“You killed him,” Bria surmised.

“Well…” I paused, remembering the fuming words Will’s spirit had spewed after being booted from his body for the second time. Kieran hadn’t even been able to shut him up. I’d had to shove him across the Line for some peace. “Yeah, but…”

“No, she didn’t,” Mordecai finally said as Daisy walked in with a ponytail on top of her head and a black exercise outfit. “I killed him. Alexis wouldn’t have done any of that if not for me.” His tone was bleaker than Green deserved.

“Well, yeah, but…” I squinted my eyes, thinking of a rebuttal he would buy.

“He killed himself,” Daisy said, opening the fridge door and staring into its depths.

“Oh my God, if I have to—”

“Grab and go,” Mordecai said over me urgently. “She’s in a bad mood.”

Daisy snatched out the orange juice container and slammed the fridge door.

“Apparently we’re not supposed to drink out of the carton anymore, either,” Bria said dryly, and rolled her eyes.

Daisy looked at Bria for a long beat, glanced at the orange juice carton in her hand, and then put the OJ back in the fridge. Smart girl that she was, she’d realized Bria’s backwash was probably in all of the cartons. She grabbed a glass and went to the faucet instead.

“He killed himself,” Daisy repeated, firmly entrenched in her fifty-year-old persona. She turned and leaned against the counter as Bria rolled a blackened hotdog off the grill. “He wrote his own death sentence the day he murdered Mordie’s parents. His pack should’ve taken him down long before now. And what is it Jack always tells you?” Daisy pointed at Mordecai, who was back to staring blankly. “If someone from one pack challenges a weaker member of another pack, the leader of the challenged pack can step in. Right?”

“The girl listens, I’ll give her that.” Bria nodded as she tore open a new package of hot dogs.

“I have to.” Daisy slurped down half her water before continuing. “I don’t have any magic. I need to figure out how magical people operate, learn their handicaps, and figure out the best time to attack. Jack has to repeat himself so often that it’s pretty easy to get shifter info.”

Mordecai’s brows lowered. “I need to write stuff down, you know that! He never tells me these things when I have a pen and paper on me.”

She put her hands out. “You’re a bodily learner, like most shifters, and I’m an auditory learner, like most awesome people. I’m not complaining. Your blockhead helps me out.” She raised her glass to him. “Cheers.”

The shining moment of sibling love had been nice while it lasted.

“I’m technically in his pack, though,” Mordecai said.

“Firstly…” Daisy gulped down the rest of her water. Rivulets ran down her chin and dripped onto the floor. My ire rose. “You weren’t in his pack because he tossed you out for dead. He exiled you. You would’ve had to fight to get back in. According to shifter code, or standards, or whatever, you were no longer part of that pack, the magical governing body’s paperwork be damned.”

“That sounds like Jack,” Bria said, rolling darkly scored hot dogs.

Daisy turned to refill her glass. “He said it when he was loading unconscious bodies into the van earlier.”

“Is that what he was muttering?” Bria pulled over a bag of buns. “You listen really closely.”

“To their every word, yeah. The Six are really powerful. Learning their secrets and weaknesses will put me above most of my competitors. Anyway, being that Alexis took him in, he was actually a part of Alexis’s pack, and she had the right to accept the challenge. But, if we go a step further, Kieran accepted Alexis as his beta—”

“What’s this now?” I asked.

Bria half turned and waved her BBQ fork in the air. “The mark he put on you. Some people would say it makes you co-ruler, but a Demigod will always rank higher than you. Which is why I said, in the very beginning, don’t get involved. Remember that, when I first met you? I said don’t get involved, and now look, you’ll always be second best.”

Mordecai huffed out laughter as he stared down into his nearly empty glass of milk.

“She’s in a more powerful position,” Daisy said with a smirk. “He gets all the attention, and she gets all the time in the world to stick a knife in someone’s ribs.”

“Wow.” I dropped my face into my hands again. “What has become of my sweet family?”

“As the beta to Kieran’s pack, that makes Kieran ultimately responsible for Green’s death.” Daisy put her glass of water on the counter. “Regardless, Green was the one who picked the fight. So you see, Mordie? You are doubly, or even triply, not responsible for this. But if you were… dude. Take it and run! That will really up your shifter points.”

“I agree. You’ll need to challenge into or create your own pack someday.” Bria ripped open the bun bag. “It’s time to harden up. Shifters aren’t a soft group of people.”

Mordecai slumped his shoulders. “I won’t lie—I’ll lose sleep over this, but… I know it wasn’t wrong. He killed my parents, threatened my new family, and he threatened me… He couldn’t have been a good leader. His days were numbered. I get that. It’s just…”

“You haven’t seen death before.” Bria nodded. “It’s jarring. Just think how it is for me—I deal in death all the time.”

“And look how you turned out,” Daisy said.

“Exactly.” Bria lifted her hands in triumph, missing Daisy’s point.

“It’s not really death, as you think of it,” I said as I heard the front door open. “He’s still alive, it’s just that he doesn’t have a body.”

“No, thank you.” Daisy showed me her palm. “That’s creepy, Lexi. I don’t like hearing about that stuff.”

“It’s comforting!”

Both kids shook their heads.

“Eh.” Bria rolled a few more blackened dogs off the grill. “Kids these days. Too soft, if you ask me. Here’s a joke: what did the spirit say to the other spirit?”

“Stop,” Daisy said, shaking her head.

“Mooove over. No, wait…” Bria looked upward. “That was the cow. What did the spirit say to the other spirit?”

“What’s for dinner?” Jack sauntered in with Thane and Boman at his back. Crimson stained their shirts and fresh scrapes marred their bare arms.

“What happened?” I pointed at the red splattered across the dirty white fabric.

Jack looked down. “Oh, that. Yeah, you drove a few of them nuts, and Kieran only made it worse. When they woke up…” He made a circle at his temple with his pointer finger.

“It was crazy town.” Thane rolled his shoulders. “A whole bunch made it through, though. You didn’t drive them all crazy.” He winked at me.

The front door opened and closed again, more of the guys coming in. I could sense Kieran, miles away, swimming in the sea. He was re-energizing in a way I wished I could.

“See there?” Bria pointed at the guys with her BBQ fork. “See what you’ll turn into, Mordecai? Hardcore.”

“That’s not helping,” Daisy mumbled, tucking her glass into the dishwasher and slipping to Mordecai’s side. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “This was all Green’s fault, Mordie.”

“Nah, it was her fault.” Boman pointed at me with a giant, glittering smile. The man was a looker when he rolled that smile out. “The secret weapon.”

I frowned at him, but for the life of me, I didn’t feel remorse. Couldn’t. That crew had been there to kill a fifteen-year-old boy. They didn’t deserve remorse, nor would they get it from me.

“Nah, it was Green’s fault,” Jack said, stretching his hugely muscled arms out in the suddenly much smaller space between the table and the island. “All of this was his fault. He was twisted, and he accumulated a group of thugs who liked sick shit. They were half mad already—Alexis and Kieran just pushed them over the edge. That whole crew needed to be handed their hats. I wish I could’ve played a bigger part in it.”

“I’m sure Daisy wishes you had.” Donovan’s nose crinkled as he laughed. He’d just filed into the kitchen behind the others with Zorn and Henry at his back. “She was a one woman show, turning people away and shutting down gossip. How did you get that woman to give you her phone so you could erase the video?” He leaned across the island, grinning at her. “I thought for sure we’d have to knock her down and steal her shit.”

“A little too hardcore,” Bria muttered, her back to the room as she worked.

“Yeah. I’ve never seen a person change personalities so many times in the space of twenty minutes.” Boman peeled off his dirty shirt and tossed it into the corner. That was a habit that’d be short-lived, just as soon as I could work up the energy to yell at him. “That was a handy skill.”

“You have to know how to talk to people to get what you want.” Daisy shrugged, seemingly nonchalant, but her cheeks were noticeably red.

“That is just one of her many handy skills,” Zorn said quietly, drifting to the corner of the room.

“Zorn is tired of everyone praising Mordecai, and not his pupil.” Bria laughed as Jack joined her.

“What the…” Jack stepped back, outrage on his face. He gestured at the stove. “What the hell is this?”

Bria pushed a charcoal-encrusted bun off the grill. She flung another after it. “Dinner,” she said without looking up.

“Dinner?” Jack motioned Donovan in for a look.

“No.” Donovan looked over her shoulder, his good mood vanishing. “That’s dog food.”