“They were only guns.” Oh, wait. Guns were taken a little more seriously by the regulars. “Hmm, maybe I did.” She waited. They all waited. Finally, she said, “But I don’t feel any better. I mean, I don’t feel like I got what I wanted.”

“Is it an instant kind of thing?” Betsy wondered. “Boom, you’re satisfied and you go home?”

“What do you want?” Tina asked.

She shrugged, partly because she wasn’t one hundred percent certain, partly because it was nobody’s damned business, and partly because the truth—if it was the truth—was embarrassing. How do you tell strangers you want to belong, you want friends and a family who weren’t afraid of you?

“Well, saving Marc certainly helped me out,” Betsy said. “Thanks.”

“No,” Sinclair said.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Marc sniped.

“Don’t misunderstand, Dr. Spangler, but I fail to see how saving your life directly helps Elizabeth.”

“That’s a lot better,” Antonia told her. “You should use that instead of Betsy. Betsy’s lame.”

“Oh, shut up,” Betsy told her. “And Sinclair, what are you talking about?”

“I guess he’s right,” Marc said reluctantly. “Me being dead might have bummed you out, but you would have gone on.”

“And on, and on, and on,” Betsy said glumly.

“So saving Marc was a bonus? You’re really here to do something else?” Jessica asked.

Antonia shrugged.

“Fascinating,” Sinclair commented.

“Honey, as soon as the bars open tonight, I’m buying.”

“I don’t drink,” Antonia told him. “And you’re nuts if you do. You do know alcohol is a poison, right? Aren’t you supposed to be a physician?”

“Oh, good,” Jessica said. “A sanctimonious soothsayer. Those are the best kind.”

“See if I ever warn you of mortal danger.”

“You do know I’m the only thing between you and another gown fitting, right, Fuzzy?”

She smiled; she couldn’t help it. It was the first time she could recall joking about not warning someone about impending doom, and the someone in question taking it the way she meant it: as a joke.

The pack honestly worried she would see someone’s death and not warn them out of spite. This both puzzled and upset her—she might not be Little Miss Sunshine, but she would never, ever keep such an awful secret. How could her own pack so misunderstand her motives and actions? She’d grown up with them. And what could she do about it? She was too old to Change.

“Fine,” Marc was saying. “Virgin daiquiris all around.”

“Strawberry?” Sinclair asked hopefully, and Betsy laughed and got up and brought out multiple blenders.

Chapter 8

You make him sleep in the basement?” Antonia practically roared.

“We don’t make him do anything,” Betsy explained patiently. “He’s definitely his own Fiend. Guy. Whatever.”

“Oh.” Slightly mollified, Antonia calmed down.