I don't know how long I slept, but it wasn't nearly long enough. I was awoken by someone gently but insistently shaking me. Blinking sleepily, I rolled onto my back and focused on Luke's face above me. He was sitting on the side of the bed; I'd been so heavily asleep, I hadn't even felt him get up.

"Why did you wake me?" I muttered, and it came out grumpier than I meant it to.

"Ethan needs to talk to you," Luke said.

That woke me up. If Ethan needed to talk then it could only be about one thing – Riley.

I scrambled out of bed, praying that Clara had been in touch to say that Leon had spilled his guts and we now knew exactly where Riley was. I prayed for it, but I didn't believe it would be that simple. Nothing ever was.

Ethan was pacing the floor outside Luke's bedroom.

"What's happened?" I asked.

It couldn't be bad news otherwise Ethan wouldn't have got Luke to wake me. He'd have charged in and woken me himself.

Ethan brandished some papers in my face – computer printouts – but he was waving them around too much for me to see what they were. "Okay, so while you were sleeping, I did some research," he said.

I should have known he wouldn't be snatching a few more hours sleep himself.

"I'm trying to work out where Leon might have hidden Riley," Ethan said.

"But Clara –"

"We can't wait for her, Kiara. Riley could be dying." Ethan's eyes pleaded with me. If our positions were reversed, if it was Luke who'd been kidnapped, I wouldn't be content to sit around and wait for someone else to do the donkey work either.

"What have you found?" I said, trying to focus on the printouts in his hand.

"Taking Leon to Greylark got me thinking. An abandoned building like that is the perfect place to hide a kidnap victim. Obviously she's not at Greylark so I started researching other abandoned buildings in Dalwick, and I found two houses that have been empty for a couple of years. I know it's a long shot but she might be there."

It was a long shot, so ridiculously flimsy it could barely be called a lead, but it was the only one we had. I really didn't think it would do any good, but Ethan clearly couldn't sit around waiting to hear from Clara. And I didn't blame him for not wanting to do this by himself.

"Two minutes," I said, and ducked back into Luke's bedroom.

I didn't need to tell him what had happened – he'd have overhead it all. "I have to go with him," I said.

Luke nodded. "I know you do. I just wish I could come with you."

I dipped my head to kiss him, wishing that I could climb back into bed with him and burrow under the covers until every bad thing just left us alone. Maybe when this was all over, we could do that.

The first house on Ethan's list was situated on the other end of town. We jogged there, both of us needing the exercise to burn off the nervous energy buzzing around our bodies. The few hours of sleep I'd snatched had just about been enough to rejuvenate me, but not enough to ease the sick feeling in my stomach when I thought about how long Riley had already been missing. Every hour that ticked by, I imagined fresh horrors happening to her.

The house was a burned-out wreck. Fire had blackened the stonework and the windows were all blown out, but the structure itself still looked solid enough to explore. I couldn't imagine Leon stashing Riley here, but maybe it wasn't as crazy as it sounded. It wasn't as if anyone would be coming here.

We stepped through the empty doorframe and into the ruined house. Motes of ash rose up where our feet disturbed them, and floated lazily through the air like grey snowflakes. I shivered. There was something very unpleasant about standing in the ruins of what, according to Ethan, had once been a family home. The fire must have happened before we moved to Dalwick and, for reasons I couldn't fathom, the gutted house had simply been left, a grim and sooty testament to a tragedy.

"Let's make this quick," I said.

It didn't take long to search the house. Structurally sound though the building was, the fire damage meant there were no hidden nooks or crannies where Leon might have hidden Riley. This house was nothing more than it appeared – a fire-ravaged shell.

I'd expected as much, but disappointment still thudded inside me. Ethan looked briefly distraught, then his face hardened. "Come on. Let's get onto the next one."

The second house was closer to our own than the fire-damaged one, and I felt a flare of annoyance that we hadn't gone to that one first. Ethan had only let me glance at the printouts before charging off on his mission, so I hadn't had a chance to get a look at the addresses. If I had, I'd have pointed out that the burned house was further away and therefore should be second on our list. Ethan was obviously too jittery to notice. It was a silly thing to get annoyed about, but I needed him focused.

At the corner of Sedgewood Avenue, a quiet little street about a mile away from the Waffle House, I paused. The house in question was smaller than the clan's, a snug building nestled at the end of the road, and shadowed by a large oak tree.

"Is that it?" I said, trying to recall the blurry image on the printout.

"Yep." Ethan was already striding ahead of me.

I hurried after him.

By the time I caught up, Ethan had already wrenched the rusted lock off the front door and was pushing the door open. Now that I was closer I could see the house must once have been painted canary yellow, but time and weather had faded it to something too pale to be yellow but too dirty to be white. The wooden window-frames were still mostly white, and small flowerboxes hung beneath them. They were empty now, but I could imagine them brimming with flowers. There was something oddly welcoming about the house, as if it was grateful for visitors.

I shook my head. The lack of sleep must be scrambling my brains.

I followed Ethan into the house.

For a moment all I could do was stare. The foyer was bare-board floor, one side occupied by a staircase that curved up to the second storey, and the other leading to a solid oak door. The foyer was grubby and smelt faintly of mould, but a little TLC would make it beautiful. Objectively there was nothing too special about the place, but something about it appealed to me in a way I couldn't quite explain.

I pushed open the oak door and peeked into what turned out to be a kitchen. Like the foyer, it needed cleaning up – the stone-flagged floor was layered in dirt and the windows were grey with dust – but I could picture it freshly painted and sparkling clean, filled with furniture.

My hand tightened on the doorknob. Suddenly I realised what it was that was drawing me to this house. I couldn't just picture it spruced up and refurnished. I could picture Luke and me living here. I'd been thinking so much lately about us eventually getting our own place, and it was as if this perfect little house had dropped out of the sky just for us.

And it would be years before we could afford it, by which point someone else would have snapped it up.

Disappointment weighed heavily in my chest, followed by a sharp spike of anger. What the hell was wrong with me? Riley was still missing, and I was getting mopey because I'd found a house I liked but couldn't afford? My priorities needed a serious overhaul.

Ethan's feet pounded overhead as he searched the rooms above me, but I knew he wasn't going to find anything. Nothing in this place had been touched for months, not a single speck of dust disturbed until Ethan busted his way inside. Riley wasn't here. It really had been a long shot, and it just hadn't paid off. Crushing, but hardly surprising.

I checked the kitchen, the decent-sized living room – which I envisioned decked out with a new sofa, dark-wood coffee-table, and TV fixed to the far wall – and the bathroom that was in surprisingly good condition, just so Ethan could say I hadn't looked.

And I wished I hadn't. Every room I looked into ignited this urge in me, this strange feeling that this was where I was supposed to be. I couldn't explain it. Much as I'd thought about the future house that Luke and I would one day own, I'd never actually thought about what it would look like. I'd never thought about how many bedrooms we wanted, or what size garden – our poor financial situation meant there was no point fantasising in too much depth. But this was the house I wanted. It needed a lot of work but, in my bones, I felt like it was supposed to be mine.

And I couldn't have it.

I shoved away my own selfishness. Forget the stupid house – we were here to find Riley.

Ethan stomped down the stairs, his face black. "She's not here."

There was no point reminding him we'd known that she almost certainly wouldn't be. Leon was a lot of things, but neither of us thought he was really stupid or careless enough to hide Riley in the first empty building he could find.

Ethan screwed up the computer printouts and threw them at the wall. I started to think he wouldn't be doing that when I lived here, then abruptly stopped myself. I wouldn't be living here. I had to scrub my mind of that whole ridiculous notion.

"I'm going back to Greylark," he said.

"Ethan, what's the point? Clara told us this would take time –"

"She's had him for hours," Ethan cut me off. "He must have told her something by now."

I wasn't counting on it. If Leon could be so easily broken, he'd have done it when Clara first started hitting him.

But the determined gleam in Ethan eyes was bordering on manic. In that moment he wasn't Ethan, the boy that I'd spent so much of my life with. He was a boy who'd lost the girl he loved, and who knew that time could be running out for her. I got that. If someone tried to take Luke away from me...I couldn't even imagine what I'd do. But no way would I stand by and just wait for someone else to bring me news.

"Okay," I said. "Let's go back to Greylark."

Clara didn't seem surprised to see us. She looked tired but grittily determined, her blonde hair tucked behind her ears, her hands idly toying with a knife.

Leon was still trussed to his chair. The blood had dried on his face, crusting around his swollen-shut eye. What startled me was that he'd obviously been crying. His good eye was watery and rimmed with red, and tear-tracks cut through the blood on his face. A wet oval stained the crotch of his trousers, and the stench of urine was sharp in the air.

I cut a questioning look at Clara who responded with a shrug.

"He cried when he wet himself," she said.

This time even my hardened heart couldn't help the smallest pang of pity. This would be so much easier if Leon was some tough-as-nails killer, spitting defiance and refusing to break, instead of a confused, misguided man who simply couldn't see the truth.

When Leon saw us, he started crying again, loud noisy sobs. Tears splashed down his cheeks and snot dribbled from his nose.

"Usually the criers are the ones that break first. He's something of an enigma," Clara told me.

"Can I have a few minutes alone with him?" I asked.

Ethan and Clara exchanged glances.

"Please," I said.

"Why?" Clara asked.

I wasn't really sure. No matter what Leon had done, some part of me still thought he could be reasoned with. I couldn't shake that desperate hope that there was a good man somewhere in there and he just needed help to get out.

Given Ethan's current state of mind, that probably wouldn't go down too well so I stayed silent, just staring at Clara.

She stared back for a moment, then nodded. "You've got five minutes." She pointed at the doorway. "We'll be right outside that door. He tries anything, you just shout."

Ethan threw a murderous look at Leon. "If Kiara stays, I stay."

"No, I need to do this alone," I said. I wanted to talk to Leon, and Ethan was in no mood to talk. His anger could jeopardise what small chance I had.

Ethan opened his mouth to argue.

"No, Ethan," I said before he could speak.

It couldn't have been easy for him, but there was still enough of the rational Ethan left to listen to me. He gave a curt nod and stalked out of the room, Clara following in his wake. They shut the door behind them.

I walked towards Leon, stopping a foot or so away. His feet were tied so he couldn't kick me, but I still wouldn't risk getting too close.

"Leon, please," I said. "Please just tell us where she is."

He shook his head, and blood and tears went flying. "Not until you get those vampires to give themselves up."

"They didn't do anything."

He tried to sneer, but it turned into a wince. "Tell that to my father."

"The vampire that killed your father? The clan banished her when they learned what she did. They don't have many rules, but their most important one is they do not drink from humans. And they never, ever kill them."

Leon blinked – well, more like a wink since he could only see out of one eye. "What do you mean they banished her?"

"Exiled her, cast her out, whatever you want to call it. As soon as they found out Madeleine had killed someone, they threw her out of the clan. You have got to understand this, Leon. The clan had nothing to do with Caleb's death."

He started to blink more rapidly, and fresh tears spilled from his eye.

"I know you're angry about Caleb's death, and no one blames you for that. But don't take it out on Riley." I spread my arms wide. "If you need to punish someone, then punish me. If it'll make you feel better, I'll untie you right now and you can start swinging. I don't care, I can take it. Just let Riley go. Don't punish her for something she has nothing to do with."

"But...vampires are evil," Leon said.

Was it my imagination or did he sound less certain than before? I didn't want to give myself false hope, but I could have sworn there was a waver in his voice.

"Not all of them." I crouched in front of him, putting us at near enough eye level. "I used to be like you, Leon, like Caleb. I thought all vampires were bloodthirsty, savage monsters, and we were doing the world a favour by wiping them off the face of the earth. But I was wrong. That clan I live with – the ones you're so desperately to slaughter – they took me in and treated me like family. I've lived them for weeks and they've treated me with more humanity than my own human family ever did. They're not evil."

"No," Leon sobbed, shaking his head again. "My father was a good man and he died for this cause. I have to finish what he started."

I bit back a frustrated scream. Why couldn't he see what was right in front of him? He knew I lived with the vampires, and there wasn't a single fang mark on me. Wasn't that proof enough that they weren't the savage killers he thought they were?

The door opened and Clara poked her head. "We need you out here."

"Not now," I said.

"Elena just called Ethan," Clara said. "She thinks they have a lead on Riley."

I should have stayed rational.

I should have waited for the others.

I absolutely should have not have lost my head and charged out of Greylark like it was on fire.

Up until that point, I'd kept hold of my temper. I'd been the one who kept Ethan from rushing blindly into something, and then I went and did the exact same thing.

I don't even know why. For a moment I thought I'd been about to get through to Leon. Hope coiled and tightened inside me, pushing my nerves to a cliff-edge. Hearing that Elena might have found a lead, somehow feeling that it was better than anything Ethan had turned up, it snapped something inside me. My nerves went right over that cliff-edge, and I tore out of the asylum, up the field and into the woods, Ethan and Clara's shouts ringing in my ears.

They ran after me, but I was too fast.

If I'd been thinking clearly, I'd have realised that darkness had fallen, and the woods around me were shadow-shrouded.

If I'd been thinking clearly, I would have paid more attention to my surroundings.

If I'd been thinking clearly, I would have seen the black-clad figure materialise from behind a tree.

I'd have seen the fist that swung at my face.

Blackness exploded behind my eyes and I crumpled to the ground.