After breakfast, Hadley had taken Jamila back to her cubicle, and was making out with the gorgeous vixen. Having a mind-blowing shag with one of her favourite girls before she left the Compound and started the journey to her mum and aunt's Wildling village didn't seem like the worst way to say goodbye to the Compound. Who knew the next time she would dance the horizontal tango again? Despite trying hard to explain it, Aunt Zee's description of the Wildling community and social structure wasn't easy to understand. Especially the fact that it wasn't populated with only women. Hadley had never seen any other humans except for women. It was hard to imagine anything else.

Her aunt had almost immediately given up trying to explain "boys" and "men" to her, because Hadley couldn't wrap her head around why they were necessary, but also because it was an extremely dangerous topic to discuss in the Compound. In fact, it was the incendiary that had finally destroyed her mum and aunt's relationship all those years ago. Hadley had never asked about it again. Aunt Zee had never mentioned it again. And her mother had never spoken to her aunt again.

Hadley lay back on her bed, sweating and catching her breath.

"You seem a little out of it today," said Jamila, pulling the quilt over their bodies.

It was half an hour to mid-day, and all the girls of their Cohort were still on break after their night-time nanny duty. Their next shift would start in a few hours, right after Physical Arts. They were supposed to be asleep in preparation for the Physical Arts session and their next late-night shift, but Hadley was wired – anxious and tensely anticipating the execution of her plan in a few hours. She'd been grateful when Jamila had agreed to come over, hoping a little horizontal tango would distract her. Staring at the ceiling with a million thoughts going through her mind, she knew it hadn't.

Hadley sighed, turned to face Jamila, and gently kissed her. "I'm sorry, Jay. I've got a lot on my mind today."

Jamila didn't respond immediately, raking her eyes over the crafted pieces filling Hadley's room.

Hadley's room was immaculate, despite how much was crammed into it. Jamila always marvelled at how Hadley found a home for all sorts of knickknacks and oddments and described Hadley's cubicle as a whole world unto itself. A good place to escape to.

A whimsical, wonderful place to make love.

In the silence, Hadley burned the memory of her room into her mind. She would recreate it for her daughter. A home away from home.

String lights were wrapped around carved polished branches fallen from old fruit trees and hang beautifully overhead. There was a small vanity next to the bed that Hadley had carved and put together using scrap timber, with a matching set of seats that had pillows she'd stuffed with scrap material from the tailoring and laundry departments. The edges of her standard Compound shelves were carved, and they were filled with her hand carved wooden figurines as well as bits and pieces from the automotive workshops, which Jamila had helped her acquire, artfully polished into decorative trinkets.

Tiny tea candles burned in stubby custom candlesticks, filling the room with the scent of peaches. The cosy atmosphere was as warm as the quilt duvet that Jamila had handmade and gifted to Hadley a few years before. Perfect for a chilly day in early spring.

Hadley wished she could carry the quilt with her.

"You're thinking about the Conception Day Ceremony, aren't you?" Jamila said, pulling Hadley from her thoughts.

"Yeah," Hadley sighed, her eyes going to her desk and the loosened bricks behind it. "Among other things."

"You added four new carvings to the room." Jamila chuckled, breaking through the tension. Hadley turned to the shelf she was pointing at. "It's a family of squirrels. I like the baby squirrel scrambling on top of the mum, covering her face. The detail is amazing, Lee. I think it's one of your best carvings so far."

Hadley smiled. That was one of her new favourites too. "You can take that one with you if you want."

"If I take any more of your carvings, my room will start looking like yours and I'll fail every single inspection," Jamila said with a chuckle.

Hadley laughed as well, some of that anxious tightness around her chest peeling away.

"I was serious at breakfast," said Jamila, gently intertwining their fingers under the covers. Hadley relaxed further at the soft touch. "I'm yours if you ask. You don't have to carry the load of being an Elder alone. No one can."

Hadley chuckled. "Clearly, you haven't met my mother. Or aunt."

Most Elders had life partners, lovers. Hadley's mother and aunt were the only Elders in their respective Cohorts who chose not to have partners. Their fellow Elders in their Cohorts had had to choose a lover from the other women in the Compound. It wasn't normally done, but the respect her mother and Aunt Zee demanded meant that no one questioned it. And even now, years later, the two remained single. They had close friends from a variety of Cohorts, but Hadley had never seen either of them show romantic interest to any woman.

"They're Wildlings. That's their nature. Jael's mother says that most Wildlings who come into the Compound never choose a lover. And besides, they have each other. For the most part." said Jamila. Everyone knew the sisters hadn't spoken for years, though only Hadley knew why. Knew about that invisible line Aunt Zee had apparently crossed when she'd told Hadley about the existence of boys and men – or tried to. Jamila continued. "But you're one of us, Hadley. You were born here. Raised here. We're your people. And you'll be our leader soon. I can help. I want to. Let me."

One of them? Hadley desperately wanted that to be true, but it wasn't. The darkness inside her made that crystal clear. She wasn't one of them. She was an outsider, like her mother and her aunt. She always would be. The members of the Compound deserved more than what Hadley could offer. Jamila deserved more. Hopefully, once Hadley wasn't in the picture, everyone would finally see how Jamila suited the Elder role better than Hadley ever could, even though they constantly accused Jamila of being "too nice" – like that was the worst thing one could be.

She didn't flaunt it, but Jamila was strong and smart and in tune with other people's needs in a way that Hadley couldn't explain. She was absolutely perfect, and thus, deserving of so much more than Hadley could ever promise to offer. Especially now. Hadley was disconnecting. Whatever feelings she could promise to Jamila would soon be swallowed up by the darkness. And when it was all gone, Jamila would be left with an unfeeling partner incapable of loving her the way she deserved to be.

Hadley couldn't bear that thought.

She cradled Jamila's cheek. If she had the choice to unburden herself to anyone, it would have been to Jamila. Hadley kissed her again, this time turning it into something more, losing herself in the ecstasy of it all. It would be so easy to abandon her foolhardy plan of escape and stay there, in Jamila's arms. Beautiful, talented, strong, and smart Jamila. They would be a power couple like no other. The best Medic and the most outstanding Repairer in the whole Compound.

Their reign would be ethereal.

But it wasn't enough. Not for Hadley. Not for her daughter. Not for Jamila. It wasn't just that Hadley was irreparably broken. She'd seen what this place could do to someone. Heck, she'd seen what it had done to Jamila. Watched as Jamila had struggled to recover from the loss of her mother at their first Initiation Ceremony, when they'd turned five. Hadley had held Jamila, help her pick up the broken pieces for years, and believed in her until Jamila was strong enough to believe in herself and become the woman she'd grown into. It had taken so much from Hadley at so young an age, all while accepting the coldest of shoulders from her own mother. Her disconnected mother.

This place perfected the art of crushing innocence and corrupting the best part of anyone's spirit. Hadley didn't want that for her daughter, and her 'disconnecting' would make it impossible to protect her daughter from any of it. Leaving Jamila would be a rotten thing to do, but Hadley had to. For her daughter's sake, Hadley would escape. Would reach the Wildlings. Give her daughter a chance at a different life. Something better than anything the Compound could ever offer. Jamila would be fine. She would survive, become an Elder, raise an amazing daughter herself.

Hadley had no other choice.

"I'm sorry, Jay," Hadley said, sighing as she pushed the quilt off her, swung her feet over the edge and planted them firmly to the floor to ground herself. She struggled to keep her voice steady. This was her goodbye to Jamila, and it was harder than she'd thought it would be. "You should probably go get ready for Physical Arts. I have something I need to do at the Clinic first. I'll join the class later. Let Coach know, please?"

Jamila nodded, got up and pulled on her black and white polka, cap sleeve midi dress, sky blue socks and white high top canvas shoes with bright pink laces. Another memory for Hadley to store away. Jamila walked up to Hadley's new carving, picked up the mama and baby squirrel carving, spinning it around a few times, then turned back to give Hadley a soft kiss on the lips before she walked away.

Hadley choked back a sob, surprised at the depth of emotion that welled up in her, making it hard to breathe.

An hour later, alone in her cubicle, Hadley was dressed in her pyjamas, a set of cosy pink floral pants and a matching short sleeved tee, finishing the look with her pair of waterproof khaki leather lace boots. She held the apple from Aunt Zee in her hands, studying its shiny skin one last time before carefully slipping it back into her patched up harvest bag, between the folds of a shirt. She had already pulled out the bricks in her wall, behind the desk. This was it. It was time to go.

Every minute of every day of every person's life at the Compound was precisely planned out in a daily schedule. Hadley would be marked as absent at the Physical Arts session with her Cohort, which would usually cause a stir and have the others alerted to search for her, but she wasn't worried, especially if Jamila delivered her message. Hadley was sometimes called in for emergencies at the Clinic, something the Physical Arts instructor was aware of. No one would miss her for a while. A scheduling loophole she was going to take full advantage of.

She squeezed in through the hole in her cubicle wall with the harvest bag, carefully replaced the desk and bricks behind her and made the long and arduous trek down through dark and confining crawl spaces and drainage pipes towards the world beyond the Compound walls.

Hadley had made this trip once before. Two years ago. It was right after she'd removed the last brick from her wall that allowed her through. It was a harrowing experience and she vowed then to only ever do this once more – on the day she was leaving. All her fear from that one awful experience paled in comparison to what she was currently facing. The last section of the escape route was at the bottom of the wall's crawlspace, through a large crack in a drainage pipe that led to an opening outside the walls. Despite her better judgement after assessing the pipe with a gaze that was two years older, she'd crawled right in.

And now, too far in, she was stuck.

Hadley struggled to move for what seemed like hours but could have been seconds. Fear consumed her as the drainage pipe hemmed in closer, burying her. She would die in here, in flimsy pink pyjamas soaked in putrid liquid. It had been two years, what was she thinking? Their rations weren't the only thing that had changed in the past months. The girls in her Cohort were under fertility treatment to guarantee the success of Conception Day. Two years, fertility treatment and increased food rations constituted weight gain. She was too big for the pipe!

She was too big!

She was going to die!

Hadley closed her eyes and did the one thing she knew she shouldn't. She reached for the darkness. Let her fear bleed into it. Her breathing slowed. Her heart too. With her eyes closed, she felt her chest open, and, like magic, the pipe stretched outwards, away from her, becoming wider than it had been a moment ago. She dared to open her eyes. There was at least four inches of space above her. It was tight, but she wasn't stuck.

Taking deep breaths, she inched herself forward, her bag snaking behind her, attached to a cord tied to her waist. To distract herself, she counted her breaths. Every breath brought her closer to freedom. It took three hundred and forty-two breathes to reach the grate. She wriggled until she could pull her wood carving knife from her bag and use the tip to slowly scrape rust from the edges of the grate before ramming it with her shoulder to pop it off.

Hadley spent the next hour burying her soiled pyjamas, cleaning up in a nearby stream and changing into her Physical Arts uniform – jungle green cargo pants, matching T-shirt and a field jacket that had seen better days but would have to be enough to keep her warm. She brought out Aunt Zee's diary and turned to the map drawn inside to find her bearings. She took several deep, thoroughly gratifying breaths of fresh air. She'd accomplished the most difficult part of this plan.

She was beyond the wall!

She was free!

Conception Day was a month away. That was plenty of time to find the Wildling tribe and settle down before getting pregnant. Hadley made one more inventory of the items in her harvest bag. Satisfied with what she'd squirreled away, she sheathed the carving knife back into its leather case, which attached to her belt. The tiny blade wasn't exactly a weapon, but she'd use it thusly if the need arose.

Aunt Zee had explained that vampires didn't often walk through the forest unless they were Hunters or Rogues. If Hadley ran into either, she was to waste no time using her medical skills and her modified Physical Arts training to incapacitate them. To be on the safe side, her carving knife was drenched in dead blood, just like the barbed wire on the Compound walls. It would disable any vampire when used right. And if that didn't work, she had also packed a bunch of old, used syringes full of dead blood as insurance.

Hadley leafed through Aunt Zee's diary. The diary had a few maps in it, but they weren't exactly drawn to scale. Not any scale she could figure out anyway as she looked around. The maps' main features were landmarks and ways to find yourself in the forest if you were lost. The diary also had information about jungle plants Hadley could eat; simple ways to make a shelter; passages in a Wildling language that Hadley couldn't read; as well as poetry, quotes, and micro stories by Aunt Zee about vampires and Wildlings and the ocean.

Aunt Zee loved writing about the ocean. Half the diary was filled with thoughts and stories about it. To Hadley, it was a mythical place that drew nothing from her, but Aunt Zee was obsessed. Hadley had implored her to fill the diary with more useful information, but Aunt Zee did what Aunt Zee wanted. Always had. And as she did, she encouraged Hadley to do the same.

According to the diary, there was a large river about a mile from the Compound, towards the west. That would be Hadley's anchor point in the forest as she searched for the Wildlings. If she was lucky, Hadley would find a tribe in less than a week. If not, Aunt Zee was confident she'd find one in less than three. There were always Wildlings roaming the forests. Hadley didn't fully understand why, but according to Aunt Zee, it was their prerogative to patrol the forests. Whatever the reason, Hadley loved the idea of moving freely about in a world without walls.

Until she started moving through the jungle.

As rainforest trees and undergrowth slowly swallowed Hadley up, filling every inch of space around her, that claustrophobic panic from the drainage pipe weighed her down again. She had to stop and breathe. Breathe and count. This time, the feeling passed after less than a hundred counts. Despite how afraid she was, it helped to know she was free. And she had a plan. All she had to do was find the river. Find the river, follow it downstream, join the Wildlings, have a new home for her daughter.

A simple plan.

She could do this.

Hadley stopped walking. She was hopelessly lost, but that wasn't why she stopped.

Someone was watching her.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood, but she resisted the urge to immediately turn around. Once again, she did what she shouldn't and pushed her fear into the darkness of her mind – giving it even more power over her – while slowly pulling her carving knife from its leather pocket on her belt. Once armed, she spun around on the balls of her feet into a defensive pause. Hadley was surprised to see the vampire, but not because she hadn't seen a vampire before. She'd seen vampires in the Compound Clinic several times and had even given monosyllabic replies to one when questioned about Crystal, but none of those embodied the powerful presence of this vampire.

At the Compound, vampires were harbingers of life and death. They were there on the first day of every year, ushering in the new nursery of newborns. They were there during the Ascension Ceremony every year, taking away the eight twenty-five-year-old women who hadn't been chosen as Elders of their Cohort. They were there for significant injuries and illnesses, to heal those they chose to and to replace those who wouldn't or couldn't heal, usually with mute Wildlings. And while they did it all, they remained stoic and detached. They were little more than life and death machines to be tolerated as part of living at the Compound.

Aunt Zee's orders upon meeting a vampire were an echoing siren shrieking in Hadley's mind.

Incapacitate and run.

Incapacitate.

Run.

Clear instructions.

Not a single minced word.

Yet, Hadley hesitated.

All vampires she'd seen at the Compound wore giant, formless hoods that hid most of their features, which made them blend into each other like one big vampiric blob. Not this one. She was wearing a black leather jacket over a jungle green T-shirt, a pair of blue jeans that hugged her form perfectly, and black combat boots. The vampire's brown hair had streaks of blond through it and was cropped asymmetrically, longer as it fell to the right and faded down to a stark crew cut on the left. Her windswept hair fell messily over her face, covering most of it. Her head was tilted, and the one visible eye was intently studying Hadley's face.

Red eyes.

According to Aunt Zee, that meant a vampire was fully fed.

The vampire swept back the hair from her face, and Hadley's breath hitched at the fluid, sensual action. She had an oval face with a prominent chin and soft square jaw, chiselled cheek bones that perfectly framed her face, a subtly cocky, closed lip smile, and those smoky, sultry crimson eyes. The blood red eyes had a lazy fullness that lust gives, which caught Hadley off guard. Eyes holding a million promises whispered in dark rooms, under cool sheets, and, for a moment, Hadley forgot to be afraid.

But only for a moment.

That the vampire had hesitated to attack as well was pure luck. Hadley wouldn't waste the chance. She rushed towards the vampire, brandishing the carving knife as she did. She pulled her arm in and swung the knife backhanded, but the vampire ducked, dodging the knife and countering with a right hook to Hadley's exposed ribs. Ignoring the pain, Hadley swung the knife again, this time aiming true, but the vampire caught her forearm, the knife barely missing her face. She forced Hadley's arm back, and they both hit the ground, Hadley's bag making for an awkward landing. Hadley quickly rolled away, and once on her back again, she kicked the vampire who was descending upon her. The vampire fell backwards, and Hadley quickly scrambled over, stabbing the vampire just above the knee before rolling back and getting to her feet again.

In the short time it took Hadley to quickly shrug off her bag, the vampire was back on her feet and almost at Hadley's throat. Hadley only just blocked the vampire's hit, plunging her knife right through the vampire's right bicep, then hooking her body against that same arm, spinning the vampire upwards and over her shoulder, then slamming her into the ground, before quickly rolling away, taking the knife with her. Hadley was breathing hard as she scrambled back to her feet, crouched in defence, holding out the bloody knife, ready for another round.

On the ground, the vampire was laughing.

"You're good," the vampire said, standing up swiftly, with incredibly grace and style, and not a single sign of exertion.

Hadley's heart was breaking land speeds. She wasn't exactly exhausted either, but she couldn't keep this up forever. She held her breath as she waited.

Incapacitate and run.

Hadley didn't take her eyes off the vampire.

Incapacitate.

'Come on,' Hadley whispered, pleading with the universe. 'Please let this work!'

The vampire smiled, flexed the arm Hadley had stabbed, and continued speaking, her tone taunting Hadley.

"But you're going to have to do better than..."

The vampire suddenly fell to her right knee, blood pooling on the ground beneath her. Hadley had sliced along the vampire's right femoral artery and right brachial artery. It would take less than three minutes before the vampire bled out. Usually, a vampire would heal before then, but if Hadley was right, this vampire wouldn't heal this time. Hadley smiled, breathing easy again. She should have walked away then – incapacitate and run – but Hadley was suddenly curious. She wanted to see a vampire turn dormant as it lost blood. Wanted to see the red eyes slowly turn green as it bled out, fell and became nothing but a giant doorstop, as all blood-starved vampires did.

This was a treat.

Something she hadn't expected to see so soon after her escape.

The perfect distraction to failing to find her way through thejungle and immediately getting lost.

"Dead blood!" the vampire said in surprise, finally figuring out just how fucked she was as she looked back down at the river of blood pouring from its unhealing wounds.

But this vampire's red eyes didn't turn green as she lost blood, like they were supposed to. When the vampire looked up at her again, Hadley's breath caught once more. There were rings of colour around the vampire's red eyes as it became blood-starved, but only one ring was green.

The other was blue!

Blue!

A Venom?

Hadley was too stunned to speak. As she watched more of the red disappear from the vampire's eyes, revealing more of the coloured rings, she released her breath in a gasp, finding her voice once more.

"Your eyes! That's impossible!" Hadley whispered, fear lacing the words. "You're a Venom! A Venom?! How are you even alive?"

The vampire narrowed her eyes at Hadley. Just like the dead blood, Hadley had just let slip more forbidden knowledge. But she couldn't help herself.

This wasn't right!

This wasn't supposed to be happening.

"Someone in that Barn is going to be in big trouble at the end of all this. And that little butter knife dipped in dead rabbit's blood will only get you so far!" the vampire sneered.

Hadley flinched.

Barn?!

Her blood boiled at the word as it always did when Aunt Zee used it. Living in the Compound didn't make them livestock. However, she'd express how much she was offended later. Right now, she needed to stop the vampire's blood loss to save herself and everyone else. Unlike normal vampires, Venom vampires didn't go dormant when they became blood starved. They went berserk, killing everything in their wake long past the moment they'd slaked their thirst.

"This cannot be happening," Hadley whispered, shaking her head.

It had been a simple plan. Find a landmark, follow it to the Wildlings, gift her daughter a happily ever after. And if she met a vampire, all she had to do was incapacitate and run.

A simple plan!

Hadley stripped off her field jacket, rushed to her harvest bag and pulled out her water canteen. She took a gulp and then washed the blade of her carving knife with what remained. She then wiped down the knife's blade with rubbing alcohol, used it to slash along her forearm and allowed her blood to pour down her elbow and into the empty canteen. When it was half full, Hadley handed the canteen to the vampire, who reached out for it slowly, the movement metered and slightly hesitant. She watched as the vampire fed. The green and blue rings at the edge of its irises stopped growing thicker and the red centre expanded outwards ever so slightly.

Hadley sighed with relief.

"Sit!" she ordered. The vampire obeyed without question. Hadley continued speaking to distract herself from the intensity of the situation. "And it's not a butter knife, it's a whittling knife. For carving wood."

Hadley reached for the vampire's belt, her hands steady as she undid it and pulled it off the belt hoops. She used the belt as a torniquet above the vampire's right femoral artery, pulling it as tight against the vampire's thigh as she could. That was the worst of the two wounds.

"First dinner and now this," the vampire whispered weakly. "Aren't we moving a little too fast?"

Hadley smiled but kept her eyes on her work.

"Still slower than the average teenage tryst. We should have broken up at least twice by now," Hadley replied without missing a beat. She looked up at the vampire and got serious again. "Now shut up, so I can save your life. And mine, and everyone else's."

A persistent sting on Hadley's forearm called attention to her own wound, which was now dripping blood onto the forest floor. She reached for her harvest pack, took out her little medical kit and quickly dressed her forearm wound first. Once that was done, she focussed on the vampire's wounds, stitching closed the arterial cuts with practiced movements.

When she was done, Hadley packed her items back into her harvest bag and stood to leave. She picked up her jacket as she walked past it. Before Hadley had taken a few steps, the vampire attacked her. Hadley moved without thinking, wriggling out of the vampire's hold. She was about to move again, defend herself, but an uncharacteristic fear spiked inside her mind. Unbalanced her. That wasn't her fear. The vampire took advantage of the hesitation, pinning Hadley against her body. She bent Hadley's head to the side.

Fangs raked Hadley's neck.

"I just saved your life!" Hadley protested, struggling helplessly to get out of the vampire's hold, realising that the vampire had been holding back when they'd first fought. She'd been toying with Hadley. Making her think she could win. Playing with her like a cat with a mouse. It had been the surprise of dead blood that had won Hadley a tiny advantage, nothing more.

"You didn't do that for me," the vampire said, turning Hadley's head, their eyes boring into each other's, a challenge in both sets. The vampire's eyes still weren't as red as they should be. The left was mostly bright green and the right, bright blue. Blue. The eye colour of a blood starved Venom vampire. The deadliest of their kind. "You did that for you."

The vampire sank her fangs into Hadley's neck anddrew a long draught.