I stop when Layla does. We’ve reached the highest roof. Only that one tower, the largest and tallest, remains. It’s set off from the others, centered in the middle of a large gap. Several more buildings could fit in between ours and it.

“That’s the Kai tower,” Layla tells me. “You can’t get to it, at least not in any way the public knows. There’s no road that circles it like the other towers. It’s got tunnels coming out of the base. They’re well-guarded, to say the least.” Layla walks to the other side of the rooftop. She sits down and her legs dangle over the edge. I look away from the Kai’s tower.

“Wow,” I breathe. Past the walls of the Delphast land stretches out in front of me until it reaches a dark border. The Forsyth. To my left is the ocean, dark and choppy in the night.

“It’s nice, eh?” Layla asks. She pats the roof and I sit down next to her.

“I used to love coming up here when I was little,” Layla says. “I would watch the people move around like ants. It was my escape. I don’t come up here that much anymore though.

“What changed?” I ask. I take a deep breath of the fresh air. Layla was right. I needed it.

“I made a new home. Before I lived in the Graveyard I was a completely different person. Used to wear skirts and pink ribbons.”

I smile at that image. “I can’t picture it.”

“Really?” She puts both of her hands under her chin and gives me an angelic look. For a moment, I actually can see it. The girly Layla. Then she sticks her tongue out, running the picture. It feels strange to be talking to her like this. As if nothing has changed. As if she and I were just friends enjoying the view.

“Your head feeling any clearer?” She asks.

“Yes. No, not really. I don’t think it ever will.”

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t tell you right away. We keep the secret from all newbies. We’ve tried to tell some kids right away, but they don’t believe us. Even when we show them the abilities, they think we are tricking them somehow. It’s best to let the suspicion grow.”

It’s hard for me to admit it, but she was right to keep it from me. I’m not the same person I was when I arrived in the Delphast. That Javin would have never believed such a people could exist or that the leader of Kostos could be such a monster. That Javin would have told Layla she was crazy. But today? After all that I’ve seen in the Haunt? All the odd occurrences, the strange appearances, how blind everyone else is to what exists right under their noses? After all that? I believe her wholeheartedly.

“After I changed, I was able to escape the Keep,” Layla says. “No one else ever has, but I managed it. I don’t know what I expected when I came back to the Delphast. That my life would return to normal? Of course not. Perhaps I didn’t expect it to change entirely. The serum made me different and everything else made me angry. That anger consumed me and took over my life.”

I can’t help but compare what she is saying to the Kai. That is exactly how she described him. I push the thought out of my mind. They are nothing alike.

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“I knew I’d never be able to just forget what had happened to me and try to live my life ignoring what everyone else was so blind to. I vowed then that I would expose the Kai and the Keep. That I would liberate all those that I had left behind and try to protect those that might end up there. I had no friends, no money, no home. I did have a weapon though, something I knew that I could use to bring down the Kai and the keep. When I escaped I stole a vile of the serum. That single vile has turned out to be a powerful weapon than any I could have hoped for. It’s enabled me to transform a bunch of poor kids with no future into people with power. People that are able to work together to bring down the Keep. That, Javin, is the secret of the Haunt. Every single member has been baptized in the serum, has a power unique to them. Without it we are nothing but kids. With it we have a chance of bringing down the Kai. And so now you have a choice to make.”

The moon is high above us, directly over the Kai’s tower. This decision feels easy. I followed Layla because she said she could help me. If this is what it takes I’ll do it. “I want in. If it means getting Evan back, I’ll do anything.”

“Don’t decide so quickly,” Layla says. When we left the Graveyard she had pulled up her black scarf, covering her hair and hooding her face. Now she unwraps it, pulling it off her neck. She begins to unbutton her shirt. Before I can react, she stops and pulls her shirt to the side revealing her collar bone. Directly underneath it is a small bright blue vein.

“We all have them, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. Some are easy to hide. April’s is on the bottom of her foot. Some are much more obvious. They become more prominent the older you get. You’ve been asking me about Chief, why he is so sick. It’s because of the serum. Our bodies aren’t meant to handle this. The Kai is still working to find a new serum because this one is so flawed. As soon as it enters our bodies they start to decay. I didn’t know what was going to happen until after I’d baptized a dozen kids. Then it happened to a kid named Bran. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. He was twenty when I gave him the serum and after the first few months he started to get sicker and weaker. He would go into seizures or faint. His skin got paler. The vein grew longer, brighter. Then they multiplied. When he started to run a fever, we knew it was close to the end. He couldn’t move, eat or drink. His skin started to twitch and then boil. We brought him to an above-ground doctor, we were that desperate, but he couldn’t do a thing. Within a day Bran started to bleed out of his nose, his ears, even his eyes. He was dead within hours. It happens to everyone that gets the serum. Somewhere around twenty, twenty one, the serum is just too much for our bodies to handle.”

As she speaks the image of a bloody boy comes into my mind. It’s Evan. He’s all alone on a white floor that is slowly turning red. “Does everyone know? Everyone in the Haunt?”

“Yes. I gave them this same speech and the same choice. They do it because it’s the only way to bring down the Keep. They do it for the same reason that you will. Because it gives us the power to fight, to get what we want. I may know all of this information, but I still don’t know where the Keep is or how to break in. Without the serum we wouldn’t stand a chance. It’s fighting fire with fire. I like you Javin, you seem like a nice kid. Part of me wants to lie to you, wants to tell you that you’ll get baptized and that everything will work out. That you’ll be stronger and more powerful and when you rescue your brother you’ll get to spend years and years together. I can’t promise it. But what I can promise is that without us, without all of us working with every single resource we have, we will never rescue your brother or anyone else. We will never make the Kai pay.”

I am a statue next to her, my hands gripping the roof, my gaze locked on Layla. I remain frozen as she leans into me, closer and closer. The smell of pine envelops me. She presses her lips against mine, lightly, softly, so quick that when she pulls away and stands up I wonder if I imagined it.

“Take some time and think it through,” she says. “It’s a big decision. If you decide no, that’s fine. You’ll head out on your own. Maybe you’ll get lucky.” Layla shrugs. “It’s about time someone did. When you decide you know where to find me.” At a run she jumps off the roof, landing on the next building. I watch her out of the corner of my eye leap from roof to roof until she turns out of sight behind a helix. So this is what the truth feels like. Why did I even want to know?