"Hey, are you sure you're okay? You're not-"

"No!" Shaunee said quickly, Z's worried voice making her feel even guiltier. "I'm not coughing at all. Really. My stomach's just messed up. It was the old Lunchables. I knew that ham was nasty, but I love me some mini-Ritz sandwiches."

"I'll come to your room and check on you later," Z said.

"Yeah, okay, thanks," Shaunee called and escaped up the stairs and into the old ticket booth.

There she breathed easier. The depot was a mess, but she'd liked it from the very beginning-even though it was dingy and old and definitely needed some TLC. Still, it had a feel to it that reminded her of taking family trips, back before her parents had decided she wasn't interesting enough, or whatever, and quit letting her come on vacation with them.

It wasn't like she'd had a crappy life before she'd been Marked. They'd had money. She'd gone to a cool private school back in Connecticut.

She'd been popular and busy and ... and ...

And lonely.

Then she'd been Marked during a school trip to a summer art class or whatever during a layover at the Tulsa International Airport. Her teacher had left her behind when their plane boarded.

Crying and totally freaked, she'd called her dad. That's why his PA had put her call through to him. In the five years the woman had worked for her dad, she'd never heard Mr. Cole's daughter cry.

Shaunee had asked her dad to please send her a ticket home so she could see them before she went to a House of Night on the East Coast, preferably the one in the Hamptons.

Her dad had told her to stay in Tulsa. There was a House of Night there. Good luck and good-bye.

She hadn't seen her parents since.

They'd set up an account for her, though, and dumped money in it.

Her parents were good at believing money could fix any problem.

Actually, Shaunee was good at pretending she believed the same thing.

She walked slowly around the depot. It was cold and dark inside and, almost absently, she stopped at a pile of broken tiles that had been heaped in the center of the floor.

"Fire, come to me," Shaunee said. She inhaled and exhaled, soaking up the heat that flowed harmlessly through her body, directing it to her outstretched hands. Her fingers glowed with flickering flame. She touched the pile of tiles. "Warm 'em up." Instantly they absorbed the fire and began glowing red.

"That is certainly a useful affinity to have."

Shaunee spun around, hands raised, ready to shoot flame.

"I mean you no harm." Kalona raised his own hands, holding them and his arms open. "I have come to speak with my son, but I cannot enter the tunnels below without causing myself great pain."

Shaunee made sure she didn't look in the immortal's eyes-she remembered that he had a powerful and seductive gaze. Instead she stared over his shoulder at a spot of ceramic tile left on the ruined depot wall, pulled her element closer to herself, and in what she hoped like hell was a strong whatever voice said, "So you're just hiding up here?"

"Not hiding, waiting. I have been here since dusk hoping that Rephaim might come above."

"Well, you wouldn't find him here unless he was coming up to take a shower in the old locker room. This isn't the normal entrance and exit we use," Shaunee said automatically, and then she closed her mouth. That was stupid. I shouldn't have told him our business.

"I could not know that. I assumed you would come and go through there." He gestured to the wide front doors that looked dusty and kinda catawampus and only half on their hinges.

"Rephaim isn't here," Shaunee said. "He's shopping with Stevie Rae and those guys."

"Oh. Well, then. I..." Kalona paused awkwardly and Shaunee snuck a quick peek at him. He wasn't looking at her. His shoulders were slumped and he was staring at the floor. He seemed glaringly out of place and uncomfortable.

With a little start she realized he also looked a lot like Rephaim. Sure, instead of being brown and Cherokee-ish looking, Kalona was more golden. He was bigger, too. And, yeah, he had those giant black wings. But the mouth was the same. And the face was the same. Kalona glanced up at her.

Except for being amber colored, the eyes were the same, too.

Shaunee looked quickly away.

"You may meet my gaze without fear," he said. "There is a truce between us. I mean you no harm."

"No one trusts you," she said quickly and a little breathlessly.

"No one? Not even my son?"

He sounded totally defeated.