Whynn had honestly expected to pass out the first night she spent in Eden.

It was a relatively safe area (much safer than their last place). Unlike last time, she shared a room with Layla, which wasn't a room, it was a cell with sheets hanging over the bars. But she had a mattress.

She was safe, and there were others, and she was exhausted. But restfulness was just not in her cards.

Instead, Eysjah sat on her cot, fingers on her temples, drenched in a cold sweat around midnight.

None of this makes sense.

Layla rolled over and stared at Eysjah from the bed on the other side of the cell. "What's the matter?" She yawned.

"I just don't see how it's possible," Whynn whispered.

Boy, if that isn't the understatement of the century.

"What? About the Trepids?"

"I don't get that either. But no, it's not just that," Whynn stood up and started to pace. "The electricity was out. We didn't have power. And yet we called for help,"

"You made a charger remember?" Layla replied. She groggily rolled back towards the wall and pulled the scratchy blanket back up to her neck.

"That only fixed the phone problem. Without power, there's no way we could've gone onto social media. That requires internet, and internet would have been the first thing to go,"

"Maybe the spirit was, like, emitting internet,"

Whynn raised her eyebrows and turned to face her roommate. "Do what?"

"I don't know, just go to bed,"

"You're the ghost expert. Do you believe that?"

"Spirits," came the delayed correction, "Spirit expert," followed almost immediately by a ground-shaking snore.

But Eysjah was unconvinced. There was something weird about the Harrison residence. And maybe she wasn't the only one to notice.

She grabbed her coat and walked out of the cell. Whynn didn't bother trying to be quiet, because if Layla wasn't waking up to her guttural sounds, the creak of the cell door wouldn't even make her flinch.

It was a long walk through the dank hallways of the Huntsville Unit, but Whynn didn't mind. It gave her time to think. About that house. About spirits and Trepids. About everything they'd lost. About Terrence.

Eysjah lifted the necklace out of her shirt and gazed at it, sadly.

It was hard to describe what happened between the two of them. Whynn had never really considered herself to be the dependent type, but maybe she was all along. Maybe it just takes the end of the world to see what it is that you're made of.

But something about Terrence made her dependent. On him. And as much as it broke her heart that he was gone, what shattered her was that he'd given up. That he looked around at everything he had left, including her, and decided that it wasn't enough.

And now he had no idea the wreckage he'd left behind.

Maybe he's a spirit now, roaming that house. His only company being the rest of the dead.

I wonder if he'd try and kill me if we met again.

"Put your hands above your head and let me see what you've got," a female voice snapped.

Eysjah tried to turn around and see who was yelling, but before she could turn fully, her glasses were swiped from her face, and across the concrete flooring.

"You can't see it, but I have a gun, so don't move," the woman spat. She audibly cocked the weapon for proof. "And give me everything you have,"

"All I have are the clothes I've got on," Whynn sneered in response, rolling her eyes. "Go hold up a grocery store, toots,"

The woman scanned her over. "Give me the necklace,"

Whynn clenched her jaw. "Over my dead body," she hissed. "I didn't make it this far, just to lose everything I have left to a bitch in a hallway,"

"You don't even have a choice. You can't see a damn thing,"

"Oh, but the rest of us can,"

There was a creak, followed by footsteps. One of the cellmates wandered out into the hall and approached the two. He was just a blur in Whynn's vision until the man placed her glasses back on her face.

She recognized him as the nameless teen from the debate. 306.

"So what, you're just going to swoop in and save the day?" The thief leveled her gun in his direction, but 306 simply rose his hands in surrender.

"I just came to level the playing field," he told her. "You two can fight it out now,"

She turned the gun back to Whynn. "The necklace,"

"Why?" Whynn wanted to know. "Sure, it's beautiful. Sterling silver. Probably worth a couple of hundred dollars. But dollars are worthless now, which makes this worthless to you as well,"

The girl seemed shocked and briefly hesitated. Whynn took this opportunity to take a nonchalant step forwards.

"I could have you arrested,"

"No, you can't. There aren't even laws here. I could do whatever I want,"

"Maybe not laws, but there are still morals," she informed the thief. "Why do you think a complete stranger came out to give me my glasses?"

"Well-"

"Because as long as there are still people, there will always be right and wrong. And there will always be people who know the difference,"

Whynn stepped close enough to grab the gun and toss it across the ground, but she didn't stop there. She kept coming, encouraging the unarmed assailant to take several steps backward.

"Laws were made just as much for your protection as mine, lady. This door swings both ways. Go ahead and take my stuff. But if you do, be warned: no law can stop me from hunting you down, and strangling you with my bare hands. There is no law to prevent me from taking that gun and shooting you in every non-vital area of your body so that I can watch you bleed to death in the most prolonged amount of time possible. No law will keep you safe from me,"

She dangled the chain in front of the speechless woman's face and waved it back and forth. "Do you still want it?"

Eysjah Whynn was short, and she was scrawny. But she was also dead serious.

The thief shook her head and backed far out of reach before turning on her heel and disappearing.

"I thought so," Whynn returned the necklace to her shirt and turned to face 306. "Thanks, I guess. But if she'd have shot me, you still weren't much help,"

306 shrugged. "I didn't do it for you. I did it because nobody deserves to get shot in the back. If they can't kill you when you're looking at them, they shouldn't kill you at all,"

"Really?" Whynn rose an eyebrow. "How about: you shouldn't kill people anyway?"

He merely shrugged again. Then he returned to his cell, tossing one last reminder over his shoulder: "The world is different now,"

He's not wrong.

Whynn made her way deeper into the belly of the prison, in search of the one person she knew would never miss a detail.

"I thought you might show up," Adam announced before she'd even stepped into his cell.

"Why?" Whynn asked, addressing his back.

Adam pocketed his knife and turned to face the bed. The side of his face was as much as Whynn could see, but she could tell he was pondering. And probably had been for some time already.

"Because you're too smart to leave good enough alone," he replied slowly.

"Things just don't add up,"

"That wasn't a judgment. I'm the same way,"

"I think, with a mix of desperation and..." Whynn lowered herself down onto Adam's cot. "Terrence... there were things I didn't notice in the heat of the moment,"

"The internet,"

"Yeah. Layla thinks the spirits are emitting WiFi,"

Adam glanced up, drug from his thoughts by the absurdity of his friend's claim. "She does?"

"No. I don't think she does. She probably just wanted me to shut up,"

Adam nodded and returned his gaze to the sheets.

"Mr. Harrison's house was at the top of a hill, in the middle of the woods. No other houses in sight. So it wasn't someone else's internet," Whynn reasoned aloud.

"There was a router in the house, I'm certain of it," Adam told her.

"But where?"

"That might never come to light. My question is: how? We lost power. If there was a router in the house, how did it still run, when we needed a nine volt to charge a cellphone?"

It sucks that I came here for answers, and all I'm being fed are more questions.

Adam glanced at her and smiled. "It doesn't matter anyway. We're out of that house now, we'll never see it again. So don't waste your time thinking about it,"

Whynn raised an eyebrow, skeptically. "Really?"

"Yes. We've got a new home now, Whynn," he insisted. "With new people. It's time to start thinking about the future, instead of the past now. Especially a future that has a higher chance of lasting more than two days,"

He could tell that Eysjah didn't buy it, but she stood up anyway. "Thanks,"

"No problem," he waved her goodnight and turned back to his bed. This time he made a show of stripping the blankets back.

But as soon as he heard Whynn's footsteps fade away, Adam stared at the wall again.

He was lying, of course. There wasn't just something wrong with that house, there was everything wrong with it.

The missing router, running on mysterious electricity. The fact that Griffin and Layla saw zombies at the house, hours before anyone else had noticed anything odd. Mr. Harrison's disappearing act. The location of the only ghost anyone had ever seen.

It was almost as if the apocalypse itself started at the Harrison residence.

There has to be a connection.

But it was not a connection that Eysjah needed to be awake all night, brooding over. Or brooding over it at all. She needed to be spending her time doing important things.

But without Emily anymore, he had nothing but time.

Adam lowered himself down onto the cot and closed his eyes. He could see her, in his mind. Better than a photograph.

He saw her every time he blinked. Heard her in everyone's voices. His heart would race when he saw someone new enter the room, thinking maybe she had escaped in some unfathomable way and found him.

If she did, Adam promised he would never question. He would not wonder, investigate, or try to solve the mystery of her vanishing act. He wouldn't care anymore. He'd just kiss her lips and her fingers. And he'd cry. Oh, he would sob.

But that's what a heart does to you. It gives you those unrealistic fantasies, provides you with all the crushing hope you can handle, and then adds some more.

And then it breaks when nothing comes of those dreams.

Hearts break themselves. And then they go right on hoping again.

Adam realized that he'd gotten his wish that day when he looked Mrs. Weatherby in the eye and wanted to be dumb. That's the day he grew a heart that enjoyed being the victim of its own homicide.

His heart fed him ridiculous fantasies until the point where he almost thought they might come true. Then the truth set in. Dreams built over days were dashed within seconds. Only to be built again. Like an anthill plagued by unending, unforgiving, rainstorms.

If Adam never met Emily, he wouldn't even remember her touch. Wouldn't even miss it. He almost regretted ever falling in love.

Almost...