He mouths one word: Run.

I blink and the man’s back to being drunk. He lets his head loll around on his shoulders and stumbles again. “You see, I’m a sharing man. That’s my motto. Share the love,” he says.

And as the thugs stand there, clearly confused, the man shoves the women toward them. One of the women falls into the arms of the big guy who pinned me down and he catches her instinctively. She looks up at him and opens her mouth and then a clear bright moan slips from her throat as she sinks her teeth into the man’s flesh.

The large man screams and reels away and the other two men rear back in panic. But it’s too late. The Unconsecrated women smell their blood and are after the kill. One of the women snags another man’s coat and tugs, dragging him down and falling on top of him.

I lunge toward my knife, wrapping my fingers around the handle just as the drunk man grabs my arm and pulls me to the fire escape at the edge of the roof, shoving me down the steps. The only sounds shattering the night are the men screaming above me, the women moaning and the drunk man telling me to run as my feet pound down the rusty stairs.

An alarm begins to ring out and I hear other people shouting as they pour out of buildings with weapons bared.

I hit the ground and the man grabs my free hand, jerking me out of the alley and down another street. Chaos erupts all around us and the stranger keeps us hidden in the shadows, where the crumbling walls block the moon.

He asks only once if I’m okay to keep running and I nod, cold air searing my lungs as I try to catch my breath.

His hand grasps my own tightly, pressing me back when we approach intersections to make sure the way forward is clear. More alarm bells start to ring, the night growing crowded with shouting.

Ahead of us a group of Recruiters rounds the corner, shoulders set and gazes intent. They’re wound tight, weapons flashing, and I try to tug my hand from the stranger’s. I need to get away from their advance.

But the man doesn’t release his grip, which causes my own internal alarms to spike. He saved me on the roof, he’s protecting me even now in the streets, but he’s still a stranger.

“This way,” he says, pushing me down an alley. I dig my heels into the ground, protesting. I’m not sure I should follow him, not sure I can trust him, but the Recruiters are nearing and the sound of moans echoes down the street and so finally I relent.

It’s a narrow alley, almost pitch-black except where the moon glints off shards of glass still stuck in broken windows. “A dead end,” I whisper as a wall rises in front of us. Dread starts to leak through my system.