“Really, Auggie? ‘I’m going to a rave with a bunch of vampires at the glassworks factory, you might need to come save me,’ really?”

“You got my message?” I could actually cry, I am so grateful to see her right now.

“Yes, obviously!” She pulls me closer as the frantic exodus swells, bottlenecking at the bottom of the stairs. People are starting to get trampled, and now vampires who came to party are starting to throw down with the ones who came to eat. Knuckles white around her stake, Daphne demands, “What were you thinking? Why the hell did you come here?”

“I wanted answers!” My voice catches, and I blink tears from my eyes. Chaos rages around us, and I’ve lost the ability to choose bliss. “I’m dying, or … something, and the boy I thought I liked is actually a vampire, and he’s part of the Dark Star cult, and—”

“Auggie, what—” She’s cut off when two vampires, eyes burning, claws sunk deep into each other’s flesh, slam against the wall beside us. Grabbing me, Daphne spins me behind her, backing away, deeper into the shadows. “Never mind—tell me later. We’re getting the fuck out of here.”

“But that’s the exit!” I point to the stairs, where bodies are piling up, blood spilling over concrete.

“There’s always another way out, Auggie,” she whispers, herding me through fragrant mists into heavier and heavier darkness. “Never forget that.”

I don’t know if she’s been here before, or she’s just a damn good guesser, but she pulls me through the gloom and into a lightless passage somewhere at the back of the building, a dark void closing tightly down around us. The space is narrow and the floor uneven, strewn with rubble and trash that I keep tripping over, and the terrified clamor of the dance floor chases us deep into its recesses. The chance that we could be ambushed in this stifling rat maze is all too real, and my ears ring with danger.

We hit the end of the passage, and Daphne kicks hard against something—a door, metal scraping against damaged concrete as she forces it open—and then we’re in a stairwell. Moonlight weeps through filthy windows, and my bodyguard shoves me up the steps ahead of her. At ground level we find an exit; it’s chained shut, but the links are so rusted that they shatter under a few blows with a chunk of broken flooring. And then we’re out in the night air again, the frigid damp a welcome embrace.