“I have to go,” I said, ducking under his arm and sliding out from between him and the wall. I scooped my backpack up off the ground and jogged up the alleyway, ditching him before he could do the same to me. Again.

I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. If I did, I might never leave.

Chapter Four

Now that I was in Capitol Hill, now that I was home, I seemed incapable of dragging myself away. It would’ve been impossible if I’d let something happen between Nik and me. I couldn’t. I wasn’t afraid of much, certainly not of anything physical, but emotional shit scared the crap out of me. Except, with Nik—this serious, raw version of him—it was different. Something more. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. This sense of great potential . . . for joy and happiness and wonder. But also for complete and utter devastation. Not. Going. There.

The fresh interaction with Nik left me unhinged. A live wire. I felt the need to lash out. To take all of my pent-up frustration and aggression out on someone. To do something. I couldn’t handle another second of sitting on my thumbs while I waited for Dom to get back to me. There were other ways to attack this problem. And I was rabid with the need to act.

I could call Mari . . . but I’d need a phone for that. There was a public phone at the library, which was just a couple blocks away. Computers, too. Two birds and all that.

As I strode up the sidewalk toward the front entrance to the public library, I pushed thoughts of Nik and the feel of his breath in my hair and his body against mine—of the vulnerable look in his eyes in that last moment before I fled—into some dark corner of my mind. Somewhere where those troubling thoughts could haunt me from dreams. But at least I’d have a semblance of peace while I was awake. Thoughts of him, now, would only get in my way.

The Cap Hill Library is a pretty generic two-story brick building, teetering on the modern side with floor-to-ceiling windows at all of the corners and a strange, cagey protrusion shaped like the enormous bow of a ship at the main entrance. It isn’t the largest library in Seattle, but it has computer kiosks set up with free Internet access to library members, which was all that I needed, really. And it just so happens I’ve been a member since elementary school, and I’d memorized my card number long ago. It was only a matter of setting up an online account, something I’d done on my first day as a fugitive, and I’d been bouncing around the Seattle Public Library system ever since.

Once inside, I tried calling Mari, not surprised when she didn’t pick up. I would try her again before I left. And again and again and again until I got through.

Standing before one of the computer kiosks, I logged in and ran a quick search for the Ouroboros board of directors. If anyone besides Mari could make things happen in that putrid organization, I figured the people who held the purse strings could. Even if they didn’t know the cure for the disease themselves, they had to know who did.