“I turned him down,” Poe went on. “I’m sure he told you.”

I nodded. It was all I could do; I was so tired of giving voice to lies.

“You don’t want to leave Nowhere?” I asked.

Poe shrugged. “Someday, sure. But it’s not such a bad place to be from.”

He waved at someone behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to see Sydney and Sophia coming our way, faces lit up with identical smiles.

Not a bad place at all.

“This is the end,” Sydney called as they approached.

Hope High loomed up behind them, and the parade line scattered, floats and flatbeds veering off to claim various parking places around the school.

The end . . .

Sophia pulled off her halo and ran a hand through her blond tresses. “We’re going to park around back by the gym and start decorating. Poe, you in to help?”

Poe faked a groan. “Fine, but I don’t stand on ladders, and I don’t do glue.”

The twins laughed in their harmonious, infectious way, and I couldn’t believe I would never hear that sound again. Would never share another coffee with this crew at All Hours, never drive down another sun-soaked dirt road with Dexter, never again spar with Sal across the kitchen table.

It wasn’t just the people, I realized with a squeeze in my chest. It was this place. I had convinced myself that it was worth sacrificing the village to spare the villagers, but tearing the people and the town apart would mean taking more than their blood and their memories. We’d be stealing a piece of their very soul—the piece called Nowhere.

Our float lumbered into its assigned spot alongside the school, just below a giant banner, slung between second-story windows:

NOWHERE ANNUAL HALLOWEEN HOOPLA

NO MORE, NO LESS THAN HORRIFICALLY FUN!

Except the second half of the banner had sagged, the top edge folding over the bottom, so that only the words on the far left still stood tall.

NOWHERE

NO MORE

The flatbed under my feet lurched to a stop, and my heart lurched along with it. I still didn’t know what the hell that stupid motto meant, but I knew this much: if Nowhere was no more, the world would definitely be a little less.

After all these weeks, Nowhere finally felt like somewhere.

Sophia barked an order to head to the gym, but my feet didn’t move. I had somewhere else I needed to go first.

“Charlie, you coming?” Sydney asked.

Poe’s hand fell soft on my shoulder, turning me around. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

I swiped at my eyes, but they were dry. The time for tears was done.

“Poe,” I said in a rush. “Listen. Whatever happens tonight, promise me you won’t forget us—me and Reg.”

“As if I could ever forget—”

“Promise!”

He backed away a step. “Oh. Okay, promise.”