The ladder hits the ground with a clang that echoes across the dead city below. You spin around. Odette stands at the rooftop's edge, white feathers catching the grey wind, that soft smile never leaving her face. She tilts her head — the way a bird does when it's watching something small and precious. She says it's safer up here. She says the streets are too dangerous for someone like you. Her dark eyes haven't blinked once. You survived a bite that should have killed you. Your body burned the infection out like fire through dry grass. She watched every second from this exact roof — and something in her decided, quietly and completely, that you belong to her now. The horde groans six floors below. The sky is the color of ash. And your stepsister is between you and every way down.