“What are you doing?” I hobble after him. Even if he’s dressed like a normal person or someone I’d know, he can’t just walk in.

Ryan surveys the glass, stepping over the broken pieces, and retrieves the stainless steel medicine ball from the floor. He sets it on the coffee table. Somehow, it doesn’t roll off.

Ryan scrutinizes the living room and kitchen.

I limp over to the table and set the medicine ball back into its little wooden box. My foot throbs harder with each pathetic attempt to walk.

He rounds the corner into our main hallway.

“Where are you going?” I call, wanting to chase him down and shove him back outside.

His footsteps head toward the front of the house, followed by the opening of doors—the office, the hall closet, the bathroom.

I prop myself against the arm of the couch. “You can’t just barge in and walk around like you own the place.”

The pain in my foot intensifies. I brush fallen strands of hair back into my ponytail before inspecting it. Of course. I managed to step on the longest piece of glass, which has burrowed itself under my skin like a parasite.

Ryan returns to the living room. He leans over me to study my foot. His shoulder grazes my hair, making me hypersensitive to the narrow space between us.

Thank God I brushed my teeth.

“You need tweezers.”

I make the mistake of breathing. He smells clean, outdoorsy. My stomach flips—a disturbing reaction for all kinds of reasons. This guy is in the Swarm. “Why are you here?”

Ryan walks over to the kitchen cabinets next to our fridge and opens them. He pulls down our first aid kit and rifles through it. “You weren’t at school,” he says, like I’m not aware of that.

“Why aren’t you at school?”

I doubt he goes to school at all. For all I know he lives on the streets—except he’s well-dressed and drives a silver Audi with leather seats.

He grabs a handful of God knows what before closing the lid. “Wanted to check on you. Tweezers?”

It takes me a second before I realize he’s gathering all of this for me. I’m not the damsel in distress he’s making me out to be. “I’m very capable of taking care of myself.”

“You can barely walk.” His tone is dry and condescending.

I’m about to point out that sitting on a couch all day doesn’t require a lot of walking, but somehow that makes me sound pathetic. “How did you know where our first aid kit is?”

Ryan shrugs his left shoulder. “Everyone keeps it in the kitchen.” He goes toward the front of the house and heads up the stairs.

“Now where are you going?” I shout after him.