That was when I realized I had no idea what Finn’s hand actually felt like, because Finn didn’t have a hand, and he never would. Maybe he really never had. The hand I’d held earlier was Maddock’s, and the mouth I’d kissed had been his too. It wasn’t Finn’s soft, wavy hair. It wasn’t his short cheek stubble. Finn couldn’t grow stubble because he didn’t have a face, and he never would, and that meant I’d never know what he really looked like, because he didn’t look like anything.

Yet he could look like anyone.

“Nina…?”

But those green eyes were Finn’s, and they were staring right through me. Finn’s eyes could see everything I was thinking but not saying. I could tell because of how sad those eyes suddenly looked, and his sad green eyes made me want to cry.

The bathroom door opened, and Maddock and Devi came out wrapped in matching towels before I’d figured out what to say to Reese-who-was-really-Finn. How to explain that yes, I’d kissed him back, and I didn’t regret that, but I wasn’t sure I could deal with the fact that he didn’t have a body, and that whatever body he borrowed might randomly step out of the bathroom in a towel with another girl, and that I’d never really be able to see the guy who’d saved my life and helped me fight and stood watch over me while I was unconscious.

I wanted to be as straightforward and bold as he was, because he deserved that, but I had no experience with being straightforward and bold. I had experience with lying, and clothing myself in darkness if in nothing else, and stealing, and paying a high price for the things Mellie and I couldn’t survive without.

And running. I was used to running, and that impulse took over when I saw a chance to escape.

“I…I really need a shower. I’m so sorry.” I hated myself before the words had even left my lips, but that didn’t stop me from bolting into the bathroom while Devi and Maddock stared at me, or from locking the door behind me.

I did need a shower, but what I needed even worse was time to think. It was too much—all of it. Demons in New Temperance. Glowing heat from my left hand. Pregnant Mellie. My pulse synchronizing with the horde of degenerates hunting me. A fearless boy I liked and was attracted to, who turned out to have no face or body of his own.

I couldn’t process any of it without a few minutes to myself.