Daniel scrubbed a hand through the dark brush of his hair. “I’d kill for a hot shower.”

Normal conversation? “Be a while till they get that going. You didn’t answer his question.”

“Which one?”

“Did she know how pushing it was going to end.”

He stretched his legs out, arms folded across his chest. Another long, storm-chased silence. Then: “Thing about H, she was always willing to take the risk. Maybe she needed the acknowledgment. Like, have I mentioned her delusions of grandeur? Not so much a class thing, though she had that, too. More like she was a superior being, more evolved than the rest of us.” He watched the storm for a while, squinting into the fading light. Seeing Hannah, I guessed. As she was in life. “A confirmed Darwinist, my sister. The only problem being her jungle definition of ‘fittest.’ She and the Adders had that in common.”

I peered over at him. “You sound angry with her.”

“I am! Angry that she mouthed off and got herself killed. Even if she wanted to, it was for nothing. For a fantasy. She bought into the biggest lie of all—that there’s an easy escape, that you are special and can buy your way out of a mess instead of fixing it. A mess that everyone is in. It’s like your friend Jenn and her dreams of flowers and porch rockers in Minnesota. But Hannah was cannier than that. She should’ve known better.”

“But you were going with her . . .”

He shrugged. “Like I said: if both of them were leaving, nothing to keep me here—until you came along. And . . . maybe I never really believed they’d leave without me.”

“At least she didn’t take Julian down with her.”

“Almost did. Would have, but for his deep survival instinct.”

“Maybe it was real when she bought into it. The documents, I mean. The whole itinerary. Then it all fell apart with everything else.”

“Now you’re defending her? She treated you like dirt.”

I shrugged. “She did save my life a couple times.”

Daniel sniffed, impassive as the darkening gray on the far side of the glass. “Part of her game.”

“Game?”

“Puppet master stuff. Power and invisibility. She liked messing with people’s lives. She liked messing with mine.”

“I kind of got that.”

“But I never fell into her orbit like Julie did, like she expected, no, demanded.” He looked away. “You’re going to think I’m the coldest heart in the universe, but . . . it’s almost a relief. I can live my own life now, a life I determine. Maybe help Julie find a better one, too.”

Yes, he was angry. Easier for him than grief, at least for now.

“What about the redhead?”

“Who?”

“Julian’s girl. He didn’t mention her.”