“Well said!” Thane shouted, and his voice echoed around the room like thunder, though only I could hear it.

“It matters to me,” Nash insisted. “And the question won’t be moot in three days, because Tod will still be here, and every time I look at him, I’m going to know how he felt about you and wonder if that was mutual. If my own brother was trying to steal my girlfriend. So answer me! Do you like him?”

“Oooh, there’s a brother?” Thane demanded, standing inches away, his chest practically brushing my right shoulder. “Drama, drama, drama.”

I did my best to ignore the reaper, and focus on Nash. “First of all, I’m not a piece of property that can be stolen.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Nash began, but I cut him off.

“And second of all, Tod isn’t trying to steal anything from you. You and your mom are all he has left in the world, and I don’t think he’d ever intentionally hurt you.”

“You know, Cain and Abel were brothers…” Thane said, and I whirled on him, fury sparking like fire in my veins. But before I could say a word, Nash followed my gaze and found…nothing.

“Is that him? Is he here?” Nash demanded. “Is he talking to you, now?”

“Why would this Tod be invisible?” Thane asked. “Don’t you have any human friends?”

I ignored him and focused on Nash. “No, it’s not Tod. It’s—”

“Uh-uh…” Thane taunted, crossing in front of me slowly, his nose brushing my cheek on its way to my ear, and I shuddered in revulsion. “If you tell him, I’ll have to kill him. And once I’ve broken one rule, I’m on the run anyway, so what’s to stop me from breaking another one and taking you right…now…?” He circled behind me, and his hand trailed across my lower back. I closed my eyes, fighting nausea at his touch.

“Kaylee!” Nash shouted. “Answer me!”

But I couldn’t. I could barely even think past the terror and loathing crawling through me.

“So this’ll be our little secret, right, Kaylee?” the reaper whispered into my other ear, as he completed the circle around me.

“Tod!” Nash growled through clenched teeth, glaring at random spots in the empty room. “Get the hell out of here.”

“It’s not Tod!” I said, and the reaper stiffened at my side, until I continued. “It’s not anyone.”

“Good girl…” Thane whispered. “Until next time…” Then he disappeared, and I leaned against the kitchen counter, sagging with relief.

“Then what’s wrong?” Nash asked, and my brain raced as I tried to refocus on him in the aftershock of Thane’sinvasion.

“I don’t know, Nash. I don’t know if I like Tod.”

The truth was that I hadn’t even considered the possibility until a couple of hours earlier, because it hadn’t seemed real. I wasn’t Emma or Sophie. I didn’t have C-cups bouncing in front of me with every step and I didn’t dance around in tiny skirts. Guys didn’t fight over me. Nash was an anomaly. I never would have been on his radar if we didn’t share a species, so it had never occurred to me that I might be on anyone else’s.

In fact, the reverse had always seemed much more plausible—that someone else would steal him away from me.

“Do you like Sabine?” I asked softly, silently daring him to tell me the truth, in the face of his own accusations.

Nash turned and stomped into the living room. “This isn’t about Sabine.”

I followed him, truly irritated now. “Maybe it should be. You wanna know what I think?” I asked, then gave him no time to reply. “I think you do still like Sabine, at least a little bit. I think you like it that she still wants you, and you like flirting with her when I’m not there, dangling the possibility in front of her. Playing her game.” I sucked in a deep breath, surprised to realize that I was now thoroughly pissed at what amounted to his hypocrisy.

“But I think it goes beyond that. I know how serious the two of you were, and I don’t think you can ever really get over something like that. Not completely. And you know it. But you still hang out with her, alone, in your room. Practically daring each other to take things beyond friendship. Then you have the nerve to ask me if I like Tod, three days before I’m going to die?”

How could the four of us possibly be so tangled up in one another? And how could I not have seen it coming?

Nash stared at me, stunned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry I opened this can of worms, especially now. I swear I have no intention of taking things beyond friendship with Sabine, but this is the second time this week you’ve stood me up, then turned up with Tod. And I know he wants you, and it was starting to look like that might be mutual…?”

His voice went up on the end in question. He was still asking. And I didn’t want to lie. But did it really matter? So what if Tod was funny, and unpredictable, and there every time I needed him. So what if he liked it when I “raged” against things and didn’t think I was crazy for wanting to break into Lakeside? So what if he’d spent months hanging out, getting to know me instead of trying to feel me up the first week we met.

What did that matter? What good was the possibility—the life-changing, love-wrecking possibility—when I wouldn’t be around to explore it?