“We need to take out whoever the hell knows anything about explosives, that’s for sure.” He laughed once, sounding exhausted. “This being so in tune with you and Bean that I’m missing important things like a bomb on your car is also a negative.” He shook his head. “It was ignition-based, so it couldn’t have been there before you left for Titan. It had to been set up between the time you got there and when it blew. Bex would have sensed it. The only time they would have had a window is after I arrived.”

“How is that possible? You were in the Escalade a few feet away.”

“Exactly,” he said, his expression unsettled. “It was difficult to focus before….”

“Before what?” I asked, knowing better. Jared had become skilled at leaving me out of the loop. It wasn’t like him to slip.

He replied with only a sigh, but he was visibly upset. It was then that I made a decision. I no longer wanted to be in the dark. I was a mother now. With so many important things at stake, it was time I took an active role in the effort to save our lives.

“Tell me,” I said.

“After we…I’ve been more in-tuned to you for a while. I had just become used to wading through the mess to get to the basics of what I used to feel when you…when we….”

“This would be a good time to forget your usual hour-long explanation and just get down to the naked truth.”

“The baby. I sense it, too. It’s amazing, but it’s also distracting. Very distracting.”

“You sense the baby?” I smiled. “So is Bean your Taleh, too?”

Jared frowned. “This whole situation is unprecedented. That would mean the baby is human, and that’s obviously not the case. Maybe it’s because the baby is a part of you. I just don’t know.”

From that point on, Jared remained silent except for the few times we made pit stops. As the sun began to set, we had just breached the outskirts of Myrtle Beach. I couldn’t help but think about the fact that Sasha’s mother hadn’t heard from her for a full day, and at any minute they would go to her home, and the panic would begin. Sasha would be reported missing any moment. The guilt began to close down around me once again, so much so that it was hard to take in the beauty ahead.

While we were eating a late lunch, Jared had called ahead and reserved a condo at Myrtle Beach’s most Northern Point, the Grande Dunes Oceanfront. As we pulled up to the resort, I gasped at its extravagance. It worsened my sense of guilt.