So can’t we just go on ignoring it for a little longer…?

“It’ll matter to me.” He looked like I’d just punched him. How could things suddenly be so complicated?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” My head felt like it was going to explode. “I just meant—”

“I don’t like you hanging out with him alone.”

My temper spiked, and my apology died a swift death on the end of my tongue. “You mean like you hang out with Sabine alone, even though she’s in love with you?”

Nash rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “That’s different.”

“You’re right.” I pulled Styx into my arms and stood with her, stomping toward the kitchen. “Sabine hijacked my dreams and tried to feed me to the Netherworld to get to you. Everything she says is intended to either drive a wedge between us or put herself in your bed. But Tod’s never tried to hurt you and he’s never even come close to pulling his clothes off and jumping me. So yeah, I guess that is different.”

The recliner creaked, then Nash’s footsteps followed me into the kitchen. “The difference between Tod and Sabine is that she’s honest about it. You know what she’s up to, and you know why, but you’ll never see the strings Tod’s pulling behind the scenes until suddenly you’re just magically where he wants you to be.”

“He isn’t pulling any strings, Nash. He’s just helping me with something very important. And if I wind up somewhere other than where I am now, it won’t be because he wanted me there. It’ll be because I want me there.” I set Styx on the floor and stood to find Nash watching me, arms crossed over his chest.

“What the hell does that mean?”

What did that mean? I hadn’t thought it through, I’d just…let it out.

I exhaled slowly, trying to push everything irrelevant—everything I knew I wouldn’t have time to really address—to the back of my mind. “It doesn’t mean anything except that I needed help, and he came through. That’s what a friend does.”

“If you needed help, why didn’t you ask me? Why don’t you ever want my help anymore, Kaylee?”

“I…” The words died on my tongue, my answer as incomplete as the thought behind it. I’d asked Tod and Alec for help with Beck. Hell, I’d even asked Sabine for help. But I’d told Nash to go to baseball practice while the rest of us researched and plotted. Was he right? Had I been excluding him?

Not on purpose. In fact, I hadn’t even thought about him not being there, because I was focused on Mr. Beck and Nash couldn’t help with that. He couldn’t read Beck’s fear to ID him. He couldn’t give us background info on incubi, and he couldn’t get me into the mentalhealth ward unseen.

“You couldn’t help me with this,” I said, finally. “I needed Tod.” My logic was sound, so why did I feel so guilty about the truth?

Nash’s irises churned in anger. “You needed Tod. Do you hear yourself? You’re supposed to need me.”

The ache in my chest grew into a throbbing so fierce I could hardly breathe. “That’s not what I meant.” Things were falling apart. In spite of my best effort to hold everything together until the end—until my end—my life was unraveling faster than I could grasp at the threads, and I could see chaos bulging through the seams.

Nash watched me, waiting for more, but Styx started whining then and glanced from me to the fridge, where I gripped the door handle much harder than necessary. She was hungry. As usual. And taking care of her was easier than taking care of Nash.

I pulled open the fridge and took a package of raw sirloin from the bottom shelf. Styx preferred venison, but we were out, and beef would do in a pinch. Nothing ground, though. Styx didn’t just want to eat—she wanted to tear flesh with her tiny little teeth.

Maybe that was why Cujo was constantly pissed off.

“Do you like him?” Nash demanded, leaning against the peninsula, and I closed my eyes, wishing I could erase this moment forever, like it had never happened. But when I opened my eyes, that moment was still there, taunting me with its stamina.

Styx went crazy at my feet as I peeled clear plastic back from the beef. I dropped a small hunk of meat into her bowl, and she dug in, growling like her meal was still alive and kicking as she ripped small chunks from it and swallowed them whole, more like a cat than a dog.

“Uh-oh, trouble in paradise?” a new voice said, and my head popped up in surprise. Thane sat on the small table in our dining nook, and Styx hadn’t so much as acknowledged his presence. “Yeah, evidently fresh meat outranks even the dreaded reaper,” he said, when he noticed me frowning at the dog.

“Kaylee.” Nash stepped into my line of sight to reclaim my attention, though he had no idea what had stolen it. “Do you like him?”

“Like who?” Thane slid off the table and walked right through Nash, and I shuddered, revolted and horrified by the sight of them…blended together.

“Does it matter?” I wrapped the remaining meat up, trying desperately to pretend that the man assigned to kill me wasn’t getting yet another unauthorized peek into my private life.

“Of course it matters,” Nash snapped. “Why wouldn’t it?”

I shoved the meat into the fridge and spun to face him, struggling not to vent my fury at Thane on him. “Because in three days, I’m going to be dead, and this’ll be the mootest point of all time.”