again, two iridescent blue eyes looked back at Hadley, reflecting her own.

A slow smirk drew itself on Ruqwik's face.

The Venom!

Ruq winked...

...and Hadley's mind, along with everyone else around her, shattered into a million pieces!