With that, Mills headed off with Rodrigo, and Jensen and Kevin continued their journey to the station. They hadn’t gone far when Zahra came bounding up to them. “Hey stranger!” she said to Kevin. “Hello little one,” he replied. Zahra did not seem to like that. She crossed her arms and leaned on to her back foot. “I am not little,” she insisted. “Zahra, what are you doing here?” Jensen asked. “I just wanted to say ‘hi’ to the new guy. See how he was settling in. What do you think of our town?”Kevin simply shrugged, but Jensen gave the real answer. “It doesn’t matter. He’s not staying.”“What?” Zahra practically screamed the word. “Why not?”“Because he doesn’t belong here,” Jensen again answered for Kevin. “And where else would you go?” she asked. Demanded, really. Kevin shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Almost anywhere is safer than here.”“What?” Zahra’s brow knit in confusion. “Shut up!” Jensen hissed, shoving Kevin against the nearby wall. “Sheriff said not to talk about th

“Wow. You can’t stop moralizing for one second, can you?”Kevin took a deep breath, realizing he was losing control. The confined space was doing that to him. “Look, what I’m saying is, I didn’t do anything to those people that they didn’t deserve. And if the only way that justice was going to happen was through me, then I’m glad it did.”Mills shook his head, just in constant disbelief at the things this young man would come up with.“Well, Darren? The man whose ears you took? Doc says he’s probably gonna need assistance the rest of his life. In a society where I don’t have people to spare. Ideally, your punishment would be to spend the rest of your life being that assistance, but I can’t trust that you wouldn’t just try to end his life when you 'logic out' that he’d somehow be better off dead. So if the only way he’s getting justice is by keeping you in here, locked away, then that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Really, you should be grateful to be in here. Out there they want to

It was only a matter of time now until the end.He let out a sigh and turned away from the gathered men, and spotted Zahra standing off to the side of the room, staring at the proceedings with a look approaching terror plastered on her face. “Psst,” he whispered, trying to let the noise of the men working cover up the sound as much as possible, and waited for her to notice. She didn’t. “Psst. Zahra. Zahra, come here.”Slowly she turned to face him, her expression becoming much more doubtful as she did.“Zahra, cut me free.”She shook her head. “I’m not really so sure that’s such a great idea,” she replied, but she was at least matching his hushed tones.That was something. “Zahra,” he continued, leaning as far forward as he could against his restraints, “I trusted you in going into the town. Now I need you to trust me. I need you to cut me free, and then you need to run. Like. Hell.”She stared down at his bonds, but then something occurred to her and she looked back at him again, h

He started away, but stopped and turned back. “Oh, one last thing Gabriel . The description of your rescue I got, it made it sound like this vampire was pretty dead set on getting you over all the others. Did you… did you know this vampire?”“Yes.” As the words came out, Gabriel ’s head drooped into his chest. “Before she was a vampire. That…”He took a deep breath and swallowed, barely able to wrap his head around the words, let alone speak them. “That… was Jake.”Not much later Claire brought him some actual food, which he gulped down gratefully. He realized with some remorse that he hadn’t eaten since before the car crash, which was before he’d entered the cave. And that, according to the timGabriel ne Joe had given, had been five days earlier. He’d been living on just whatever Claire pumped into his I.V. since then. Gabriel couldn’t imagine going nearly six days without food. Before the outbreak he’d almost never gone six hours without food. He realized somewhat depressingly th

In a flash Cassius was on Gabriel , holding him up by his shirt collar. “Who did you hear this from?”Claire stepped forward, wrapping both her hands around just one of Cassius’ arms. “Stop that!” she demanded. “He’s injured.”Cassius ignored her and shook Gabriel hard. “Who have you been talking to?”“A guy named Gabriel,” Gabriel answered. “Ring any bells?”The preacher’s eyes and mouth went wide with surprise, and for a long moment he just stood there, frozen.“Wait, Cass, isn’t that…?” Joe started to ask.“You know Gabriel?” Cassius asked instead of answering Joe. “Where is he?”“Gone,” replied Gabriel . “Taken by the vampires.”Cassius let go of Gabriel and his shoulders slumped. “Then he’s probably already dead.”“Wait, Cassius, is this true?” Joe stared at the preacher with a look that was somewhere halfway between horror and betrayal. “Have you really known about the vampires this entire time?”Cassius turned away from Gabriel , but kept turning past Joe. He stared primaril