Silas knew exactly how she felt. So much so that he was practically there with her, all steam and wet hair pulled long and slick.

So much so that there was no point in keeping his eyes closed anymore.

So he didn’t.

PEYOTE

“LET’S JUST HOLD ON a second,” I said, taking in the room.

There must’ve been at least twelve of them. They all looked to be in their early twenties, except that they sat so still. They had varying skin tones and colors in their short-cropped hair, but somehow all of them looked the same—human bootlegs.

It was as if a Boy Scout troop had fallen into a communal coma a decade earlier and had just, communally, woken up.

“Here, I bet y’all are wanting these,” the man said as he tossed Cal a bottle of water. She opened it immediately. I flicked my wrist when he threw me mine, and everything stopped but the three of us, the bottle stuck mid-arc.

“Mr. Culver,” I said through a grin, “it’s great that you have so much support. But we don’t usually perform for an audience.”

“It’s Jason,” he said as he circled the water bottle midair. “Damn, that’s cool.”

“Okay, Jason. How about you tell me why you called us here, and we’ll go from there?”

I glanced over at Cal, who had moved toward the boys on the couch. She bent down in front of one and swept the hair from his stilled eyes.

“I need you to bring me someone,” Jason said. “He has something we need.”

“With all due respect, Jason, there are taxi services that charge a Hell of a lot less than us.”

Literally.

I heard Cal stand up and expected her to come to my side, but she moved around the room, fingers lingering over faces and in the dust on the shelves.

“And if I knew where he was, I would’ve called them. But he’s been dark for years. He’s not dead, though. I know it. We just can’t find him.”

“And who exactly is ‘we’?” I asked, glancing around the living room.

“He stole from all of us,” Jason said. “But from my understanding, you don’t need a scrapbook; you just need a soul. Am I right?”

My Trustworthy face faltered, but only for a second. There was no point in sugarcoating it: if he had called us with all of the information, he had already come to terms with what he would lose. Whatever he wanted was worth it. At least he thought it was, on this side of the dirt.

“How do you know the target is alive?” Cal interrupted. “That he still has what you’re looking for?”