For all Clara's efforts, her search of the neighbourhood where Rachel had hidden turned up nothing. Rachel was as she'd always been – a ghost in the night, who swooped in to attack then melted away just as fast. The vampires who must have helped her had slunk back into the shadows, as sourceless as smoke on the wind, quietly biding their time until the next attack.

The frustration of the whole thing made me want to scream. I knew it had been a ridiculously weak lead, but that hadn't stopped me hoping for a break. We couldn't always keep running into dead-ends.

Three days passed with no sign of the mad vampire, but that didn't reassure me. In fact, it only made things worse. Tension knotted my limbs, and my neck ached from constantly looking over my shoulder. I was so on edge that every day passed with a near-scream building in my chest. It was the not knowing that I hated most. If there was a threat in front of me, I could deal with it, but this threat lurked in the shadows and there didn't seem to be a thing I could do about that.

In the meantime, Samuel and Elena had been carrying out their own line of inquiry. They'd previously asked around all their friends and acquaintances to see if anyone knew anything about Rachel, and hadn't turned up anything, so now they were digging deeper, tracking down and questioning vampires they didn't know, putting out feelers in neighbouring towns to see if anyone knew anything. Rachel acted like a ghost, but she was a flesh and blood vampire which meant someone had to have seen something.

I'd started working out again, more seriously than I had since leaving the team, and had fitted a pull-up bar in the doorway that led from the kitchen to the living room.

As evening fell on the third day, I was halfway through the daily routine I'd imposed on myself, and I was struggling. It could be that I was pushing myself further than I had when I'd lived with the team – though that didn't seem likely, considering how iron-fisted Noah was about training us. Much as it pained me to admit it, it was more likely that my muscles had actually started to slip into disuse over the weeks since I'd given up training. It was so easy for the body to go soft. I'd actually been looking forward to it, imagining that I might develop some feminine curves for once. My previous training regime had been strict enough that fat of any kind had been burned into muscle, which meant that I'd always been leaner than I might have liked. It would have been nice to actually have proper hips and boobs, but if I wanted any chance of beating Rachel, I needed to be in peak physical condition.

Luke came into the living room, rubbing sleep from his eyes. I carried on with my pull-ups, lifting my board-stiff body up and down, up and down. The muscles in my arms trembled and ached, and the few strands of hair that escaped my ponytail were matted to my sweaty forehead. Definitely not my most attractive moment, but Luke had definitely seen me looking worse.

He leaned against the doorjamb, his eyes following me as I rose and fell, panting with the effort.

"I know you don't want to hear this, but you're pushing yourself too hard," he said.

"Don't...have a choice," I panted. A salty bead of sweat trickled down my face and into my mouth. "Rachel's...stronger than...me. Have to...level the playing field."

Luke moved into the room, concern shadowing his face. "Overdoing it won't help. You'll only hurt yourself."

A groan slipped from my throat as I pulled myself up again. My arms felt like they were about to snap, and the skin over my tortured muscles was damp and sticky.

"I'll...stop when this is...over."

If I could just keep going a little longer...If I could just get to the end of my routine...My sweat-slicked palms slipped on the bar and I fell.

Luke flashed across the room and caught me.

"Pushing yourself too hard is not going to help in the long run," he said. He lowered me to the floor, stroking the damp strands of hair off my face. I was so red in the cheeks that I probably looked like I had monster sunburn, but Luke still gazed at me as if I was the most beautiful thing in the world.

He ran his hands up my arms and it should have hurt considering how strained my muscles were, but the pressure of his fingers just felt wonderful.

"You're right," I sighed. "I know I'm overworking myself, but the tension of just hanging around waiting is driving me crazy."

Luke's hands carried on travelling up my arms, tracing the lines of my shoulders and gliding up my neck to cup my face. A different kind of heat suffused my cheeks.

"You know," he whispered, landing tiny kisses on my eyes, lips, and nose. "There are other ways we can get rid of that tension."

This was true but, sweaty, sticky, and red in the face, I'd never felt less sexy in my life.

Someone knocked on the front door and spared me having to explain that to Luke. He went to answer it while I headed into the kitchen to cool off. After chugging a glass of cold water, I started stretching out my muscles, feeling them pull and tighten. I'd be sore tomorrow.

Luke came into the kitchen with Samuel and Elena. One look at the seriousness in Samuel's eyes and the downcast expression on Elena's face, and I knew they didn't come with good news.

"You didn't find anything, did you?" I said.

"Not anything concrete, but a few people we know said they'd noticed a number of new vampires in town," Elena said.

"Do they know anything about them?"

She sighed. "As best we can tell, everyone's trying to keep their heads down. They know new vampires have come to Dalwick, but they don't want anything to do with them."

"Why not?"

"They're scared, Kiara," Samuel took over. "Everyone we know, almost everyone we spoke to said they can feel something coming, something big."

Chills raced across my skin. It was the same fear that I'd been harbouring – that Rachel's plans for Dalwick went far beyond killing me. I didn't know exactly what the vampire was planning, but killing me was just one cog in the machine she was trying to bring to life.

"Do they know what it is?" Luke asked.

Samuel shook his head. "People know that Rachel's here now, and they know she's killing humans. But no one wants to get involved."

Frustration clenched my jaw. "They can't all just hide and pretend that this isn't happening."

"Unfortunately they can," Samuel said.

Vampires were just as prone as humans to burying their heads in the sand when it came to situations they didn't like. But this situation involved them whether they wanted to admit it or not. Noah's team might have collapsed, but there were plenty of other hunters out there on the lookout for vampire activity. The minute they cottoned onto what were clearly vampire kills, they'd come sniffing around Dalwick. That put all local vampires in danger – both the ones I loved, and the ones who were trying to pretend that nothing was wrong.

"They have to help us," I said.

Elena spread her palms in a what-can-you-do gesture. "Sweetheart, we can't force them."

The way I was feeling right now, I wasn't so sure. Whatever Rachel was planning, it could have repercussions for all the Dalwick vampires, not just the ones connected to me. Forcing people to help wasn't something I'd normally consider, but my field of options was rapidly narrowing. Desperation was creeping up like a black cloud, spreading over my whole town, and for the first time it occurred to me – really occurred to me that whatever Rachel was planning, it might be too big for me to handle.

Another knock at the door stopped me from uttering sharp words. I cast an only slightly exasperated look at Luke. If this kept up, we might as well cut spare keys for everyone; it would save us constantly answering the door.

This time I went to get it.

Ava stood on the doorstep, her eyes tear-reddened and her hair rucked up like she'd been dragging her fingers through it. Clara stood beside her, her expression hard to read.

My heart plummeted, fear slicing through me. "What's wrong? What's happened?"

"It's Noah," Ava sobbed. "He's been kidnapped."