“I was pretty much born dead,” he replied in a hollow voice. “I was alive for a few minutes, long enough to get a name, but that was it. And then I was raised in the Countryside with a bunch of other kids like me. They turn us loose when we reach maturity, and we stay … like this. Forever.” He gestured at his body and then raised his head. “I can read. I bet I can keep up.”

“Okay,” I murmured, pushing back all the billions of questions I had about what he’d just told me. “We’d better go or we’ll be late.”

“The incident at the homeless camp is big news this morning,” he explained as I backed out of the drive. “Only one survivor was found. A woman.”

“How old?” I asked. Had Harriet made it out all right? Was it the waitress? Or maybe that woman who’d traveled with her boyfriend from Maine? Or a Mazikin?

“They didn’t say. She’s in critical condition, and the news said the police are hoping to question her about what happened today, since she’s the only surviving witness.”

“How many dead?” My heart hammered. My brain tumbled with calculations.

“Four. Henry said he got two with his crossbow. Not counting you, of course.”

I stopped at a traffic light and sucked a quick breath through my nose, absorbing the impact of Jim’s little dig. “I killed two, I think.”

“That’s what he said. So no humans killed.”

My hands tightened over the steering wheel. “Maybe. We don’t know how many Mazikin were in that raiding party, and we don’t know if they were able to drag any of the campers away.”

“Which is what Malachi said.”

I turned into the school parking lot. “And what else did he say?”

Jim gave me a sidelong glance. “Not much.”

I pulled the keys from the ignition. My eyes drifted to the front of the school, where a huge pile of flowers, candles, and pictures marked the spot where Aden Matthews had been sacrificed in our private war. Ian and Greg trudged by it on their way in. Greg was talking a mile a minute while Ian’s bloodshot eyes slid over the makeshift memorial. He looked like he’d been up all night, and I felt awful for him. I sighed. “Did you and Malachi find anything on patrol last night?”

Jim shifted in his seat. “Sort of. All of the shelters were full and wouldn’t let us in. But at the one on Willard, we smelled them.” He shrugged. “Actually, the Lieutenant smelled them.”

“And?”

“He told me to cover the front door, climbed up a fire escape, and broke in through a second-floor window.”

At least he hadn’t gone crashing through the lobby, knives out.