Cassie smiled. “If that were the case, the two of you wouldn’t be who you are.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let me put it another way,” she said. “You’d die of boredom.”

“Right now, I’ll take a little boredom,” Jack said. “Hell, I’ll take a lot.”

Joe glanced at where the humans still stood in a cluster together. Hearing everything, understanding maybe a third of it, just wanting to go home and get back to their lives.

“We should get them home,” he said.

Cassie nodded.

“What about that sister of yours?” Jack asked. “Aren’t we going to look for her now?”

Joe couldn’t believe that he’d let that slide. That’s what happened when you died and then got brought back to life again. You lost all perspective on the things that mattered.

He lifted his head, casting for scent, though it was more Jilly’s familiar presence he sought. It was something that had nothing to do with physical senses, but he could always find it.

Except for now.

“Damn,” he said. “She’s gone again. Cassie . . . ?”

He looked at the humans, knowing they couldn’t just be left here to their own devices.

“I’ll take them back to the hotel,” Cassie said. “But you’d better be careful.”

“I’m just going to see Honey—find out what happened.”

“You want company?” Jack asked.

Joe nodded, but he glanced at Cassie. She came up to him and gave him a fierce hug.

“Just go,” she said when she stepped back. “Both of you. And—”

“We’ll be careful,” Joe promised her.

“Don’t worry,” Jack added as they stepped away out of the between. “I’ll have his back.”

“Why does that not comfort me?” Joe thought he heard Cassie mutter.

But by then they’d already left the plains behind.

Geordie

I had the mesa to myself.

I thought the time alone would help me feel a little balanced, but it wasn’t helping at all. The problem wasn’t my being here, in the middle of nowhere and farther from home than I’d ever imagined I could be. I won’t say it wasn’t dislocating and strange, but it ran deeper than that.

The problem was inside me, and being alone just made me focus on it without distractions.