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  To the east of the village, Blaine, Nick, and all the other Helena fighters were too far away for me to call out to. Besides, it looked like they still had their hands quite full dealing with all the Borderline and Pine Bluff shifters. Also, I didn't want to alert any of the enemy fighters with any shouts. I was just going to have to try to break through the circle of Huskers and get to Jess and Eb myself, or die trying.

  I knew by now that I wasn't the kind of person who could just simply go on in my life knowing that I hadn't even made an effort to save them. It didn't even matter to me that I might lose my own life in this effort.

  It did, however, matter to me that I might never see Blaine or Nick again, and that my death would surely break their hearts. By this point, I'd become convinced that they both truly loved me just as much as I loved them, and I knew that I'd be absolutely devastated, just wrecked, if one of them died.

  So, I could only imagine that they'd feel the same. Still, I couldn't not do what I was going to do. Like I told Kathy, I knew who I was, and it was maybe a dumber yet braver person than I'd ever thought myself to be. Or, apparently like Emily had been, whoever Emily was, maybe I was just reckless. Not that it even mattered what I was. I was going to try to save my sisters.

  At the very least, I wasn't going to let them be undefended and turn into Huskers. I knew they had a group of human men with them, of course, but for all I knew, the group of men was a predatory one who'd chased Eb and Jess right into the arms of the Bloodsuckers in the first place.

  After yanking my screwdriver from my pocket and stabbing two Huskers near the wall through their eyes, one right after the other, I tore off across the green grass, glancing in the direction of the battle, and Blaine and Nick, with my chest aching. "I'm so sorry."

  *

  With adrenaline flooding my veins, I fought just as ferociously and as well as I hoped I would, killing at least twenty of the hundred-something member Husker horde within minutes. However, even after that, I still couldn't see Eb or Jess, and I'd attracted the attention of many of the remaining Huskers.

  At least ten of them were now heading straight for me, fangs bared. I'd only been able to dispatch the twenty or so that I had because they'd all been more or less focused inward, possibly on Jess and Eb's bleeding bodies, though I was barely even letting myself think about that.

  I wasn't even going to make an attempt at retreat. Not now. Not now that I was maybe within mere feet of my sisters, just unable to see them. With the ten or so Huskers about to attack me, though, I was beginning to lose hope that I was going to remain unbitten much longer. I was possibly never going to see Blaine and Nick again, and even if I did, I figured it would probably only happen while I was in the grip of the Bloodsucker virus.

  I didn't think either of them would ever forgive me before I turned into a Husker, requiring one of them to kill me.

  Over the previous several weeks, Nick had told me repeatedly that no matter when the battle happened, and no matter what happened during it, I wasn't to leave the village walls, by any means, for any reason. And like I'd learned the first day in the truck with him and Blaine, when Nick gave an order, he expected it to be followed.

  Unable to imagine any scenario that would make me even want to leave the village walls during the battle, I'd told Nick repeatedly that I wouldn't, also telling Blaine a few times when he brought up the subject as well. Now I just hoped that Kathy would at least tell them why I'd gone over the wall, if I was too out of it with fever by the time Blaine and Nick found me. Or, if the virus had already transformed me into a Husker by that point.

  I wasn't about to give up just yet, though. Even with a dozen Huskers coming at me, even if there was still a one-in-a-million chance that I could still save Jess and Eb, I was going to take it. I was going to continue to fight.

  However, at the same moment that the dozen or so Huskers reached me at once, hissing, someone yelled to my left, attracting their attention.

  "Hey! Hey, you nasty blood bags! Over here!"

  It was Kathy, some thirty feet away, waving her arms. Right away, several of the Huskers began shambling on over to her, leaving me to deal with only the several remaining, which I immediately began stabbing with my screwdriver.

  To my left, Kathy began yelling again. "Come on! All of you! Over here! Come and get me!"

  Now she had the attention of most of the horde, who began shambling on over to her, groaning and hissing.

  Kathy yelled again, though this time so loudly she was nearly screaming. "Now, Emily! Now! Run! Get back to the village!"

  I really needed to find out who Emily was. Just sometime when I wasn't nearly being trampled by a hundred-some bloodthirsty creatures with fangs bared.

  I began dodging and weaving, but I wasn't about to run. Now I could see Jessica and Ebony. Jess was on her rear in the long Kentucky bluegrass, shrieking, covering her face, while Ebony stabbed at several Huskers near her with a long, thin knife. Around them both, the group of men they were with stabbed at other Huskers even as those Huskers lurched away toward Kathy.

  Everything began to feel as if it were happening in slow-motion and yet with lightning-fast speed all at once. I reached Jess and Eb, who both screamed when they saw me, as if I were a ghost. I yelled, stabbing at a Husker who was quickly moving toward Ebony, fangs bared. I pulled Jess up from the ground by the hand. I shouted at the group of men to go help Kathy. But right then, not even a second after I'd spoken, it became clear that Kathy was about to get more help than a group of human men could ever provide.

  Thunderous roaring alerted me at first, and then I looked and saw Nick and Blaine, neck-and-neck, charging over from the battlefield. I could only guess that they'd somehow heard Kathy's yelling. Behind them a short distance, several dozen Helena shifters with paint-smeared heads were charging over as well.

  I allowed myself the tiniest sigh of relief, daring to hope that now not only were Jess, Eb, and I going to live, but Kathy, too. I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted the group of men to live or not, being that I didn't know if they were predators and rapists who'd been holding Jess and Eb captive or something.

  Nick came to a screeching halt next to Jess, Eb, and me, and I knew what to do, all but leaping onto his broad back and telling Jess and Eb to do the same. And the second they were on his back, Jess holding onto Eb's shoulders, Eb holding onto mine, and me clutching Nick's golden mane, he took off.

  I turned back quickly just in time to see Kathy leap onto the back of a Helena wolf. Some distance away, the group of men was running toward the village, with shifters on either side of them picking off Huskers.

  When I felt Eb wrap me in a monstrous bear hug about halfway to the village gates, I just wept, shoulders shaking, reaching one of my hands back to cover one of her own. And by the time the gates had been opened and Nick had taken us inside the village, Eb, Jess, and I were all weeping, flying up and off of Nick's back to embrace, all three of us talking so fast that through our tears our words just sounded like complete gibberish.

  It was a while before Jess could speak properly, which she did after pulling away from our group hug, wiping her eyes. "We left Nashville almost as soon as my call with you got disconnected, Eva. I know you told me to stay put with Ebony, but I just couldn't. I just had a feeling that something terrible was about to happen to the city, something far worse than what had even already happened with the virus and the Bloodsuckers.

  “So, I made Eb come with me, and we just got in my car and flew. But then we broke down, then we got kidnapped, but then we got guns and fought our way out. We wandered for a while with some priests, and two of them were black-belts in karate, then we lived with an elderly couple in the root cellar of their farmhouse for a really long time.

  “But then a horde caved the cellar in, and the elderly couple died, so Eb and I started wandering again, meeting up with this group of men. Then we saw signs that said this village was a safe place, so we all just started walking. We were out of food, and this pla
ce was our last hope. We never in a thousand, billion years ever thought we'd find you here. We were just hoping to find a safe place, like the signs said. The signs, however, didn't quite prepare us to get ambushed by a horde coming out from the forest almost the second we got here."

  Wiping my eyes, I sniffled a bit, thanking my very luckiest of stars for so many different things. "I was the one who set the putting up of those signs in motion. I asked my husbands to do it so that good people could get help...and it was also a little bit to try to expand the dating pool for my friend Chris, but that's a whole other story.

  “I never dreamed that the signs would draw the two of you here. I thought you were both dead. I planted rocks in our memory garden for you both. I had a little memorial service with our minister praying that your souls had found peace."

  Just staring at me, as if she couldn't quite believe that she was looking at me, Ebony began crying again. "We thought you were probably dead."

  Another tearful, near-hysterical group hug commenced, only broken up when the group of human men soon came through the village gates, asking Eb and Jess if they were okay. Eb and Jess both said yes, then Jess introduced the group of ten men to me by name, saying that they were all friends.

  I believed her, although I had many questions for later. One of them being if she and Ebony knew what Stockholm Syndrome was, and if it was possible that either of them had fallen victim to it.

  It was only after these introductions had been made that I realized that Nick was just gone. In my wild haste to pull Eb and Jess into my arms, I hadn't even noticed him charging away. However, I figured it was probably best that he had. I knew he was probably absolutely irate with me, and I wanted him to cool down a bit before we spoke. Same with Blaine.

  Soon Kathy came in through the gates with Sam, who was in human form, and he looked more than a bit irate himself. I was really too overjoyed to see Kathy, and in one piece, too, to really even pay much attention to Sam's expression. I just pulled Kathy into my arms, asking her if she'd been bitten. She said no, squeezing me tight, then asked me the same question. I responded in the negative, only then realizing that if hadn't checked with Jess and Eb. However, before I could even speak, Eb did, from somewhere behind me.

  "We're good, too. In fact, I did a fake-out chomp at one of the Huskers, just to try to scare it away for a second when I dropped my knife."

  Realizing just how much I'd missed her and her sense of humor, I suddenly began crying again, burying my face in Kathy's shoulder. Soon, I cried harder still when she patted my back, telling me that the battle was over.

  "Things were just winding down when Sam and I came up to the gate. Lots of Borderliner and Pine Bluff shifter carcasses. But not a single carcass with paint...not a single one of ours. Some of our men even survived the fight with enough energy left over to just take off in pursuit of the Borderliners that escaped."

  Chris soon came down from the guard tower, took Jess, Eb, and me to his office, and then gave us all brief physical exams, declaring all of us in perfect health, or nearly perfect, because I had a giant bruise on my face where Kathy had struck me. Chris asked me what had happened, and I sighed.

  "Basically, Kathy hauled off and hit me. I'm just going to let it go, though, even though I definitely didn't appreciate it. I think Kathy and I were both suffering brief attacks of insanity."

  After leaving Chris' office, I took Jess and Eb to the house, where we cried some more, ate, and cried some more again. Jess and Eb took hot showers for the first time in two years. I waited downstairs for them, not knowing if I wished that Nick and Blaine would come home, or if I wished that they wouldn't.

  That evening, when they still hadn't returned home, Jess, Eb, and I shared dinner and a few glasses of wine around the kitchen table. And when Ebony excused herself to use the restroom, I suddenly remembered a very important question that I hadn't gotten answered yet, so I asked Jess.

  "Those men that you and Eb came in with...I can get the fine details of how you two came to meet up with them and all that later, but...I just have to know right now. Have any of them ever hurt either of you in any way?"

  To my surprise, Jess actually stifled a laugh. "Um...no. Well, sorry...yes. Just four of them in particular...the four of them that make up two couples, Max and Andy, and Dave and Terrence. Those four would sometimes hurt my ears all night with their wails and moans of passion.

  “It was really like the two couples were hell-bent on outdoing each other in the noise department. Finally the six other guys and Jess and I told them that they just had to start pitching their tents further away from the rest of ours. We were all going to strangle them in their sleep if they didn't, not to mention that some nights, I was pretty sure they were attracting a few more Huskers than we'd normally be bothered with. But, anyway...after our threats and orders to move their tents, my nightly-ear-pain-level got a little better."

  Listening to Jess, profoundly relieved, my wheels had already started turning.

  "The other six men in the group, besides the couples...they wouldn't happen to be gay, too, would they?"

  Jess looked at me quizzically, lips twitching with amusement. "Why, yes...yes, they would. You wouldn't happen to have anyone from the village you'd like to introduce them to, would you?"

  "Oh, just a very handsome doctor in his late twenties. You think any of them might be interested in meeting him?"

  "Oh, something tells me that very soon, there's going to be a line at the doctor's office six men deep."

  The line might have been forming even then. Because when Chris stopped by to check on my bruised face around ten, he had Kevin, who was one of the more handsome men from the group, with him, and Chris said that they were going to take a stroll through the village, just to look at the stars. While Chris said this, looking right at me, I noticed a few stars dancing in his chocolate brown eyes.

  No sooner had Chris and Kevin left than Kathy arrived, asking Jess and Eb if she could visit with me in private. When it was just the two of us at the kitchen table, she began studying her hands and nails as she’d done when talking to me after the wedding.

  "Emily was my daughter, Eva, and you're just her absolute dead ringer. Same age...almost same literally everything. And for two brief seconds when I first set eyes on you, I thought Emily had somehow found her way back to me, and I've never felt such perfect joy in my life, not even when she was born. But then I saw that you don't have a very prominent scar on one side of your forehead...and I knew that I'd been mistaken.

  “You were just the Olympic ice skater that Emily and I always joked was her twin. And in that moment when I realized this...I hated you. And I'm sorry about that, but it's true. I hated you. I hated you because for two seconds, you'd unknowingly made me think that my daughter had come back to me, safe and sound somehow, miraculously...and then it was all just ripped away. I felt like I wanted to die, which is something I've only felt one other time in my life, and that was right after I lost Emily."

  Chest aching, I just looked at Kathy for a moment or two before responding. "How did it happen?"

  Gaze still on her hands, Kathy heaved a sigh before continuing. "It was the two of us out on the road, not long after the virus hit, and we picked up a teenage girl named Chelsea, who'd lost her whole family. None of us knew how to fight. We got surrounded by a horde in a little shack somewhere in the boonies.

  “Chelsea tried to escape by running past all the Huskers, but, not knowing even how to kill them, she got stuck, stabbing them but not able to get free. Emily ran out after her, even though I begged her not to. And once she was out the door, I couldn't chase after her, because the Huskers had blocked the doorway by that point.

  “I ended up hiding in a large oak chest in one corner of the shack until the horde had moved on, destroying the shack in the process. And then, when I came out, Chelsea was staggering around outside, having been turned into a Husker. But Emily was just gone...just nowhere to be found. And, of course, I searched the surr
ounding areas for a time, carefully surveying the face of every Husker I killed, but I never found her. And eventually, for my own survival, I had to move on, both geographically and mentally. I never even told Mike and Sam about Emily until just a few hours ago...never even told my own husbands about my daughter.

  “Just the very thought of it hurt too badly. And I guess the tiniest part of me was always hoping that I'd never have to tell them the sad story...that one day, Emily would somehow find me, and then they could just share in the joy." With tears shining in her eyes, Kathy suddenly looked up at me, trying to smile. "Like the joyful reunion you had with your sisters today."

  I found I couldn't muster any kind of a smile in return. Instead, I impulsively reached for one of Kathy's hands, covering it with my own. "I'm so very grateful that my sisters came back to me, but I'm so very sorry it wasn't Emily who came back, too."