“You aren’t even going to ask to phone them?” Dahlia paused with her glass halfway to her mouth. I shook my head.

“The phone lines are blocked across the Wall. Even I know that.”

Tad put a hand on my shoulder. “There are bigger issues than visiting Mom and Dad.”

I took a step back. “How do I get a border pass?”

“You have a tracking device put in, and then you can maybe get a border pass,” Dahlia said softly. “I could get one.”

“You’re tracked?” Tad pushed away from the counter; Dahlia hunched her shoulders.

“I didn’t have a choice. Vampires more than anyone else are stuck with a device. The only one who doesn’t have one is Remo.”

I put a hand on her arm. “You don’t have to be ashamed, Dahlia. You’re alive. That’s what matters.”

Tad grunted and I swung a hand back at him, smacking him hard enough to knock him off his chair. He landed on the floor with a thump.

“Hey!”

“Don’t you ‘hey’ me. You have seriously forgotten your manners since you died. Don’t be rude to someone who saved us and is a friend.” I half turned to glare at him. “Now, you know another way over the Wall. Right?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Why would you say that?”

I leaned forward. “That jacket-hoodie combo? Same as the old man who ate my bagels. Same old man who gave me the Aegrus virus.”

Dahlia sucked in a sharp breath and Tad blanched. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t know I was sick. If I thought I would hurt you, I never would have come near you. Merlin suggested I go for a visit, to see you. I missed you, Alena. And I knew I could get close to you, but not Mom and Dad.”

The fact that he didn’t deny it was him who infected me . . . I wasn’t sure if that made what happened worse or not. Not that it mattered now. Better to focus on the task at hand.

No point in prepping batter meant for a cake yesterday.

“How do you get over the Wall?”

Tad cleared his throat before answering. “First thing in the morning they do a shift change. The guards are lazy and sleepy. It’s easy to make it past them.”

“Then it’s settled,” I said. “First light we’ll get over that wall and go talk to Mom and Dad. Neither of us is sick, so we won’t be putting them in any danger.”

Dahlia looked at the clock on the stove. “It’s late enough that I have to get underground. I wish I could come with you.”

I smiled, but it felt strained. “You’ve done a lot. Thank you. For still being my friend even though we have—”

“Different fangs?”

I laughed. “Yeah, something like that.”

She drained the last of her glass and licked her lips. “There are extra clothes in the upstairs bedrooms, if you want to change.” Dahlia wiggled her fingers at us and left the room. For several minutes, neither of us said anything. Five years apart, and now dealing with everything that had happened, I wasn’t sure what to say to him. Or if I wanted to say anything at all.

“Lena, you have to know I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Tad said, his tone soft. I closed my eyes and nodded. That much I believed. Tad would never hurt me intentionally, not even when we were children and fought on a regular basis.

“I know. That doesn’t make it any easier. Why didn’t you just send a letter?”

“No postal system here. Even our landlines and cell phones won’t call outside this area. We aren’t supposed to exist, so they are slowly wiping us out.”

I struggled to believe him, simply because it was a long-standing argument with him. Paranoia ran deep in our family. Of the government, conspiracies, an asteroid sent by aliens to destroy our world, and of course the supernatural. Some of it was the upbringing with the Firstamentalists, but some of it was just the way our family thought.

Everyone, and everything, was out to get us in one form or another if you asked any Budrene.

“Really, Tad? Maybe it’s just that Super Dupers are too strong, too fast, and too dangerous to be a part of the rest of the world.” I was halfway up the stairs to check out the other clothes.

“Do you know that Roger gets everything? Nothing is yours. In the law, you are dead. So even if you showed up on his doorstep, proved you were still alive, he would have to give you absolutely nothing. Not a single penny, not a single piece of that house you love.”

Yeah, I’d not forgotten about that bit. “Yes, I’m well aware.”

“Doesn’t that bother you in the least?”

“Bothers me more that he’s boinking Barbie. That he’s selling Vanilla and Honey to fat-nosed Colleen—”

“Excuse me?” Tad jogged up the stairs to catch up to me. I strode forward into the first room. I went straight to the closet and started to rifle through the variety of shirts and pants.

“He’s got a new love. Her name is Barbie, and they’re opening a dog-grooming business together. And cats, they’re grooming cats too in order to make the business legit. And he’s selling my bakery. You know, the one you sat in front of for free food?” I’d said it to make him laugh at the absurdity of it, to take away the sting.

“Oh, Lena Bean, I’m so sorry.” His soft tone and the old nickname from my childhood undid me, but I didn’t stop what I was doing. I rifled through the clothes through blurry eyes, going by feel more than sight.