Rafferty awoke some time later. The greenhouse was nothing more than a pile of rubble and ash. She wiped some of the black soot from her face as she sat up. The surrounding buildings hadn't fared much better. Further out, a number of them had caught fire. Flames flickered in the twilight.

She spent a long time searching for Alex, or some remnant of him, but found nothing. No trace of Vincent, either. Rafferty had seen him lurch to his feet and start to move when she jumped. She hoped maybe he had survived.

But she knew that he probably hadn't.

When her search was over, she started to walk. The wound in her hip bit down hard with every step.

She ignored the truck that had brought her here. The tires had burst in the explosion, and anyway, Vincent had the keys.

She passed the Ghosts that ringed Bad End. They said that when people died out in the Breaks, that they became faces in the stone. Her mother had told her that a long time ago. She wondered if that would happen for Vincent.

It took her two days to walk home. She did not eat. She stopped just once, scooping a drink out of a dirty puddle, and grabbing a few fitful hours of sleep. When she dreamt, she dreamt of large, black birds.

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She thought about her God, the big Class Four, and of all the things that happened between that jump and this one. Rafferty felt about a thousand years older than the girl who had lashed the God's head to Trevor's motorcycle, and driven it home across the Breaks.

She thought about Alex, but not all that much. Alex with Malice was over. If somehow he wasn't, then Rafferty would slice off his face, and bury him in the dirt forever. But she'd take no joy in it.

Mostly she thought about Vincent, and wondered how much of the Vincent she knew was real. She wanted to believe all the things he said at the end, but she'd been a part of his plan since before they even met, so it was hard to know for sure.

She knew that probably the last thing Vincent had done in this world was to look at her, and say "Please."

Rafferty had jumped.

She had jumped because Vincent asked her to.

Rafferty kept walking, but answers didn't get any closer. Sometimes there were tears. Sometimes she kicked angrily at the dirt. Mostly, as warm late summer days turned into cold late summer nights, she just felt numb.

When she had ridden off to face Alex, she had expected to end up either dead or satisfied. Now she found herself neither, with nothing but the feeling of two large stones settling in her stomach, the freight of the last few months.

It wasn't until she reached home that there was a flicker of something else. Rafferty was standing in front of the Abbey, wondering just how she was going to explain all of this, when she saw something in one of the windows.

It was Trevor.

He was awake. He was waiting for her. When he saw her, he put his hands on the windowsill, closed his eyes, and exhaled. Exasperated and relieved all at once.

Rafferty hurried to meet him.

When she found him, she hugged him so hard she broke two of his ribs.