Hardest thing he’d ever done? I thought bitterly, the entire right side of my body sticky with Peter’s blood. All he had done was hit me with a truck. I had held Peter while he died, knowing it was wrong but the only thing that would be right.

“The remote doesn’t work, Nick,” I said shortly, watching for his tells. “You know anything about that?”

Eyes wide in an emotion I couldn’t read, he looked at my bag, telling me he’d seen me put the remote in it. “What do you mean, it doesn’t work? It’s got to work!”

He reached for it, and I grunted when Jenks yanked me back. My sneakers fumbled for purchase on the metal mesh. In a blink Ivy was between us. The nearby people were getting nervous—thinking we were going to take justice into our own hands—and the Weres watched, evaluating whether this was a scam or a real accident. Peter’s body was lying on the pavement, looking like Nick. Someone had covered him with a coat, and a part of me hunched into itself and cried.

“Don’t touch me,” I all but hissed, hurting but ready to slug Nick. “You did this, didn’t you? You think you’re going to get that empty artifact and sell it to them. You’ll be in hiding, so they’ll come after me when they find out it’s not real. It’s not going to happen. I won’t let you. This is my life you’re screwing over, not just yours.”

Nick shook his head. “That’s not it. You’ve got to believe me, Ray-ray.”

Shaking from adrenaline, I turned sideways. I didn’t like having my back to the truck with the empty focus in it. Ivy had been watching it—along with Nick—but there were too many Weres lurking as accident witnesses for my liking. “Have a good life, Nick,” I said. “Don’t include me in it.” Ivy and Jenks flanked me, and we walked away. What was I going to do?

“I hope you’re happy as Ivy’s shadow,” he said loudly, his voice full of a vitriolic hatred that he’d probably been denying since Ivy first asked me to be her scion.

I turned, my bandaged hand atop my neck hiding my stitches. “We aren’t…I’m not—” He had just blown our cover. Son of a bitch…

Three official-looking cars pulled up using the unopened northbound lane, their rear-window lights flashing amber and blue: two FIB, one I.S. The truck wasn’t burning yet. Shit on crap, could it get any worse?

Looking like himself even with the disguise, Nick slumped against the panel of the white Mack truck and held his bleeding knee. His mocking gaze flicked to the cars behind us, their doors slamming shut and loud orders being given to secure the vehicle and get the rubberneckers moving. Three officers headed for us.

“You’re rat piss,” Jenks said suddenly to Nick. “No, you’re the guy who puts rat piss on his breakfast cereal. We save your worthless human ass, and this is how you thank her? If you come back, I’ll kill you myself. You’re a foul pile of fairy crap that won’t grow stones.”