He doesn’t say anything and I stare at the photos in the book, pictures of beautiful creatures feeding on humans. “They’re vampires.” My eyes skim the lines of the perfect figures with sharp fangs, alluring eyes, and smooth skin. “But they’re beautiful, not rotting and gross like the ones we know.”

He takes the book from me and turns the page. “Yeah, I guess that’s what they could be.”

“You never thought about it?”

He shrugs, turning the page. “I’ve only glanced through it a few times and yeah, thought they looked like vampires, but books were destroyed right after the virus spread, so it doesn’t make sense if they were.” He skims his finger across the photo. “And it doesn’t make sense why they’d be so beautiful and perfect.”

“The answer to fixing the world,” Monarch says, “is to find out how it all started.”

I flinch at the sound of his voice inside my head.

“What’s wrong?” Aiden asks, meeting my eyes.

“Nothing,” I mumble and direct my attention to the photo. “Maybe they’re not vampires. But maybe this is where vampires first started.”

He fiddles with the corner of a page. “I’m not sure I’m following you.”

“Well, where did the vampires come from exactly?”

He looks at me like I’m a moron. “From the virus that accidently spread.”

“Yeah, but what started the virus?” I ask. “And why would these photos resemble vampires if it was all accidental?”

His fingers move to a set of numbers below a photo. “1989.”

I gape at him. “You know how to read?”

“Don’t get too excited,” he says. “I only know numbers—that’s it.”

“What do those numbers mean?” I ask. “1989.”

“It’s probably a date of when the book was made.”

“Date?”

The corners of his mouth quirk up, his mood lifting. “Yeah, you know, like time.”

I look down at the watch in my hand. “Time, like as in this watch.”

“Kind of.” He wavers. “But it measures years. Like right now we’re somewhere in the year 2031, so that makes this book pretty old.”

“Older than the virus.”

“Much older.” He nods.

I snap the pocket watch shut. “How do you know all this?”

“That guy Xander,” he says. “He knew a lot of things, once his memories started opening up, like how to read numbers. He taught me a few things, but not much.”

“Not enough to read these pages.” I take the book from him, gazing at the photos of the vampires. “But they’re so perfect, it just doesn’t make any sense unless …”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Unless what?”

Something clicks in my head. “Unless this was what the virus was supposed to do?” I say. “Only maybe it didn’t, at least not to everyone.”

“A virus is something accidental,” Aiden points out. “It’s not a good thing.”