We make our way to the thick of the yard, moving over the outlines of tracks, overgrown with patches of grass. Streetlights spill blue-tinted light over parts of the property. Worn and broken locomotives sit abandoned to our left, and I swear the way the light hits them, they have faces, angry and disfigured. Metal silos and warehouses rise like guards, obscuring anything beyond the yard. It’s clear by the size of this place that it used to be the hub of town, now just a phantom, and Rayon has grown around it.

I pause, standing at the center of a set of tracks. Behind me, a train with an ugly face stares back at me, while the rails at my feet create a path straight to a grid of warehouses with vacant, black windows.

“Why would Lily come here?” I ask.

Thane doesn’t answer immediately. He stands ahead of me, staring into the dark, shoulders rigid, like he’s had wire shoved up his back and arms.

“We came here before…” He pauses, and I can finish that sentence: before his mother died, before he severed his relationship with everyone he knew. “It was just a place to escape.”

Thane starts off toward the locomotives, and at first, I want to follow, but the wind picks up, blowing my hair in my face again, and as I turn toward it, a light flickers in the distance. The only reason it draws my attention is because it’s coming from inside one of the warehouses. Has it been on since we got here? An uneasy feeling crawls up my back, like claws tiptoeing along my skin. Maybe Lily’s last moments were spent inside that building, but if that’s the case, what sort of clues remain? Among them, the killer?

Worse is the feeling that I need to move forward. Like I’m being reeled in—a creature at sea, caught on a line. I twist to look for Thane and tell him where I’m going, but he’s already disappeared behind the train cars. I take the bait, more curious than anything, and start toward the building. Each step makes my heart beat harder in my chest. A sheen of perspiration bubbles on my forehead, and I squeeze my fingers into a tight fist. I’ve gone into a lot of fights knowing I’m not defenseless, and yet that only makes me more afraid.

I stop before one of the warehouse buildings. Lights flicker from within, illuminating the dusty windows. Why would anyone need light in an abandoned building? Unless they were doing something illegal? Like selling drugs or…resurrecting people from the dead.