“Caprese,” said the dark-haired woman, turning the name over in her mouth. “He’s the one that killed your wife, right?”

Jonathan said nothing.

“And yet,” she continued, “Jack Caprese is still alive. Flourishing, I’ve heard. While you’re here in this shithole of a club, wasting away.”

“Oy,” chirped the other woman. “I like this place.”

“Who are you?” asked Jonathan.

“June,” said the brunette.

“Marcella,” said the black-haired beauty. “But when it comes to

people like us, the real question isn’t who, is it? It’s what.”

The woman pressed a single gold nail against the bar and, as Jonathan watched, her finger glowed red, and the wood beneath began to warp and rot, wearing a hole straight through. The brunette—June— slid a coaster over the damage, only she wasn’t the brunette anymore.

She was Chris, the Palisades bartender, even though Chris was still on the other side of the counter, back turned while he polished a highball glass. By the time he turned back, so had she.

Jonathan’s mouth went dry.

They had powers, like his shine. But the shine was a gift. The shine was a curse. The shine was his. There weren’t supposed to be others with him, here in this hell.

“What do you want?” he asked, voice barely a whisper.

“That,” said the beautiful woman, “is what I was just about to ask you.”

Jonathan stared down into his club soda. He wanted his life back.

But he had no life, not anymore. He wanted death, but he’d been deprived of that, too.

That night, after Caprese’s men were all dead, and Jonathan wasn’t, when the room was silent and dark and the world was empty, he had put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, and that should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t, because the shine was there again, like it or not, and that made him think of Claire, and how pissed she’d be, him throwing away a second shot. And thinking of Claire made him want to get high again, to float out to sea.

But the shine wouldn’t let him.

Jonathan had told himself that he wouldn’t try again.

He wouldn’t let her down.

But it was like a whole new kind of drug, using that shine. A fearsome reminder that he was still alive.

June was frowning, as if she could read Jonathan’s mind. But Marcella smiled.

“Why sit around sulking,” she said, “when you could hurt the people who hurt you?”

But he had hurt them—he’d killed the men who killed Claire, and the ones who came for him, and everyone else Caprese sent. Every single

one—except—

“Caprese,” murmured Jonathan.

Was that why the shine wouldn’t let him rest?

Why he couldn’t get to Claire?