Page 31

We sat next to each other for a while. Down by the barn the flashlight beam swung and steadied and swung again. Somebody was still working.

"Amber's going to kill me," I said.

"Amber's packing you food."

"She's not."

"She's been in that pantry twenty minutes already." He shrugged one shoulder. "She told me to go out and say my piece first. So it wouldn't have to be you asking permission for something we all know needs to be done."

I didn't have anything to say to that. I found a splinter on the edge of the step and worked at it with my thumbnail until it came up. It wedged itself under my nail and blood trickled from the hole it made in my skin. I kept my eyes on that instead.

"I'll take just River with me," I said, when I knew my voice wouldn't break. "Not Sissily. Not Ace. None of your people."

"Why River of all people?"

"Because whoever's inside can report every single person who walks out that gate with me." The splinter came free. "And River hasn't got a file anywhere anymore. Nobody knows what he is now. Council doesn't. Coven doesn't. Your pack doesn't."

Alex nodded slowly, two or three times, the way you nod at something you've already thought of and were hoping not to discuss out loud.

He didn't say anything about whether it was a good reason or a good idea to take Blackman. He sat there with his hands hanging loose and gazed at the yard with a faraway look. After a while he peered at me sideways. "You'll call every chance you can. Not text. Call."

"I'll call." The promise slipped through my lips before I could stop it.

"Every day."

"Alex."

"Every day, Hazel."

"Fine."

We left at six AM in the beater truck from the equipment barn.

Amber came out with a paper bag and put it on my lap through the window before I could say anything about it. She held my face in both hands for a second, and told me the sandwiches were on the top and not to squash them. Her eyes were red. She'd put on lipstick at some point in the last hour, which told me more about the state of her than crying would have. Amber always looked her best when she was a total mess inside.

Sissily hugged me hard enough that my shoulder screamed but I didn't say a word about it. She held the back of my head with both hands, the way she has since we were four and she was worried she would never see me again. Then she whispered something in my ear that made my heart skip a beat. Our eyes locked for a second before she turned around and walked away.

Jack was supposed to be in bed. Jack was hanging over the porch rail in a t-shirt and a bandage the size of a bedsheet, yelling that I still smelled like his dad's truck, until Stella came out and hauled him back inside by the collar with an apology I waved off.

Ace stayed at the gate. When I poked my head around to look at him, he lifted two fingers off the rail without getting up. The same lazy wave the guards used to give before anybody thought to put an electric motor on the thing. Then he turned around and faced the road, and that was that.

Alex shut my door for me. He had never once done that.

"Thursday," he said through the window.

"Thursday."

"Hazel." He leaned down, one forearm on the sill. "Whatever you find out about him. Your father. You've always got a room here and that's not…" He stopped. Blew out a breath. "That's not conditional. On anything. Okay?"

I nodded, because my throat had closed, and I put the truck in gear before he could see the tears burning the back of my eyes roll down my cheeks.

We got about three miles down the county road with the heater roaring and the sun coming up orange over somebody's corn field before River said a word. He'd spent the whole time sitting very still with his knees against the dash.

"You can cry in front of me." He mumbled it, obviously uncomfortable with the situation.

"Absolutely not."

"I'm only saying."