“I have never played this before,” I told her honestly, hoping she wouldn’t ask why I was so good at shooting things with a toy gun.

Because I’m very good at shooting things with a real gun. She gave me a doubtful look, and I held up my hands, grinning. “I swear.”

“Okay, fine. I believe you.” She brandished another quarter, eyes gleaming. “One more round?”

“You’re on.”

At that moment, however, my phone buzzed. I dug it out of my

pocket and held it up, immediately recognizing Tristan’s number, flashing across the screen. “Sorry,” I told her, backing away. “I have to take this. I’ll be right back.”

Retreating to a more quiet corner, I ducked behind a flashing crane-type game and put the phone to my ear. “Yes?”

“How’s the mall excursion going?” Tristan’s voice held traces of amusement. “I assume you found your target, because I know you haven’t been walking around for three hours doing nothing.”

A bell rang out somewhere behind me before I had a chance to answer. Tristan’s voice took on a suspicious tone. “What the heck was that? Where are you guys?”

“Uh…the arcade.”

“Well, it’s good to know that while I’ve spent the afternoon researching our potential targets, you’ve been messing around at the arcade.” Tristan’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Did you at least get any useful information out of her?”

“I’m still working on it.”

“Fine.” Tristan didn’t sound convinced, but he backed off for now.

“If you say you’ve got this. I just wanted to tell you a few things I discovered about the Hill residence. Seems the original owner never put the property up for sale. And when the lot did sell, it sold for twice of what it was worth.”

“Sounds like somebody bribed him just to acquire the house.”

“Exactly. And get this—according to the home owner’s association, extreme renovating around the property isn’t permitted, but the new owner had a team of contractors at the house for nearly a month, and nothing was changed on the outside.”

“So, they might’ve changed the inside extensively, perhaps to set up a base for Talon operatives.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.” Tristan’s voice turned contemplative.

“Of course, we’re going to have to get inside to investigate. Breaking and entering is out, obviously—if we’re wrong, it could spook the real sleepers into moving, and if it is a Talon base, they’ll likely have a ton of alarms set up. We can’t risk alerting the targets. So it looks like it’s up to you.”

“Anything unusual on the surveillance?”

“No. All clear on this end so far.”

“Garret?”

I turned. Ember stood behind me, phone in hand, looking abashed.

“Kristin and Lexi are leaving in a few minutes,” she announced. “But they want to know if I’ll need a ride home.”

I was confused for a second, before I realized what she was asking.

“Understood,” I told Tristan quickly. “Gotta go.”

I hung up. Ember still waited, green eyes watching me expectantly.

“It’s your call,” I told her. “If you need to leave with your friends, I understand. Or, I can drive you home.” And if I drove her home, perhaps there was a way I could get her to ask me inside. Though, if I was being honest, I wasn’t ready to leave just yet. And I didn’t think she was, either.

She smiled. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“Only if you agree to one more game of zombie island.”

The grin grew wider, and her eyes flashed. “Deal.”

Ember

We played three more times. I think he let me win the last one, but I wasn’t complaining. I could never get Lexi or Kristin to play games with me, and Dante was rarely at the mall, so having Garret around was pretty great. After we got bored with shooting zombies, we tried a racing game (I won that one), a fighting game where we were pretty evenly matched (I still beat him), and then Garret absolutely stomped me in air hockey. His reflexes and hand-eye coordination were amazing, better than I’d ever seen in a human before. My super-competitive side would’ve been annoyed but, unlike my brother, he was so damn humble about it. Plus, he really seemed to be having fun.

Later, we revisited the food court, as I was hungry again from a long day of shooting zombies and needed a snack. As I munched a slice of pizza, Garret sat across from me with a soda, his expression thoughtful.

“What?” I asked at last. “Do I have pepper stuck in my teeth or something?”

He smiled. “You keep surprising me,” he said, resting his elbows on the table between us. “I have several things I need to get done today, but I keep getting pulled into zombie games and racing and buying mall food. I’ve never done that before.” The smile twitched into a smirk. “I’ve decided it’s your fault. You’re very distracting.”

I cocked my head. “Good distracting, or bad distracting?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Well, when you figure it out, let me know. I’ll be sure not to care very much.” Finishing the last of my crust, I wiped my hands on a napkin, then noticed Garret’s arm resting on the counter, lean and tan and muscular.

I blinked. A jagged, pale circle marred his forearm near the elbow, shiny and white against his tan skin. I looked closer and saw another scar near his wrist, like an old, faded puncture wound, and several tiny ones scattered between the pair. They were faint, the smaller ones barely visible, but judging from the larger two, his arm had definitely taken some damage.