“What about Bill? There’s no evidence Bill was ever here. He’s a ghost, remember? And now that I’ve had my fun, I’m starting fresh. Tonight, he’s headed to the bottom of the ocean.”

Behind the Reverend, Bill remains unbothered. His eyes paralyzed, he’s lost in a thousand different memories and dreams that will never come true. The Reverend could kill him with his bare hands, and I don’t think he’d even blink.

Uncertainty hangs in the silence as a hellish, eternal punishment consumes the bunker. Nightlight is punishment. It is Hell. Run by the Reverend Stanley Packard, a pathetic monster who lives to inflict his pain on everyone else. He doesn’t care about justice for Ricky. If he did, he would’ve turned Bill over to the FBI years ago.

The Reverend feeds on pain, as simple as that.

“There’s still time,” I say, Ricky’s message occurring to me in a flash. Holding Ricky’s remains, renewed strength and optimism flow into my heart. “Ricky wrote two messages: one to me, one to you. Ricky wanted you to help us. He still believed in you.” The Reverend’s pinched, deep-lined expression softens, unlocking a glimpse of the tender—albeit untrustworthy—boy from the Winner’s Wall. I have him in the palm of my hand, and I don’t miss my shot. “Take us home. Please. Break the cycle.”

“I…” he squeaks, but a shadow falls again. “1612 Havenhurst. Los Angeles. That’s where Rigo’s ashes are. In the garden. Bring Ricky back to him—”

A blood-drenched spearhead explodes through the Reverend’s clavicle, stopping an inch from my forehead. The broken shard of my spear ended up on the floor near Darcy’s cage, but Karaoke Bill found it and wields it like a stake—and the Reverend is his vampire to slay. I choke on my own tongue as Reverend Packard paws at the wound gushing crimson down his chest. He wipes at it in disbelief, as if more concerned with the stain than with the hole in him. In a swirling tornado of carnage, Bill pulls the shard out of his nephew’s chest and drives it through his cheek.

Marcos and I scream—our lungs full of air again—and topple sideways through the curtain into Bill’s room. The urn jumbles in my arms, but I won’t let go of Ricky. The Reverend howls like an animal caught in a steel trap as his uncle—pin-drop silent—slices into him, over and over, with methodical patience. The Reverend takes four more strikes to his chest before landing with a deafening thud at our feet. His eyes remain open, as round as pools. “Run…” he chokes out, his chin painted red. “Run…Ricky…”

The Reverend’s life ends on a gurgle, and all sounds vanish inside a vacuum.

History is about to repeat itself.