“I know. And I’m grateful to Nik.” He paused for a moment. “Perhaps I have been too critical of him.”

“Oh,” I said with a laugh. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”

Nik poked his head out of the kitchen, but as soon as he saw me talking to my palm, he retreated again.

Dom fell back into silence, and I studied his somber features. It was clear that something was bothering him, even in his miniature state. “What is it, Dom?”

He sighed, heavily, something he still seemed to be an expert at despite having no physical lungs or breath or mouth to actually sigh with. “It’s Garth,” he said. “He never made it to Bainbridge.”

My heart became so heavy that I had no choice but to stumble the few steps to the couch. “Nik,” I said hollowly, “I need to borrow your phone.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“You were worried about me,” Garth said, sounding pleased.

I scowled. Worried? That was putting it lightly. My whole damn body was shaking. I thought he’d been abducted, or that he’d been offed on the ferry and dumped into the Sound. “You should be with Lex on Bainbridge right now,” I said, fingers gripping Nik’s phone so hard that it creaked in my grasp, “so fuck you very much, Garth.”

He chuckled, covering the laugh with a lame cough. “You’re adorable.”

I growled into the phone, the fingers of my left hand gripping the edge of the couch cushion. “I’ll show you adorable.”

“You guys are so cute,” Nik said as he meandered out of the kitchen, his tone sickly sweet. He headed for the bathroom in the hallway, smirking the whole way.

I flipped him the bird as he passed the couch. “If you’re not at the Heru compound,” I said to Garth, “then where the hell are you?”

He was quiet for a second. “Home,” he finally said, voice hesitant. “It’s just a quick hop from my people’s place to yours.” He took a deep breath. “Kat, I had to stop here first. I wanted to drop Eva off at my folks’ house and, well . . . my family deserves to know what’s going on.”

I scoffed, eyes bugging out. “You told them?”

“Are you kidding me? Of course I did,” was Garth’s response.

I was speechless for about a heartbeat. “Garth!”

“They already know about your kind,” he said. “We’ve been guarding knowledge of you for generations. It was my duty to fill them in on what’s been going on. They’re already in this, whether you like it or not, and they deserve the chance to prepare for whatever’s going to happen next.”

My chest rose and fell as my breaths came too quickly, and I shook my head, unable to believe his audacity. “How many people did you tell?” I asked, forcing my jaw to unclench. I narrowed my eyes. “Who did you tell?”

“Oh no you don’t,” Garth said. “You won’t get those details until you come up here to meet them.”