“Was that him?” she said, her words muffled by the material of his shirt. “Was that the hellion we saw in the Netherworld?”

I thought I’d heard her wrong until Luca answered, stroking her hair with one hand. “I couldn’t swear to it, but my guess would be yes.”

“What? When were you two in the Netherworld?” I asked, and Luca shrugged.

“The day we met. That’s kind of…how we got together. She’s stronger than you think she is, you know.”

I certainly hoped he was right. “I’m gonna want to hear that story when things calm down. But for now, Sophie, Sabine’s going to take you to Nash’s house and I want you to stay there with her. We’ll tell the school you went home sick.” Nash could make them believe it without question, at least long enough to excuse her absence, and Avari would be less likely to look for her at his house than at mine. “I’ll drive your car home later. Okay?”

Sophie shook her head sluggishly, but her eyes were clearer. “I’m not going anywhere with her.” Her gaze flicked up to where Sabine watched her over my shoulder.

“You’re not my idea of a good time, either,” Sabine snapped. Then she glared at the rest of us. “You guys need me here.”

“No, I need you to stay with Sophie in case Avari goes after her.” I needed someone who could fight, if necessary. Luca had volunteered for the job, but we needed him to take us to the corpse in the parking lot.

“If she makes one snotty comment, you won’t have to worry about the hellion killing her. I’ll save him the trouble.”

“Sabine!” I stood and turned on her, but she only shrugged and held her ground, not the least bit intimidated by the bloody dagger in my hand or the fact that I’d just killed Avari. Again.

“I’m a Nightmare, Kaylee. You want me to scare someone to death? I’m your girl. But I’m not cut out to be a babysitter.”

“Just don’t let anyone kill her. It’s not that complicated,” I snapped, and Sabine scowled at me. “Look, lunch will be over in a few minutes, and I need to get her out of here. Just take her to Nash’s, and I’ll be there as soon as I can. If you’re really my friend, you’ll do this.”

The mara’s scowl deepened. “You know, you were much less work as a nemesis.” Then she stomped off toward her car with my cousin in tow, and too late I realized I should have specified that she wasn’t allowed to feed on my traumatized cousin’s fears.

While Nash went to the office to influence the attendance secretary into signing Sophie out, I blinked into the teachers’ restroom and locked the door, then cleaned the dagger and put on the letter jacket Nash had lent me to cover the blood on my shirt.

At my current rate ofconsumption, I wouldn’t have a shirt left in my closet by the end of the next week.

When I was fit to be seen again—just in case—I met Nash in the parking lot and Luca led us to a dusty blue compact car, where Brant Williams was slumped behind the wheel.

“No!” Nash reached for the door handle, but I stepped in front of him and refused to move when he tried to reach around me. “Kaylee, get the hell out of my way!” He and Brant had been teammates in both football and baseball since Nash transferred to Eastlake. There were tears in his eyes, and even more half-choking his voice, but I stood my ground.

“No fingerprints, Nash.”

“I’ll say I found him,” he insisted. “They’d expect me to try to help him.”

“You can’t be the one to find him.” I waited for understanding to surface among the agonized twists of brown and green in his eyes, and when it didn’t, I said what I’d been trying to avoid. “You were arrested as a suspect in a double homicide a month ago. You don’t need to pop up on the police department’s radar again this soon. The line between witness and suspect can get really thin.”

Nash flinched like I’d slapped him, and he couldn’t quite hide the twist of resentment in his eyes. It was my fault he was on their radar in the first place. “How long am I going to be paying for the fact that I didn’t kill you, Kaylee?”

Before I could even make sense of what he was asking, the bell rang, and all three of us jumped, and when I tried to make Nash go to class, he refused. I couldn’t really blame him.

A glance into Brant’s car told me the doors were locked and he wasn’t breathing, but I blinked into the car to check his pulse just in case, careful not to touch anything else.

He was dead. And I wanted to throw up. We’d never been close, but I’d known Brant since the third grade. He was one of the basketball team captains and one of few Eastlake baseball players other than Nash that I’d ever spoken to outside of school. He was a nice guy. And now he was dead. Because of me.

My hands were shaking when I rejoined Luca and Nash next to the car. “I’m sorry, Luca, but you have to find the body.” I couldn’t do it. My shirt was covered in blood.

Luca looked sick. But he nodded. “What do I say about why I was in the parking lot?”

“Do you have a license?” I asked, and he nodded again. “Tell them you told Sophie you’d drive her car home, and you found Brant just like this.”

“Okay.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, ready to call either 9-1-1 or the front office. I didn’t ask which.

“You sure you’re good with this?” Nash asked, his voice grim, his forehead deeply furrowed.