I didn’t go to my room after Kieran dropped me back off at the campus. I couldn’t stand the idea of sitting there with Sarita staring at me as I struggled not to fall apart. And I didn’t want Hunter or Chloe or Jenna to come find me. Pity was poison right now. I needed to be alone.

I doubled back and darted into the edge of the woods, stopping just inside the shadows. I couldn’t hold back the tears for one more second. They made my vision waver and stung my cold cheeks. I sobbed until I was coughing on salt and tears and fear.

Nicholas had to be all right.

He just had to be.

The bark of the tree pulled my hair, keeping me anchored. I wanted to scream and kick and give myself over to the panic, but I had to be strong. Didn’t I have to be strong? I couldn’t remember exactly why right now, but I tried to catch my breath anyway. I scrubbed my face.

I still had the makeshift weapon Kieran had given me. And even if Sebastian was right that they couldn’t spare any guards, there was no reason I couldn’t go right now, by myself. No one had to know. And it was better than sitting around. Anything was better than sitting around.

I fished a tissue out of my pocket, blew my nose, and skirted the lawns back to the parking lot to get my car. I’d be busted for driving out in the middle of the night for sure. I couldn’t sneak out the Lemon Drop, which is what my Dad called my car. I could walk to the mountain, but it would take most of the night and most of tomorrow too, and the trails weren’t exactly reliable. And I really only had a vague idea of where I was going. A red dot on a map. Which would already have been picked clean by vampires with a better sense of smell and excellent night vision.

My steps slowed as I realized how futile my big gesture really was. It was enough to make me want to cry again.

“Busted,” Hunter said quietly. I looked up, blinking back more tears. All this crying was annoying. And it froze to my eyelashes.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

She was leaning against the front door of my car in her plaid flannel pajama bottoms and three layers of thick sweaters. The tip of her nose was already red. “Are you kidding?” she asked. “You might have fooled the parentals by giving in, but you just put the rest of us on high alert. Kieran called me right after he dropped you off.”

“I was pretty much talking myself out of it,” I conceded. “I don’t even know where to start looking.”

She slung an arm around my shoulder, hugging me. “I’m so sorry, Lucy. But we’ll go out with you tomorrow. And Kieran’s pretty sure Eric and Connoly will help. Connoly thinks you’re cute, so he’s definitely in.”

“We barely know where to start,” I said, shivering when the wind snaked between the rows of cars.

“We’ll know more tomorrow,” Hunter said comfortingly, steering me back to the dorms. “I called Quinn. He sounds about as good as you look. But between the Drakes and Bruno’s guys, there’ll be people searching twenty-four seven.”

“That’s true.” I felt infinitesimally better.

I woke up at dawn, confused and nauseated. I lifted my head groggily. The pretty pink light filtering through my window was a personal insult.

As the light grew stronger, Nicholas grew weaker.

Wherever he was now, he was in even more trouble.

I checked my phone again, but there were no updates. My eyes felt hollow with fatigue, but I was itching inside my skin. I pulled on another sweater and a scarf and went up the back stairs to the dormitory roof. It was ringed with an old-fashioned and ornate wrought-iron fence, snow gathering in the corners. The wind was vicious. I could see where the forest gave way to the mountains in the distance, under the wispy glow of the moon, fading into the pink sky.

Mom always told me that when you don’t know what else to do, you go outside. She said the sky and the sun and the trees were healing. That the stars and the rocks could shelter you, the moon could protect you. And that chanting and burning incense and praying could help you when nothing else could.

I wasn’t in a chanting sort of mood.

I did tilt my head back for a moment to let the light touch my face. The clouds seemed tattered and moth-eaten, trailing snow and fitful moonlight. I begged that moon to keep Nicholas safe.

But moonlight wasn’t enough.

The cold wind wasn’t enough, the ice on the fence and the snow weren’t enough, and the rising sun especially was not enough.

Because when the snow turned to rain, I wanted to scream. Rain would wash away his scent and his tracks. I suddenly felt so sharp and dangerous, you could have used me as a rapier. I was filled with so much rage I practically glowed. The rage helped to smother the sickening fear and the cold iron weight of sorrow that might drag me under and keep me there. I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t give up.

Nicholas was strong. The Drakes were great hunters and even better fighters. Helena would burn the forest down if she had to. I had to believe he was okay and that he would come home, even if I had to force my will on the entire cosmic order. Mom said that people created their own reality. If you believed in something deeply enough and sent it enough energy, you could make it happen. She was full of stories of miraculous cancer cures and dreams that warned people off planes that fell from the sky. Isabeau might have said the same thing, calling it magic.

I just knew I couldn’t contain this pain inside me.

So I’d use it as a weapon.

I screamed so long and loud, the pigeons on the roof flapped away hysterically.