A quality I also admire in Warner.

Don’t think about him.

“He called me to ask more about The Dark Moon Riders.”

At the mention of Warner’s club, I can’t keep still anymore. What I said to him, what I did to us, is still too fresh. So, I stand. And I pace.

My ankle throbs with each step, but I deserve the pain.

“Did you tell him …”

“No. That’s not something your brothers need to know about.”

“It is if they keep trying to fight them!” The old floorboards creak under my agitated feet. “So? What new insights did you hand out?” Turns out, I’m still smarting from her keeping me in the dark.

“I didn’t.” She watches me move, and I feel like an injured field mouse avoiding the attention of a hawk. “I asked him to tell me what he’d learned. He told me about Warner.”

When she says his name, I try not to flinch. I fail.

“He talked about a biker who follows his baby sister around like a puppy. A man who looked ready to commit murder when he found out you’d been hurt. A man who makes you throw glitter and who you moon over like he’s a block of cheese.” A reluctant smile forms on my mouth at her description, but she’s not done. “A guy who seems to expect you to stay in Pine Falls for longer than just the month or so it should take you to sell this place.”

This time, I’m able to stifle my flinch, but just barely.

“Well, you don’t need to worry about that. I just told him I can’t stay.”

“Why not?”

I almost trip, her words a slippery banana peel in my path.

“What do you mean, why not? You want me to move to Pine Falls?”

“I’d never claim to want that. But children move away from their families all the time. Across the country. Across the world. It’s not like you’d be the first.”

The idea sounds so reasonable when she says it.

Still, I shake my head.

“Maybe that works for some people. But you know how I get. How different I am from you all.”

She scrunches her nose. “You all? What does that mean?”

“Come on, Mom. I’m the introverted black sheep in the family. You all seek each other out while I’m one step away from a hermit.”

“So what?”

“So! You know how I am. I get lost. Cut myself off from the world.”

“Zoey.”

The amused exasperation in her tone frustrates me. She doesn’t get it.

“You all drop everything to come save me. And I hate it. Mainly because I keep needing it.”

“Sweetheart, no. We’re not saving you. We’re loving you.”

“I …” Words don’t come easy as I try to explain something about myself I don’t even fully grasp.