“You are such a weirdo.” Spoken softly, from the other room. I dropped my mug, and it shattered. Ceramic shards with puzzle pieces of family photos scattered everywhere. Desiree in the doorway to the kitchen, looking at the mess. “Oh, I’m sorry, hon. I totally didn’t mean to spook you. I was just,” she thumbed backward, “looking at your caterpillars. Some fat sons of bitches. And there’s these tiny balls of shit everywhere.”

“It’s called frass,” I said, absentmindedly, and squatted to pick up shards.

“Frass. It’s like French, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bitch, I was worried about you. Like where the fuck’d you go?”

“My neighbor said he found me passed out in the grass. Where’d you go?” I dropped a few shards in the garbage. I was sad about the broken mug, but I could order a new one.

“I came here.”

“He said I was by that cougar cage.” I looked at the line of scabs on my arm, the bandage on my hand. “He said you ran. He mentioned a guy. There wasn’t a guy though, was there?”

“Did he say it was me?” she said. “Did he see my face?”

“No. He didn’t see. It was dark. Was there a guy?” A shiver worked its way through me. What if it was Brandon Paulson?

There was a scuffle of a shoe against the floorboard.

A man appeared behind Desiree, and it wasn’t Brandon Paulson. He was tall with long, muscled arms. Boots. His navy T-shirt tucked into his belted jeans. Young, like Desiree. He held his forearm up at eye level; a caterpillar crawled along it. His eyes on the caterpillar, he laughed. “I hope these aren’t poisonous.”

“Only if you eat them,” I said, but alarms were ringing along my nerves. Pierce. This is Pierce. Tracy Summers said he was a pig. Both a cop and a chauvinist. He, they, are in your house. They broke into your house. He is a stranger. Where’s their car?

“Heather, this is my boy Pierce,” she said, her eyes and smile full of emotion, but I couldn’t pin down which. Adoration, lust, reverence, maybe a little fear?

He gave a shiver, shook his arm, and flung the caterpillar to the ground. “Weird. I just got creeped out big-time.” He smashed it with his boot. Greenish yellow snot squirted out from under his boot, hitting the side of the oak cabinet, sticking there.

Horrified, I stepped back. They broke into your house. Get out. I turned to run, but Pierce moved at me, fast. They tell you to fight like hell—do anything and everything to get away: run through a glass door; jump out of a moving car; fight even if someone’s got a knife to your throat—because they’re going to kill you anyway.