“You’re going to talk to Grandpa Grayfoot himself? He’s an even bigger psycho than Angie. This is a guy who had a hundred people killed in one night!”

“Not him. When Anathea died, he was cut off from the darklings. He’s probably panicking too.”

“So who else is left, Rex?”

He reached out and let his fingers stray across her lips again. She felt them glide across the sticky trickle of blood, tugging at the wounded skin beneath. Then an appalling thought drifted into her mind from his. She saw the desert, the light cool and flat and blue….

“No,” she said.

“They know what’s going on. You said so yourself.”

“They’ll eat you, Rex.”

He shook his head slowly. “Wolves don’t eat other wolves.”

“Um, Rex?” She cleared her throat. “Maybe you’re right. But I’m pretty sure that wolves do kill other wolves.”

“Hmm, good point.” He took a breath. “But you felt what happened last night. It talked to me.”

She shuddered, recalling the images that had come from Rex’s mind during their kiss—that huge spider practically doing the two-step with him, like they were old friends. The taste of its forelegs in their sinuous salute was still in her mouth. “That was one darkling, Rex. You’re talking about the deep desert. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds. We don’t even know how many.”

“I haven’t decided yet, okay?”

She looked out at the sliver of dark moon on the horizon, checking for winged shapes against it. When Rex had first suggested coming out here tonight without Jessica, she’d wondered if it was a good idea. They’d faced darklings on their own together, but this place had drawn huge clouds of slithers, and the taste of old minds lingered here.

But during their kiss Melissa had realized that she was safe here with Rex. Safe from darklings, anyway. He had become as much one of them as he was human.

Suddenly something odd caught her eye—a few leaves were falling near the tracks, giving off a soft red glow that looked completely strange here in the blue time. It was the rip, the sliver of unfrozen time. It must have been there that Cassie Flinders had been standing the morning before.

Melissa sighed. They had to deal with that girl tonight, not sit around talking. “Okay, Rex, maybe you really can talk to darklings. But tell me before you do anything.”

He laughed. “Think you can change my mind?”

“I’d never do that to you, Rex.”

“Do you swear, Cowgirl? No more of that, on me or anyone else, unless I’m there.”

“Absolutely.”

He took her hand, and Melissa let the surety of her promise flow into him. Whatever Rex was turning into, whatever crazy risks he decided to take, she would never twist or change a single thought in his brain…

Not even to save your life.

They crossed the tracks, pausing to look at the rip in the blue time. A red glimmer ran along its boundaries. It was about the size of an eighteen-wheeler now, much bigger than when Cassie had stepped through while her grandmother, only a few yards away, had remained frozen. The leaves from two trees caught within it were drifting down.