I suppose it stood to reason that, of the seven children at the heart of this awful matter, Ollie O'Brien was the most fearful. Ollie was the youngest of all of them, having only turned eleven in December. She was only in the grade she was because she'd been homeschooled by Florence Wilkins with Jared, Ginger, and Dexter before she'd started her time at Briargate. Her age compared to the others was not always obvious, but in this way it showed. Ollie O'Brien was so very afraid.

Ollie's brother Archie often said that she spent far too much time thinking. Ollie was generally inclined to agree with him. It was why she spent so much time dwelling on things she didn't want to dwell on. She couldn't help it. She noticed things others didn't, made connections many overlooked.

Sarah Benadine was bothering her now. Unbeknownst to her, she was thinking the same thing Clifford Dent was: it all began and ended with Sarah. She was certain there had to be some overarching connection between whoever wanted Sarah Benadine dead—and Shannon Malone, for that matter—and the creatures that had been causing the rest of the damage in town. And perhaps she was right. Either way, it was all that occupied her thoughts one afternoon after classes were done and she was waiting for her siblings to be done working with teachers. It was a Thursday, one of the days designated for gifted students to learn how to better control their gift. That included Ollie's brother and sisters, as well as everyone else she normally walked home with. Everyone but Ollie herself. She waited on the steps in the entry hall, nose buried in a book she could not focus on. She was too busy trying to find the connection she could not make.

She was about to be the closest thing to a witness to a murder that anyone that year had been since Angela Carson.

The entry hall was quiet; most students were with teachers and the pockets of non-gifted were in their dormitories or perhaps the library. Only two students had passed Ollie in the time she'd been in the hall. For all intents and purposes, she was alone. It was raining outside, hard and heavy, and the sound of raindrops was most of what Ollie heard. It was much like the day of Sarah Benadine's memorial: muggy and dark and ominous. Like an omen for what was coming.

Diane Merriweather had snuck into the dining hall without even Ollie O'Brien noticing.

The hour gifted students spent with their assigned teachers was approximately three-quarters of the way over when Ollie heard the scream. It was very faint, but it startled her nonetheless, so badly it nearly caused her to drop her book. She looked with anxious eyes towards the large wooden door that blocked the dining hall from her view. The scream had not been long, just a short burst of sound. For a moment, Ollie debated with herself whether she had heard anything at all. She knew she had.

Ollie set her book down on the steps and hesitantly got to her feet. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she padded her way to the door. It suddenly seemed beyond quiet; even her shoes on the marble floor made no sound. She expected more noise to come from the dining hall: a shout, a shriek, a laugh, anything. There was nothing. She put one hand on the door handle and paused, mustering all of her courage. Squeezing her eyes shut, she threw the door open with one mighty thrust.

When she opened her eyes once again, she at first thought the dining hall was unoccupied. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room—and once she was looking in the right place—she realized that that was not true.

With a moaning gasp, Ollie ran from the room.

***

Afterwards, Dexter, Ginger, Jared, and Caleb found her outside, sitting in the rain. The trees provided some cover, but not enough. She was slowly getting soaked. She had her arms wrapped around her knees and she was staring sightlessly off into the distance. There were water droplets in her hair and running down her face.

There was a crowd gathering outside the dining hall, despite Headmistress Lea and Professor Nadig's best efforts. It was hard to keep anything under wraps these days. Every staff member in the school had gathered in the dining hall, most of them only present to field students' questions and to keep anyone from seeing anything. That did not matter to Ollie O'Brien. She had already seen.

Headmistress Lea had been alone in her office when Ollie O'Brien practically kicked down the door. It was an unspoken rule that no one disturbed Lea without a good reason, and Ollie thought that this was just about the best reason there was. She was unable to form a single word; all she could manage was an urgent beckoning gesture before she ran off again.

Ollie did not enter the dining hall again. She merely pointed wordlessly at the door and let Headmistress Lea discover the scene for herself. Her hands had been shaking. She did not scream. She did not make a sound. Headmistress Lea had entered the dining hall alone.

Lea saw nearly the same thing Ollie O'Brien had shortly before. Immediately, she had to go about finding somewhere else for dinner to be had that night. Ollie looked in the dining hall only once more, and cold horror gripped her. Unable to stand there any longer, Ollie had run out into the rain. When Dexter, Ginger, Jared, and Caleb had gotten out of their hour of training, Jared had spotted Ollie's book on the staircase. When they saw Headmistress Lea, now accompanied by a cluster of other professors, duck into the dining hall, they knew something was wrong.

No one dared say it, but there is no doubt that the worst was feared. Ollie's siblings, also emerging from private instruction with teachers, had immediately joined the small but growing gaggle of students who were trying to figure out what Headmistress Lea was doing. All three of them looked pale and frightened.

It was pure chance that Dexter, Ginger, Jared, and Caleb went outside. It was the only place they hadn't looked. They found her there in the grass up against the side of the school, water turning her gray skirt black.

"Hey, Ollie," Jared said calmly, squatting down to get on her level. The water droplets on her face looked like tears, but it was only the rain.

"Hi," Ollie said, voice like the squeak of a mouse. She wouldn't look at him. She stared past him, out towards the canopy of trees that just blocked the view of the road. The cemetery was that way. She tried not to think of that.

"You scared us," Jared continued gently.

"Sorry," Ollie said. She fidgeted, pulling at her skirt with the tips of her fingers. She felt heavy; the rain was plastering her clothes to her skin, but that was not all it was. Oh no, that was not nearly all.

"You saw, didn't you?" Jared was watching her with concern. Ollie could feel his eyes boring holes into her head, his gaze probably making it all the way through to the other side. "Whatever's in the dining hall, you saw it."

After a long pause, Ollie nodded.

"What was it?" Dexter asked. He squatted down next to Jared, blocking off Ollie's view of the trees. She found herself staring at his throat.

Lightning lit up the sky, which had painted itself a dark purple. For the first time, Ollie looked her friends in the eyes.

"It's not gonna stop," she said. "It's never gonna stop. It's just gonna keep happening—they're gonna keep killing, and they'll never be satisfied. Not until someone stops them."

"Who, Ollie?" Ginger asked, sitting on the ground next to her and putting a hand on her arm. "You mean the vampires?"

"Yes—no—I don't know," Ollie said. Thunder boomed overhead. "Whatever started this, I mean. Whoever—whatever marked Sarah and marked Shannon. Whatever did that. They started this, I know they did." Her eyes were starting to sting, but she would not cry. She could not do that. "And it's not gonna end until someone else ends it."

She looked away from her friends again, down the grass, slick with rainwater. She couldn't locate the exact words she wanted to say. She'd been thinking too much, just like Archie would say. All her thoughts were flooding together; she couldn't string them into anything coherent. Not to say to anyone else, at least. She knew what mattered was whoever or whatever had marked Sarah and Shannon. She could feel it.

"Ollie, what happened in the dining hall?" Dexter asked.

Ollie looked up at him, sad green eyes dull and cloudy. "They got a first year. I don't know how—I didn't even see her go in there."

Diane Merriweather had been propped against the wall. A gory, jagged red line ran across her neck. Blood had spattered all over her blouse and into her dirty blonde curls. Her glassy eyes had been left open and her hands were folded in her lap, like she was praying. Above her body, terribly reminiscent of the scene with the cow head, was a message in the girl's own blood: Find us.

Worse than that: those words had not been there when Ollie had first discovered the body.

"The school's supposed to be safe," Ollie said. "Has it ever been safe?"

No one had an answer to give her. The rain carried on, lightning cracking and lighting the dark portrait of the horizon. Ollie could feel fear coiling like a spring in her gut; it made her feel like she was going to be sick.

"Who's that?" Caleb asked suddenly. He was peering down in the direction of the road. Five figures had broken through the tree line and were walking with purpose towards the school. Ollie felt a surge of panic before she realized she recognized them—three of them, anyway. Dr. William Kenfield was one; he walked rather detached from the other four, arms folded and expression moody. One of the women Ollie identified as his sister. And finally, the leader of the group was the President of the Administration himself, Howard Nesbitt. Ollie assumed the two she did not know worked for the Administration as well.

"They must be the police," Ginger said quietly.

"And the coroner," Ollie said. She watched Dr. Kenfield as the five people neared the school; his messy brown hair hung in his eyes, and he looked scruffy, like he hadn't shaved in a while.

"They got here fast," Dexter said under his breath as they neared.

"What are you kids doing out here in the rain?" Howard Nesbitt asked, noticing them as his group came to the door. He looked more closely at them. "Is that you, Ollie O'Brien?"

Ollie winced. She'd met Howard Nesbitt before; her parents did business with the Administration, so she happened to know a handful of the people who worked there. She'd been hoping Nesbitt wouldn't recognize her. She'd never liked him much.

"Yes, sir," she said, tugging on one rain soaked pigtail.

"Get inside," Nesbitt said. "What would your parents say?"

Howard Nesbitt did not linger to see if his command would be obeyed. He entered the school then, his group trailing behind him.

"We probably should go inside," Jared said. "Everyone's worried about you."

Ollie nodded hesitantly, getting to her feet. The others followed her example. She stared at the doorway to the school dubiously, feeling almost as if she went inside Diane Merriweather's body would have moved to the entry hall. Her friends went ahead of her and, taking a deep, shaking breath, she followed. Behind her, the trees swayed solemnly in the wind.

***

Ollie had to stay late to talk to Howard Nesbitt about what she'd seen and heard. Jared, Ginger, and Dexter, their siblings, and the Graces all went home; only Ollie's siblings stuck around to walk home with her. Nesbitt had been very hung up on why Ollie had run out of the school; Ollie felt rather like he was accusing her of something. Ollie was as direct with her answers as possible, stressing that the bloody message had not been there the first time she'd viewed the scene in the dining hall. Dr. Kenfield's sister and the two people Ollie didn't know—a man and a woman—listened in on what she had to say. She was dismissed when they thought they'd gotten all they could out of her.

It certainly wasn't safe to walk home in the thunderstorm, but that did not stop the O'Briens. They had no other choice besides waiting at the school until it blew over—if it ever did—something that did not appeal to Ollie in the least. The teachers would have stopped them for sure, but they were far too busy dealing with the dead body and everything that came with it. Not a single one of them even saw the O'Briens leave.

They managed to make it home without any of them getting electrocuted. They were soaked to the bone, however, but that seemed like a fair tradeoff. McKenzie House stood empty upon their arrival, as it always did, apart from Ollie's ginger cat. Ollie's parents were gone increasingly ever since Alfie had died. What used to last a few weeks—no more than a month—a handful of times a year had now become almost all the time, the only exceptions usually being birthdays, holidays, or special events. Ollie was not even sure what exactly they were doing, only that the Administration had asked them to do it. She supposed it was top secret, or something like that. Abraham and Eugenia never talked about it.

Ollie understood. There was work to be done. Especially now, with everything that had been happening. Of course, Ollie didn't know for sure if what her parents were doing had anything to do with all the awful things that had happened, but if she had to wager a guess, that would be it. Someone had to be doing something about it.

Eve came in with the mail, dumping a large, wet, cream-colored envelope on the kitchen table. Ollie recognized the look of it; it was the type of envelope her parents always sent them letters in. Her father's writing on the front, bleeding slightly from the rain, confirmed it. Eve drug her forefinger across the flap, tearing it open and pulling out four smaller envelopes, each with one of their names on it. Letters like these came every so often, Ollie's parents writing a note for each specific child. None of them ever responded; it was impossible to know if their response letter would find its way to their parents.

"Letters," Eve said, taking the one written for her. Em appeared from around the corner, looking disdainfully at the small pile.

"Great," she said. "Been hoping and praying they would send us something."

"Oh, knock it off," Eve said. Em picked up her envelope, holding it delicately between thumb and forefinger like it was something disgusting. She tore it open gracelessly and pulled out the letter inside, her eyes scanning the page for mere seconds before she crumpled it up and walked over to toss it in the trashcan. Seeming satisfied, she left the kitchen without another word.

"A bit dramatic, isn't she?" Archie said, taking his letter.

"Don't start, Archie, she'll just get mad at you," Eve warned.

"When isn't she mad at me?" Archie rolled his eyes and left the room, mumbling something about writing a speech. Archie O'Brien was his class's president and he'd been panicking for weeks about a speech he had to write for graduation. Ollie's parents had promised they'd be there.

"Here," Eve said, handing Ollie's letter to her. She looked at Ollie intently. Ollie shifted her feet. "Are you okay?"

Eve's voice was gentle. Ollie didn't like her intense gaze.

"Yeah. Fine," Ollie said, not looking Eve in the eye.

"All right," Eve said, nodding. She touched Ollie's soggy pigtails, pulling them in front of her body and smoothing them out. She put her hands on Ollie's shoulders and squeezed. "Don't think about it too much, okay?" An impossible task, and they both knew it. "If you want to talk you know where I am. I wouldn't go to Archie or Em. I don't think they'll be a lot of help."

Eve smiled like they were sharing a great secret.

"Yeah," Ollie said, gripping her damp letter with tense fingers. She smiled back at Eve, but it was half-hearted.

Eve let her go, and Ollie stood in the kitchen a while longer, looking at her letter, studying the familiar slant of her father's handwriting. The 'O' was always far bigger than the rest of the letters. It used to make her laugh when she was little. Eventually, she headed for her room, letter in hand.

Ollie found her cat curled up in her bed when she got up to her bedroom. The cat was nearly always referred to as Pumpkin even though her full name was Pumpkin Queen, something Ollie had been rather proud of coming up with three years ago when the kitten had appeared on their back porch. Em had mocked her relentlessly, but she hadn't minded. She knew Em snuck the cat treats at night when she thought no one would catch her.

Pumpkin looked up at her when she came in, blinking tired eyes and yawning. Ollie sat down on the bed next to her, scratching her behind the ears and looking at the letter in her lap. The envelope had begun to dry, leaving the paper crackly and slightly distorted. Inside was a note most likely written by her father that was light and peppy and carefully vague so as not to give away any details Ollie didn't need to know. She traced a finger around the sides. Pumpkin nuzzled into her side.

Sighing, Ollie got to her feet. Pumpkin sent a glare her way. Ollie walked to the foot of her bed and crouched down by the trunk positioned there. She unlatched the top and dropped the letter in, letting it join a stack of other letters written by her parents, unopened, untouched.

She rejoined Pumpkin on the bed and mused on Sarah Benadine and Shannon Malone and the link between them.

***

Thefirst time Ollie ever made a bet on one of Simon Warren and Jordan Beaumont'sfights that was completely correct was near the end of May, 1956. She won onedollar and twenty-seven cents. The next morning, when Shannon Malone showed upat school with dark bags under her eyes and announced that she wanted to findand kill the vampires for real this time, Ollie O'Brien was the leastsurprised.    

***We're nearing the end now, kiddos. I'm not sure when I'll be able to get out the last chapters. Hopefully soon, but I've been begging some people I know for weeks to finish reading this. I feel like my ending's really weak, and I don't want to post it before I have some good feedback. So we'll see. As always, thanks to everyone who voted and commented, I really appreciate it :)***