“Sometimes,” Valec says behind me, voice low. “Hunting and running blur together. You start out with a goal to chase down the bad thing, all good. But if you can’t catch it, you dial your own hunger up, let your instincts take over… then alla sudden you become the most deadly thing in the woods.”

I tip my head against the wall. Let the cicada song and the sky and the Southern accents soak into my bones. “You tryna tell me somethin’.”

“Naw,” he drawls. “Got a question though: You know why people hide things from people they care about?”

I startle at his shift in tone. “I—yes?”

“Example?”

I sigh into the darkness and turn around. “Before I knew Sel, I hid things from him. Other people too. I didn’t feel safe, or I thought other people could get hurt.”

“Ah.” He raises a finger. “There are many reasons to hide the truth from those you do not know. But when there is care between two people, and trust built, there is only one reason that lies continue: not fear of safety, but fear of judgment. Shame and guilt are powerful motivators. Not easily overcome.”

He’s right. I know he is. Sel feared what I would think of him, but… he should have never—

Valec is at my side in a blur, tugging an onyx handkerchief out of his breast pocket. He offers it to me silently. “I may not approve of his methods—I’m very open in my business, as you know—but I admit to sympathizing. There have been times when I wanted nothing else but to be unnoticed for the thing clawing at me from within. Violations of consent and trust to the front, of course—but it’s clear that he didn’t wish for you to see him this way.”

Valec’s handkerchief is soft and smells like old leather mixed with star anise. I dab it against the corner of one eye. “He doesn’t get to decide that.”

“No. He doesn’t.”

The both of us let that sit for a minute. I’m grateful for the silence. And the perspective.

Valec opens the screen door but turns back before he goes, jerking his chin way to the left of the house. “Walk about fifty feet in, that way. He’ll hear you comin’.”

The door spring squeals as it closes. I take a deep breath, then walk into the darkness to hunt the deadliest thing in the woods.

The wind picks up a bit as I walk deeper into the trees.

I don’t walk far. Don’t need to.

“Can we talk?” I say to the swaying trees, then wait.