“Are you hoping that Cyrus will do something so that you can justify killing him without causing trouble with the police or the Elders?” Tess asked.

“Aren’t you?” Vlad looked at her shoulder, relieved to see green streaks in her hair. Their resident Harvester was calming down.

“We’ll do our best to protect our friends and deal with our enemies,” Simon said.

“I’d like the Sierra to put in her work hours at A Little Bite,” Tess said. “I can watch her there.”

“Divide the time with library work,” Henry said. “I think it’s a place that holds little interest for that Cyrus.”

Simon agreed and Vlad had no objections, so they all returned to their work. But the enemy was among them now, and so were the Elders, so none of them let down their guard.

• • •

Exhausted from the emotional bomb of Jimmy’s arrival, Monty stopped at Captain Burke’s office before clocking out and going home. He wanted to spend time with Lizzy, maybe take a walk while he listened to her chatter about her day—which was more entertaining now that there were fewer complaints about her having to spend the mornings in school despite its being summer. She and Sarah Denby were teaching some of the terra indigene how to play human games such as hopscotch, and it wasn’t just the youngsters who wanted to learn. Apparently, Jenni and Starr Crowgard were fascinated by the game and played with the children whenever they could.

Crows were nimble and had excellent balance.

Monty knocked on the doorframe of Burke’s office and walked in.

“Busy day,” Burke said. “Your brother and his family get settled in?”

“I’m not sure what my sister told him, but the accommodations were a shock.”

“I’m sure they were.” Burke folded his hands on his desk. “You know I’m going to make some calls about him, find out whether he’s just a nuisance or a potential threat.”

“Yes, sir. Given the restrictions on the living arrangements, I don’t expect Jimmy to stay long. He was looking for a free ride and easy pickings. He won’t find either of those things here.”

“He’ll go too far one day, and it will cost him more than a few days in jail.”

“I know.”

“Is he going to take your sister down with him?”

Monty rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease the sore, tense muscles. “Gods, I hope not. She’s a different person when she’s away from him, but I think there’s a lot Mama didn’t tell me when it comes to Sissy.”

“Families are complicated, and family loyalty can push a person into making difficult, even imprudent, choices.” Burke paused. “My men are a kind of family, and I’ll do whatever it takes to protect them. And that includes you. You’re a good man, Monty, and you’re doing good work here—important work that has an impact on every person living in Lakeside. I’ll keep out of it as long as your brother remains nothing more than a nuisance, but I won’t let him become a threat.”

“Sir?” Monty said, alarmed.

“Are you worried that I’ll take Cyrus for a long ride?”

A long ride meant taking someone deep into the wild country and leaving him there without food, without water, without shoes. Technically it wasn’t a death sentence because there was the slimmest chance of reaching a human settlement and being given the opportunity to start over. In reality it was a form of execution.

“No, sir, I’m not worried.”

Burke gave him a chilling smile. “Well, you should be.”

CHAPTER 8

Firesday, Messis 10

Jimmy stepped out on the apartment’s porch, wanting to inflict a world of hurt on somebody. But there were too many people already awake, and some of those people were cops. And one of those cops was his brother.

Caw!

And if being around cops wasn’t bad enough, there were too many fucking things watching him, keeping tabs on every ass scratch and fart.

A bit of mellow weed would have smoothed things out, but the fucking freaking Others had found not only Sandee’s stash of pills but the weed he’d carefully hidden in a secret compartment in the suitcase. Nobody should have found that hiding place. But his stash was gone, and the compartment had been slashed by a claw or something.

This was all Sissy’s fault. Stupid bitch. Yeah, she’d told him that she was going with Mama and her girls to visit CJ in Lakeside. But she hadn’t pushed hard enough to get him included, and he couldn’t squeeze anything out of her, not with Mama holding the train tickets and the available cash. And, yeah, once she’d reached Lakeside, Sissy had called to warn him to get out of Toland, that something bad was going to go down. And maybe she’d called him in time for him to get one of the last trains out of Toland before the storm shut everything down. But he’d had to pay for his own tickets, with Sandee clinging to him so tight he couldn’t shake her. Weighing him down with her snot-nosed brats. Gods. The way she put out when she needed something, he wasn’t sure those kids were his, so why should he use the stash of money he needed in order to buy clothes and food for them?

After getting out of Toland—he heard on the news later that entire blocks in some neighborhoods were nothing but rubble—he got bogged down around Hubbney, unable to find transportation to a town large enough to have the kind of business opportunities he preferred. In the end, Lakeside was the largest city he could reach. He would have preferred Shikago, even knew some people there, but he couldn’t afford the train fare or, gods, even the bus fare, since the ticket prices had doubled after the travel restrictions were put in place. As it was, he had to scrimp and save for weeks before he could buy the bus tickets to Lakeside and then had to wait a while longer to reach the top of the travel list. And during that time he’d had to smile and pretend to be grateful for the work that allowed him to eat watery soup and hard bread.