Dess sighed. “It’s kind of pointless, really. Rex is okay. I wouldn’t know half what I do without him. But he gets this seer-knows-best attitude sometimes. And Jonathan’s great, but he can be all ‘Freebird’, not that I blame him. The thing between them goes back to the beginning, more than two years ago.”

“So all four of you have never worked together?”

“For about two weeks. When Jonathan arrived, he was just starting to discover his power, his dream come true, when Rex and Melissa show up. Rex, of course, wants to spend every night checking out lore.”

Jessica nodded. It must have been a lot easier for Rex to get out to his precious lore sites with Jonathan’s help. It still would be.

“But Melissa and Jonathan never got along,” Dess added. “She’s never even flown with him.”

“Really?”

“She couldn’t stand it. She has this thing about…holding hands.”

Jessica blinked. She’d been jealous of Dess a moment ago, but now she couldn’t help feeling sorry for Melissa. Flying with Jonathan was the best part of midnight.

“So Melissa gets left out of all these trips to the badlands, Jonathan gets tired of being Rex’s personal flying chauffeur, and all hell breaks loose.”

Jessica swallowed. “I guess I can see where there might be a personality conflict or two there.”

“Everything’s been messed up since then, really.” Dess looked down at the floor. “Well, maybe it’s always been messed up.”

“So, Dess, why didn’t you tell me about Jonathan if Rex wasn’t going to?”

“I didn’t want to say anything in front of Rex. The mere thought of Jonathan makes him all snitty.”

“You could have called me.”

Dess shrugged, smiled. “I wanted it to be a surprise, maybe.”

Jessica peered through the dark glasses and into Dess’s eyes and realized she was telling the truth. However weird she might seem, Dess had always been honest with her. She’d tried to make it clear from the beginning that things were going to be different here in Bixby. Of course, Dess had never been able to just come out and explain everything, but that wasn’t exactly her fault. Things had always been too complicated for that.

Jessica smiled. Even though Saturday night had wound up horribly, she was glad that Dess had told Jonathan about her.

“I guess it was pretty surprising. And yeah, excellent.” Jessica sighed. “Until a load of darklings showed up, courtesy of me. And five minutes after we gave them the slip, the police were there. He probably thinks I’m a walking disaster.”

“Don’t worry too much about Jonathan, Jess. We’ve all been in the back of Clancy St. Claire’s car. It goes with the territory.”