My boots pound the concrete hard. _Traitor_. That’s what they’ll call me. I can’t, I simply cannot drag the team into this. It’s horrific, it’s certain death. _Murderer._

Blood is still drying between my fingers as my shaking hands press buttons on the ticket kiosk for the train. Who would believe me anyway? No one. I’d be forced into psych evals at best, committed and fired at worst.

No, I’d be dead at worst.

The team is spared. The Nykti will leave them alone now. All I have to do is… live with the blood of my partner on my hands and keep quiet. Yeah. Yeah. I can do that.

The train roars to a stop and I’m met with my pale reflection in the window. Somehow the black waves in my hair are more brittle, the color dull. Stress. This month has drained me. Can the people around me see the blood under my nails? Can they hear his screams which echo in my head? I swallow hard. Someone drops their keys on the platform behind me and I jump.

Endless forensic photo sessions of mangled corpses and blood baths swim in my vision. Up until the last year, nothing shook me. But now? I’ve seen the face of evil, I’ve felt it waltz up my spine and dare me to jump. Now, everything has changed.

I think of the other eight people on the team. Harlow and her kids, Jameson, Rigby, Michales… I saved them. I chant that internal monologue for hours as the countryside comes into view. New York will stay behind me and I’ll feel better once I

make my way across the border.

I see one of them, then and it sends me crawling into the chair opposite me on a sharp gasp. The few people on this leg of the trip turn their heads. But they don’t see him. I’d recognize the traits of the blood ravages anywhere now. The Nykti sent him to ensure I hold up my end up the bargain and he flashes me impossibly sharp teeth. I wonder if he can still taste Blaine. Those teeth are not just canines like mainstream frilly vampire movies. No. All of them are razor sharp and gleaning, pointed with steel.

I recall the sound those teeth make against bone, how the sound of nails on a chalkboard would be welcome in comparison. I can feel them against Blaine’s spinal column as the Nykti tore into him, savage and unyielding. My mouth waters as the threat of vomiting washes over me. The scent of his blood is in my nostrils and I can tell from the creature staring at me, that he smells it too.

My phone vibrates and only then does it occur to me to destroy it. The FBI can find me otherwise. I stare longingly at the photo of my dog who will never know why I didn’t return home and back at the creature watching me. I drop the phone out of the small open window, earning a nod from him.

He’ll either kill me or depart from me at the border. Either way, Blaine and I are both ghosts in the wind.