“Close.” Those footsteps set me even more on edge, but Finn and Devi didn’t look scared, so I was assuming I shouldn’t be either.

But then, maybe they never looked scared. Maybe fighting degenerates was so routine for them that they didn’t even remember what fear felt like. I wasn’t sure whether to envy them that or feel sorry for them.

The shadows shifted and a man stepped into the moonlight several feet from us. He was huge. At least half a foot taller than Finn, and nearly as broad as the back door of the warehouse. But when he came closer, I realized he wasn’t any older than the rest of us. He was just…big.

“Nina? Hey. I’m Reese.” He reached out to shake my hand, and his nearly swallowed mine.

“Hey.” In spite of the sizable new addition to our forces, it took every bit of my self-control to keep from bolting down the alley and into the street, then racing in whatever direction my legs chose.

Reese turned to Finn. “She looks antsy. She’s been triggered?”

He nodded. “About eight hours ago.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t take her to our local base,” Devi said. “As long as they can sense her, they’ll hunt for her, which will lead them straight to us.”

“You want to leave me?” Panic rang in my voice. I’d never successfully fought off a degenerate, and I could feel the horde getting closer, like I could feel the rush of my own pulse. But I couldn’t outrun them all.

“We’re not leaving her,” Finn said.

Devi’s dark eyes glistened in the moonlight when she rolled them. “Of course not. We need her, whether I like her or not. But maybe we should stash her somewhere until she finishes transitioning. Somewhere they can’t get to her, obviously.”

“And where might that be?” Reese crossed thick arms over an even thicker chest.

“I don’t know, but it seems stupid to point a big flashing arrow at our home. Right? You want to lead them to Grayson?”

Reese looked startled by the thought, and then he frowned, considering. “Wherever you put her, degenerates will circle her like sharks around blood, and a bunch of monsters clawing up the outside of a building would definitely draw the Church’s attention. It’d have to be outside of town. So maybe one of the ghost towns?”

My heart dropped into my stomach.

There were thousands of ghost towns in the United States alone—entire communities wiped out nearly a century ago during the war. Most of the smaller ones had been completely swallowed by the demon horde right at the beginning, every single citizen either killed or possessed. Some towns had been razed, burned to the ground by the occupying horde or by the army fighting it.