A soldier with greasy pimples aims his rifle at me, gripping it like he’s about to make his first, horrifying kill.

I totally underestimated the level of primal fear swirling around us. They’ve lost everything: their families, their security, their God.

And now, a reanimated corpse is reaching for them.

“I am okay,” I say slowly with as much clarity as I can. I hold the soldier’s gaze, intent on convincing him there’s nothing supernatural going on. “I’m alive.”

There’s a moment when I’m not sure if they’ll relax or toss me out of the truck with a blaze of gunfire. I still have Raffe’s sword strapped to my back, mostly hidden under my jacket. That gives me some comfort, even though it obviously can’t stop bullets.

“Come on.” I keep my voice gentle and my movements very slow. “I was just knocked out. That’s all.”

“You were dead,” says the pale soldier, who doesn’t look a day older than me.

Someone bangs on the truck’s roof.

We all jump, and I’m lucky the soldier doesn’t accidentally pull his trigger.

The rear window slides open and Dee’s head sticks through. He’d look stern except that it’s hard to take him too seriously with his red hair and little-boy freckles. “Hey! Back off from the dead girl. She’s Resistance property.”

“Yeah,” says his twin brother Dum from inside the cab. “We need her for autopsies and stuff. You think girls killed by demon princes are easy to find?” As usual, I can’t tell the twins apart, so I randomly assign Dee for one and Dum for the other.

“No killing the dead girl,” says Dee. “I’m talking to you, Soldier.” He points to the guy with the rifle and glares at him. You’d think that looking like a set of strung-out Ronald McDonalds with nicknames like Tweedledee and Tweedledum would strip them of all authority. But somehow, these guys seem to have a talent for going from joking to deadly in a heartbeat.

At least, I hope they’re joking about the autopsy.

The truck stops in a parking lot. That takes the attention off me as we all look around.

The adobe-style building in front of us is familiar. It’s not my school but it is a school that I’ve seen lots of times. It’s Palo Alto’s high school, affectionately known as Paly High.

Half a dozen trucks and SUVs stop in the parking lot. The soldier still keeps an eye on me, but he lowers his rifle to a 45-degree angle.