Once he’d withdrawn the needle and a drop of blood had welled out of her arm, he frowned and sat on the edge of the coffee table. “I was supposed to clean the injection site first. Damn it!”

“Better late than never,” Tod said. “What do you need?”

“Cotton swabs and alcohol should do it. And a Band-Aid.”

“I’ll get them!” Em stood and raced for the bathroom.

“But that won’t kill any germs I just injected her with,” Nash continued.

Tod put one hand on his shoulder. “Any human doctor can treat an infection. The same cannot be said for crimson creeper venom.”

I gathered the used syringe and wrappers and threw them in the trash while Sophie put Harmony’s stuff back in her purse. Luca slid the coffee table into place, and Nash cleaned the site of Sabine’s injection with a belated dose of alcohol, then covered it with a bandage from the box Emma gave him. Then he sat on the coffee table and stared at her while she slept, periodically checking on her swollen wrist and ankles.

The rest of us gathered around the peninsula in the kitchen, speaking in hushed voices.

“So, how did you find her?” I poured myself a mug of coffee, which had already gone cold. “She was just...lying there?”

Tod nodded. “On the ground, out in the open, about three hundred feet from the hospital. In our world, that would have been the hospital parking lot. Avari must have told everyone not to touch her, because she was all alone, completely unscathed, except for the creeper vines.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Sophie demanded in a fierce whisper, with a glance back at Nash, like she didn’t want to further upset him. I was impressed. “Why take Sabine, then let us have her back? Why poison her, but not kill her?”

“It’s a warning,” I said. “It has to be.”

“Warning us of what?” Luca said in a whisper of his own. “That he wants to mess with us? That he can kill us anytime he wants? If that’s the message, wouldn’t actually killing Sabine have said it more clearly?”

I could only shrug. “I don’t know.”

“And didn’t you say he could have killed you and Tod right before you crossed over?” Em said. “But he didn’t?”

“Because he doesn’t want me dead,” I tried to explain. “Well, no deader than I already am. He wants to...” I didn’t know how to say the rest of it, and I didn’t really want to hear it, even from my own mouth.

“He wants to take his time with her,” Tod said, and hearing it in his voice wasn’t much better. “He wants to take her apart at his leisure before eventually discarding her body and continuing with just her soul. He has eternity, remember? That’s a lot of time to kill, which means he has more patience than we do. And he knows how to make his toys last.”

“That may be the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard,” Luca whispered. “And that’s coming from someone who sees dead people on a daily basis.”

“Agreed,” I said, and Tod gave my hand a sympathetic squeeze.

“Hey, you guys, there’s something in her pocket,” Nash called from the living room. We all turned as he stepped into the kitchen. “I just noticed it sticking out.” He unfolded the piece of paper and spread it out on the island in front of us.

It was a note. One line.

Tag. You’re it.

Chapter Sixteen

“How is she?” I sat on the edge of my desk, and Nash answered without looking up. Without letting go of the fingers sticking out of Sabine’s cast.

“About the same. A little less swollen.” He’d rolled my desk chair next to her bed—my bed, technically—more than an hour ago and hadn’t moved since. “But she’s not waking up, and I can’t figure that out. When you got pricked, you didn’t lose consciousness.”

“Yeah, but she got at least three times the venom I got.” I shrugged, aiming for casual with the gesture. As if I wasn’t almost as worried as he was. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’ll wake up soon.” I hope. “And you know what? The fact that she’s not moving is kind of a blessing. With the dose of venom she got, if she’d been up moving around like I was after I got pricked—” I’d had no idea what creeper venom could do, at the time “—her heart would’ve beat faster, pumping poison all over her body.” Another casual shrug. “Instead, it looks pretty localized, and I’d call that a stroke of good luck.”

Unless... I frowned at the thought drawing into focus. Unless it wasn’t the creeper venom, but  something Avari did that rendered Sabine unconscious. In which case, he’d actually saved her life. Or at least prolonged it.

My private frown deepened, but Nash didn’t notice. He was watching Sabine again.

Why would Avari do that? Why would he poison her, then make sure she lasted long enough to... To what?

Normally I’d guess that he wanted to extend her suffering, but she was unconscious. How much pain could she possibly feel?

Was he trying to make sure she’d last long enough to be found?

Suddenly Sabine’s lack of consciousness scared me almost as much as her swollen skin and the thin puss oozing from every pinprick hole in her arm and legs. What the hell was Avari up to?

“Yeah, I’m trying to look at the bright side,” Nash said, clearly oblivious to the turn my own thoughts had taken. “She’s due for another shot in a couple of hours, and after that, she should get better pretty quickly. If she hasn’t woken up by then, though, I claim the right to completely freak out.”