Were we finally on the road to truth? A victory of sorts, though I wasn’t going to like it much. Pyrrhic, Rubio would’ve called it. Kind of like exterminating Adders so the rest of us could live. Ah, where was I going to learn pretentious new words with Rubio gone? I crossed my arms and stared at the floor.

Daniel cleared his throat, as if to deny the catch in his voice. “I was hoping you’d go with me.”

What? Wow. Hadn’t seen that coming. Not at all. What Jenn predicted, and I’d dismissed as nonsense. Every den girl’s dream offer. Could he really be serious?

“Sure. Hannah would love that.” I was surprised how bitter I sounded. Was the idea tempting after all?

“Hannah’s my sister, not my boss.”

“ ’Cept when she sends you off on family business . . .”

“The choice is mine to make.”

“She thinks I’m . . .”

The catch was gone. Each word came out clear and hard. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what Hannah thinks.”

“Den rat, she would say. Besides, I don’t think that’s true.” I turned to face him. “Like, why stonewall me about the arrows?”

“Yeah, the arrows . . .” He sighed. “Okay, that was for Hannah. She’s obsessed with secrecy. People are . . . after her. For stuff she does. Good stuff. Right stuff. But when you can trust only those you know best, family means a lot.”

I kneaded the floor with a heel. “I wouldn’t know. Rubio was my friend and my family.”

“You were lucky, then. Hannah and I are family, but we’re not friends.”

I yelped as my knee was jogged hard by a passerby who couldn’t see over the boxes he was carrying. Daniel gathered himself and stood, holding out a hand. “C’mon. Not a good place for the talk we need to have.”

“Maybe later.”

“There is no later.”

“I get it. You’re leaving . . . now.”

“To beat the storm.”

A stack of folded bed sheets tumbled off a moving dolly right at my feet. Someone swore a blue streak. Along the corridor, doors opened and shut. Reality closed around me again, with its awful news. Daniel’s open hand demanded my attention.

My instinctive thought: I’ll run this by Rubio, see what he thinks.

Not anymore.

Best would’ve been to sit there forever, head down, working on keeping my mind a soothing blank. But the noise and bustle got hard to ignore. I really was in the way. I got up on my own steam, straightening my tear-damp T-shirt, then turned away. “I should be helping with the pack-up.”

“No, you don’t.” Daniel set himself in front of me, backing down the hall as I moved to slip past him. “No running away this time. We have a decision to make.”

“We? Haven’t you made it already?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t be here.”