Are you stupid? I hate the dumb ones. Can she have a different bed, away from mine?
It’s no big deal. Just the desert. Have you not seen a prickly pear before?
I shake my head. “I started linearly encoding my childhood memories when I was seven or eight, but I have some spotty recollection from before. The earliest is being in Paris, a small Human town north of The City. It was April, and I was . . . They estimated my age at about six. I was told that I wandered into the Child Services office with no idea how I got there.” My tone is always detached when I talk about this, because I never feel as though
I’m the one who went through it. “No one local knew me, not even when they expanded the radius of their search. I couldn’t remember my own name, and the nurses got tired of calling me ‘the girl.’ One of them named me Serena, after her mother, and . . . Well, it stuck. Two decades, and still going strong.”
“Sadly, not all of us can be named after the literal state of being in agony,” Misery says. Her grin pulls me back into the present.
I return her smile. “A missed opportunity. It pains me to admit how inflated my ego has become, but given the years of cloak-and-dagger surveillance, I assume Humans have thorough files on me.”
“There are none, Serena,” Juno says.
“Well, that’s certainly humbling.”
“We believe they were destroyed by Governor Davenport’s team.” She purses her lips. “That’s okay. For now, at least. If you recall anything else, give Lowe or me a call.”
“Or me.” Misery scowls. “Now that I think about it, Serena, send me your new phone number. So I can keep you updated on Sparkles’s bowel movements, as you requested.”
“I requested cute pictures. Please, stop sending cat turds.”
“Nah.” Her gaze flicks somewhere past my head. “I know it must be symptomatic of either overwork or severe depression, but I’m loving the shipwreck survivor with no access to blades look, Koen.”
I turn around so fast, I nearly pull a muscle. Koen is behind me, standing at the door.
“Be good, Vampyre,” he tells Misery, in that affectionate tone that he uses only with her and Ana. It should be at odds with his usual orneriness but somehow fits him like a glove. And sends odd pangs to my chest. I bet he does care, whether they like him or not.
“I’m never good,” Misery replies, and a beat later I hear the video call being shut down.
“How long have you been here?” I ask him.
He lifts a shoulder. Widens his arms. “What is time?”
“How much did you hear?”
“I don’t know. Everything?”
I frown. “Pretty sure being Alpha of this pack doesn’t give you a pass to eavesdrop on people.”
“Pretty sure being Alpha of this pack gives me a pass to run people through the paper shredder and make dinosaur-shaped nuggies out of what’s left.”
He may have just threatened to macerate me, but at least he’s funny about it. “You heard the plot twist, then?”
“Which one?”
“I might be part of your pack.” He stares, unreadable, until I continue. “We could be related. I could be your cousin.”
He scoffs, unimpressed. “You’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“I have a cousin. Looking at her does not feel like looking at you.”
I glance down, hot all of a sudden. Hang on. Am I flattered? None of what he just said could be construed as nice.
“Come on.” He directs me with his head. “We’re leaving.”
“For where? You’re not taking me back to the Southwest, right?” I ask as I rise.
“We’ll see.”
“Koen.” I hurry down the stairs after him. “You said that if I told you the truth, you’d go along with my plan.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.” I fist my hand in his flannel. It looks like yesterday’s, but green, and without Vampyre blood. “Please,” I say when he graces me with his gaze. He’s standing in my space. Or maybe I’m in his. “Let me come to the Den with you. For all we know, it’s where I was born.”
“You wanna be my cousin that bad, huh?”
I roll my eyes. “You know, being all secretive and mastermind- y is not really as charming as you- “
“Relax. I’m not taking you back to the Southwest.” He must know that I’m this close to hugging him, because he leans closer and orders, “Dial it down.”
“What?”
“That look- like I’m about to take you to the shelter to pick out a new kitten. It’s not going to be fun. I won’t put you up in another isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere.”
“Where are we going, then?”
“You said you want to be bait.” His smile is anything but pleased. “Time to put you on a hook, killer.”
“YOU NEED TO EAT,” HE SAYS ONCE THE CAR IS OUT OF THE driveway.
I stare up at the hemlock-spruces that line the road, nose pressed against the cool glass, and murmur, “I’m good.”
The thing about this place is: the farther north we push, the more beautiful it gets. Dramatic. A little mysterious. Lush and rich. I spot a million shades of green. Everything towers. Endless jutting trees, spongy moss, water flowing always, everywhere, vibrant and otherworldly and so alive, it makes me feel alive, too.
“You’re lots of things, and good is not one of them.”
I glance at Koen, who’s not unlike the landscape: outdoorsy and remote and moody. Wild and overcast. “Must be nice,” I muse.
“What?”
“Being you. Knowing everything.”
“It is, yeah,” he agrees.
“Any other unfulfilled strata in my pyramid of need that I should know about?”
“You’re sleep deprived. A little dehydrated. But the hunger is what concerns me the most.”
“I told you. My appetite has been- “
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