The people of Nowhere were heroes, no more, no less, and as I watched them help one another, I knew I had made the right choice. Still, in the quiet aftermath of the attack, I felt the stinging sensation of loss. We had one chance to reclaim our immortal lives, and we had thrown it to the wind for this tiny town. Charlotte Drake, House of Drake, Clan of Bone, thought Charlie Smith of Nowhere, Iowa, was a fool.

Reg and I wound our way through the gym and field, letting everyone know that the coma victims would wake when the vampire venom wore off. Out in front of the school, we found the people who had not made it inside the gym. Their prone forms were scattered on the lawn and in the street, surrounded by overturned chairs and abandoned food carts, as a dozen or so pug puppies scampered this way and that.

We helped Poe load his sleeping parents into a car while Sydney and Sophia searched for their own mom and dad. The people of Nowhere seemed as unrattled in the aftermath as they had been in battle. I knew the town had ancient history, but it was clear now that it had more recent history as well.

Back in the open-air tunnel, we found Sal and Lina tending to the group of new mortals.

One of the former vamps raised a shaky finger to point at me and hiss, “You chose the wrong side.”

But in the end, I hadn’t chosen a side at all. I’d managed to protect the village and stop immortal lives from going up in smoke. For once, the only side I didn’t choose was my own.

“Better human than dead,” I said.

He sneered. “Debatable.”

As Reg and I circled the group, another new human—formerly an Elder—kept touching his fingers to his wrist, then to his throat, and back again, feeling the pulse of his own blood flowing for the first time in centuries. His eyes were wide with wonder.

I winked down at him. “You get used to it.”

Reg surveyed the lot.

“Do you think they’re all coming back to the cottage, then?” he asked.

“Ugh, I hope not.” I pointed to a skinny former vampire who looked close to our age. Pimples were already sprouting on his face, and his hair was taking on a greasy sheen. “I am so not sharing a bathroom with that guy.”

Hours later, Reg and I dragged our tired human bodies home, down the dark, tree-lined streets of Nowhere, through the fields yawning open under a starry sky, and back to the cottage, where Sal was waiting for us.

He was furiously scribbling in a notepad and barely glanced up.

“You two get your friends off all right? They all find their parents?”

“Everyone’s accounted for,” Reg confirmed.

“Where’s Lina?” I asked.

Sal’s pen paused. “Still with the council.”