Off to the side, Tristan had pulled Rain into a hug. I looked away. Rain was kneeling by the mess, separating things from the ginger beef and rice. I would’ve helped, but I had the instinct that he wanted space.

Sveta—her arms were folded, her head bowed. Her expression as angry as I’d seen it, as she looked at nothing in particular.

I’d known Sveta would take it hard. Rain had caught me by surprise. Kenzie had too, in a way. I’d prepared myself for the mindset that the others would want to grieve, and I hadn’t anticipated the abject denial, even though it was one of the classic stages of grief.

I didn’t trust myself to approach any of them, so I turned toward the screen that Kenzie had left live.

The images were there on the monitor. Bulletin boards with notecards stuck to them. Not so different from what we had in our hideout.

I pretty quickly realized what they were.

Tattletale’s notes.

Scary notes. They had some starting points on the people who’d attacked us, notes on the portal, and some theorizing on the greater threats in play.

Almost casually, figures like the Bogeyman were name-dropped and discarded. Amy and Chris were a footnote.

Fucking dangerous information for us to so casually have, and dangerous information to be sending out.

Blinding 11.3

“I’ve got it,” Natalie told me. She squeezed past me to get to the door, took the keys I had in the flat of my hand and opened it, stepping inside to hold it open.

I had Kenzie in my arms. She was skinny, but her clothes for the cold weather were puffy, and it meant my arms had to go around more. My arm still twinged from the gunshot wound in the left bicep, and my right hand had bandages around it, inside the glove though the skin was on its way to healing.

Kenzie, meanwhile, was resting her face against my shoulder. When the cold weather had blustered, she had ducked her head down, and she hadn’t lifted her head back up.

The kettle was already starting to boil in the other room as we kicked off boots and got ourselves sorted in the front hallway. Ashley took her boots off and stalked off into the kitchen with her coat still on.

Kenzie and I couldn’t take our coats off either, since I was carrying her. Natalie did help me remove her hat and boots, though.

“Hold on,” Ashley said, as I entered the living room. She had a sheet in hand.

The couch was quickly stripped of the backing cushions and then made up with a bottom sheet. It took Ashley, Natalie and me to ease Kenzie down to a sitting position on the couch. Kenzie had been shot twice and had undergone three surgeries in a thirty-six hour span.

“I’m a bit embarrassed,” Kenzie said.