My stomach was twisting as I tucked my phone in my back pocket. It was all I could do. But we couldn’t stay here. Each moment seemed to weigh more heavily on Ivy. She was slipping, and her living vampire endurance would mean nothing if she gave up.

“You can’t go to the car, Rache.” Jenks hovered before us, watching us and our backs both. “They’ll run you down.”

Shit. He was right. Tears of frustration pricked, and Ivy leaned against the lamppost. Behind her, people were turning away, leaving us to die.

“Where else can I go, Jenks?” I shouted, frustrated. “Nowhere on earth is safe from them!”

He shrugged, even as his dust grew dismal, but behind him was Eden Park, and a flash of hope lit through me. Ivy sensed it, and her eyes opened, glazed with pain.

“The park.” I wiggled under her again, and we staggered into motion. “Ivy, hold on.”

“The park!” Jenks echoed in disbelief, and then he nodded, rising up to fly five feet over us where he could keep watch.

The park. There was a ley line in it, thin and broken, but it was there. I couldn’t jump the lines without Bis. He wouldn’t be awake until the sun went down, but I could shift realities if I was standing in a line. The ever-after was a poor choice, but no one could follow us there, and maybe we could walk to the church’s ley line and pop back into reality.

Ivy stumbled as we found the grass, and we almost went down. Her moan sounded almost like pleasure. Old toxins were being pulled from her tissues to cope with the pain as her body struggled to stay alive. But this time it wasn’t a master satisfying his blood urge that was killing her, and her breath quickened as she took in my fear and kindled her own long-suppressed desires.

“Almost there,” I panted, struggling under her weight as I scanned the open grass between us and the footbridge. It was exposed, but they probably wouldn’t shoot her and risk hitting me by accident. Cormel needed me alive and Ivy dead. They only had to wait.

This was partly my fault, and I felt the helpless tears trying to start as I took more of Ivy’s weight. There was no way to bind a vampire’s soul to his body once he died, and as we slowly limped across the green space to Twin Lakes Bridge and the broken ley line, a warm tear ran a trail down my cheek.

“Don’t cry,” Ivy slurred. “It’s going to be okay.”

I wiped my eyes between our lurching steps, my stomach roiling. “Almost there.”

Jenks dropped down, worry pinching his features. “Her aura isn’t looking good, Rache.”

“I know!” I shouted. “I know,” I said again, softer.

“It hurts,” Ivy said as I took even more of her weight. “It’s not supposed to hurt, is it?”

Oh God. I knew the pain amulet was outclassed, but that the damage was too much for even the vampire toxins to mutate was scary. “Almost there. Hold on,” I whispered, eyes fixed on the statue of Romulus and Remus. “You can rest when we get to the line.”