“Yeah.” I was too tired to see straight. I had to get to my bed before I crashed.

“Come on. I’ll drop both of you off.”

Roan was curled up on the floor with the pillow and blanket I kept stashed in the makeshift locker room. I was going to have to wake him up, and he would have questions for me. Questions I didn’t want to answer.

“Is it safe to leave with you?” I asked.

“I think so, but I’ll keep an extra close eye just in case. Okay?”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

But I did. I was thankful for Declan. I hadn’t known him for long, but he felt familiar. I wondered what I was forgetting. What did my mom have wiped?

And Lorne?

Lorne.

Just thinking his name after hearing his voice had me on edge, and I felt like there were so many things that Declan was keeping from me. So many things about Lorne. About the Aunare. About why he was here helping me when he should want me dead, just like his father and brother did.

One more day, I told myself. One more day of pretending and hiding and lying. One more day, and then I’d be far away from here and have all the answers I wanted. I just hoped that I made it through the day without anything else going wrong.

Chapter Seven

I’d only managed to get a couple hours of sleep before Mom woke me up for my shift at the diner. She was too afraid of someone noticing my absence to let me skip it, even though I begged. Two hours into my shift, I regretted listening to her. Lorne wasn’t kidding about waking up and being more on edge than ever. The stupid implant wasn’t just making my finger burn constantly anymore. It was starting to malfunction, which meant I was messing up every entry. As I jammed in the order via the kitchen’s tablet, I wished I’d let Declan cut it out. The thing was a pain in my ass and now slowing me down while I worked. It was useless. I was seconds away from grabbing a knife and getting rid of it myself.

The more the day wore on, the more I realized staying polite to my customers was going to be an impossible feat. The one currently sitting at my counter was looking at me and licking his lips like I was a juicy steak he wanted to take a bite of. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to be civil to him, let alone polite.

The man gestured to the line of display bottles behind the counter. “I’ll take an Orange Fizz.”