But I am the local legend. Unfortunately, not in a good way.

“Hey, Zoey. Somebody call you? Might be a wee bit pree-mah-chure.” Bubba’s thick fingers are held a scant inch apart, and the word has three syllables, the way it should, but it’s longer than it should be by at least a solid two seconds. “Silas is still breathing.”

Bubba points to an old guy at the end of the bar who’s eyeballing me through squinted, glassy slits like I’m the Angel of Death come to take him away. “But if you hang out, you might get lucky.”

Beside me, Blake stiffens. Not in his pants, though to be honest, I can’t tell since I’m not looking at his crotch. But he’s not used to this, and it seems like he’s about to come to my defense again, the way he did about Alver. It’s kinda sweet, in a white knight sort of way. But not needed. I’m no damsel, and it takes a lot more than Bubba being a smartass to distress me.

I smile like Bubba’s being funny and his greeting isn’t the exact reason I hate coming in here. Maybe that’s where Jacob gets that particular coping mechanism from?

I point at my eyes with V-ed fingers and then to Silas, communicating that I’m watching him. “Should I save you a drawer?”

Silas jerks, spilling his beer over his hand and on the bar, making everyone bust out in laughter at his expense. “That shit ain’t funny, Zoey Walker.”

I laugh lightly. “It kinda was.” Silas wiggles on his barstool like ants are marching their way up and down his spine and into his pants. “Someone walking over your grave, Silas House?”

I don’t know why people call me by my full name sometimes—distance, I suppose—but I like to do it back. They take it as though I’m double-checking my list like Santa and marking them off. The question is . . . am I marking them off as okay or as soon to appear in my morgue?

Everyone seems to think I know. Like I’m some walking, talking Magic Eight Ball that can do a somersault and tell them signs point to yes or better not tell you now.

I don’t have any more insight than they do, but I gave up on convincing people of that long ago and settled into my role in this small, tight-knit community out here in Williamson County. I’m the outsider, no matter that I mostly grew up here, and the unwanted, no matter that I do what no one else wants to.

“Two beers, please, Bubba,” I tell the man who’s scooted way down the bar as far away from me as possible. He nods his head toward Silas, eyes questioning. I sigh, knowing the peace it’ll bring is worth a lot more than two bucks. “Fine. Three.”

Even though I’m doing something nice to make up for the half-glass of beer Silas spilled, which wasn’t even my fault, he balks. “Is that a trick? Or some sort of apology before the fact?”

I give Silas my most psychic medium stare, vacantly looking through him rather than at him, and make my voice flat and otherworldly. “Silas House, you need to drink your beer and let someone else drive you home. Do this and you’ll live to see another sunrise.”

The whole room has gone dead silent, and yes, that’s sarcasm. They’re definitely quiet as church mice, but if I had to guess, the average heart rate of the room is somewhere around that shock you get when you startle awake in the middle of the night from a bad dream and think there’s a demon standing in the corner of the room, so no one’s dead. Yet.

“Yes, ma’am. Will do,” Silas answers before chugging the fresh beer Bubba sets in front of him. He’s still swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand when he asks, “Who can give me a lift?”

On any usual weekday night at shortly after six, he’d have zero takers. These people just got off work and are looking for a night of relaxation and stress relief from a day of hard labor.

But this isn’t a usual night. I’m here, so no fewer than six hands shoot up in the air.

“I got you, Silas. I need to get outta here, anyway,” Mack says, chugging his own beer. He looks clear-eyed and wary of me as he gives a wide berth to get around me and to the door. That’s saying something too since Mack is short for Mack Truck, and to go around me, he has to push a table and four chairs out of the way with his overall-covered ass.

I stay perfectly still, not risking any movement being seen as a threat, until Mack and Silas are out the door, with two more people following them. I keep my face straight and my lips shut, not showing that it affects me at all even though it hurts like ripping open a freshly stitched wound.

Only after nobody moves for a bit do I step forward, Blake following me to a booth in the back. It’s the one Bubba asked me to sit at when Holly first started dragging me here. It keeps me out of the line of sight from newcomers, though I’m always the first topic of conversation when someone comes in so I’m not sure it works.

We sit, and I prepare for the questions I know are coming. Or maybe, if he’s as smart as he seems, for him to make a run for the door too.

Before we can say anything, one more customer heads out the door. I try to keep track so I can make up the tips Bubba loses when I come in. It seems like the least I can do. But no questions come . . . at least not from Blake, though my brain is firing them off at rapid speed.

Why is he doing this?

How is he sitting there cool as a cucumber and not sprinting toward the door? Does he have zero sense of self-preservation?

Why did I agree to this without Holly to run interference the way she usually does?