Murhder’s brows crashed down over his eyes. “Protect you? Like an ahstrux nohtrum?”

“I’m not sure what that is.”

“It’s a bodyguard with a lifetime contract.” Murhder put his palm out and waved it like he was erasing a bad idea on a whiteboard. “And no offense to your buddy—he’s a perfectly fine young male—but he’s not exactly tip-of-the-spear material, if you know what I mean. I’d pick a good Doberman pinscher over him any night if I was worried about your safety.”

“Oh.” Nate got up and went to the dishwasher with his plate and mug. “Okay.”

“What’s going on, son.”

Not a question. And Nate trusted the male. How could he not? But . . .

“Nothing.” He put his used stuff in with the other dirty dishes. “Shuli was just being weird—”

As Nate straightened and went to turn around, Murhder was right there.

“Talk to me,” the Brother said.

“It was really nothing. We were out at the site, working on the garage—when that bright light thing happened.”

“The meteorite that’s on the news.”

“Yeah. Well, we went to see the hole, and as we were, you know, closing in on the pit thingy, Shuli”—Nate edited out the gun part—“made this comment about how he was supposed to protect me.”

“That shit did not come from us.”

“Guess he was just being—”

“What kind of a weapon did he have on him.” Murhder’s stare was as direct as a baseball bat over the shoulder. “And don’t lie. I can see it in your face.”

“It was nothing.” Three. Two. One . . . “It was a handgun, but he—”

“Jesus Christ,” Murhder snapped. “What the hell is he doing with a piece? Is he properly trained? Of course not. So he’s either going to shoot you in the head or castrate himself—”

“No, no, listen, it’s not a big deal—”

“Any gun in the hands of someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing with it is a very big deal.”

“I don’t want him to get in trouble. Look, let’s just forget it—”

“There’s no forgetting this.”

Nate raised his voice. “It’s not your business!”

“When it has to do with your safety, you bet your ass it is!”

At that moment, the shutters started lifting from all the windows, and the cellar door opened wide. Sarah, Murhder’s shellan, Nate’s mom, stuck her head out. She was already in her white coat and scrubs to go work in her lab, her streaky brown hair pulled back, a set of clear plastic eye protectors hanging off a front pocket.

Her tentative expression suggested she was thinking about putting the safety equipment on right then and there. “Everything okay here, boys?”

“Fine.”

“Yes.”

When Nate realized he and his dad had both crossed their arms over their chests, he dropped his hands and headed for the sliding glass door.

“I’m late for work.”

“No,” Murhder muttered. “You’re not. You still have half an hour.”

Nate didn’t dignify that with a response. He just pulled open the slider and slipped out into the night. Even though he was lit, he still managed to dematerialize off the property, and it was a relief to re-form at work, off to the side of the garage.

He didn’t go inside, even though things had already been unlocked and people were moving big lumps of furniture out of a U-Haul truck that was parked right by the front door. Ducking off into the side yard, he hurried away until he was sure no one could see him.

Getting a jump start on the last bit of painting in the garage had never been the point of coming early. Instead, he headed for the fence line, pulling another over and under with its rails and striding off across the field. As he walked, he replayed the confrontation with his father.

And felt like an asshole.

After which he got frustrated with Shuli and all his shoot-’em-up bullshit.

As he approached the tree line of the forest, he breathed in, partially to calm himself and partially because he was a simp looking for a sign. Unlike the night before, there wasn’t even a trace of that burned-metal smell. No steam, either. And no people. Vampires. Whatever.

Ducking under a branch, he pushed another out of the way—and walked into a third with a curse. Then there were ground obstacles to surmount, step over, go around. He felt like Godzilla wrecking a stage set with all the noise he was making.

The meteorite’s landing pit appeared right where it had been the night before, and it looked exactly the same. But like the thing was a snowbank that was going to melt after hours of being in the sunlight?

At the lip of the impact site, he stared down into the three-foot-deep hole in the earth. Everything was scored from heat, the fallen pine needles and ground scruff burned away, the earth blackened inside the carve-out. Standing this close, he could catch a whiff of the burn-off still, though it was faint.

Where had the meteorite gone? Had it imploded on impact?

Looking up, he searched the sky overhead. So many stars . . . and he had a thought that maybe Earth was like a target at a county fair, celestial beings holding corn dogs aiming things at the glowing blue marble in hopes of winning a stuffed animal.

When that hypothetical made him worry about the mass-extinction event that knocked off the dinosaurs, he searched the trunks and branches of the forest. And the longer he tried to find what was not there, the more he was able to picture the female from the night before, that blond hair, the hooded coat, the darting eyes—

The snap of the stick behind him had him spinning around.

For a moment, he didn’t think what he was seeing was real. He just figured his brain had coughed up a three-dimensional version of what he’d been dreaming of all day long. But then he caught the scent.

Her scent.

And as the complex interplay of absolutely-wonderful entered his nose, he felt transported even though his body never moved.

“It’s you,” he whispered with wonder.

Upstairs, on the second floor of the little cottage, Sahvage went back to the guest room that faced out front. Lifting up the panels he’d just shut, he peered out at the overgrown yard. With the lights off behind him, he was able to see the night clearly through the old, bubbly glass panes.

Nothing was moving. Not around the maple tree. Down the lane. Through the brambles and the tangled veins.

Bending low, he tried to see if the stars—

They were back out. Like a storm had come through and passed by.

He thought of that shadow entity and knew in his bones what was going on—yet he wanted to deny it. After all these years, he had thought that that part of his life was over. Done with. Never to cross the path of his destiny again.

Sahvage rubbed his face. He didn’t want to think about the past. Revisiting that shit in his mind was not the kind of stroll down memory lane he was looking to take—

“Are you okay?”

The words, softly spoken behind him, made him want to jump. But he caught himself and turned around smoothly to face the female who was like a bad penny to him.

Then again, he was the idiot who’d shown up on her front doorstep, so who was the evil one cent’er, here? And even though she no doubt would have been offended, he couldn’t stop from checking to make sure she wasn’t hurt. Again. But nothing appeared injured: She wasn’t limping and he couldn’t smell any blood.