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Zee saw me glancing in the mirror and grinned. “I should draw a dick on his forehead,” he whispered.

“Only if you want to die,” I told him.

“Pfft, he can’t take me in a fair fight.”

“When have either of you fought fair?”

Zee went on to explain how Victor had a tell right before he was about to throw down, but my attention split between him and the cop cars parked on the side of the highway, blocking in a beaten-up old yellow car. I got a brief glimpse as we passed by, at the four cops who seemed to be surrounding a much shorter troll. It probably didn’t take four cops to pacify a troll, right? I only got a glimpse of him—youngish, well-dressed, as though maybe he’d been on a night out somewhere.

It was probably nothing.

“Fuck, Kitten,” Zee growled, staring at his phone. “Pull into that rest stop. I gotta show you this. Your brother’s online.”

Oh dear.

I took the next turn-off, waking Victor as the van rumbled over divots in the asphalt, and pulled the van to a stop in the huge busy lot. The sun was setting behind a row of trees, but at the mention of Syros, a chill had run through me.

Zee poofed into the front of the van and held out his phone, showing my brother and a news ticker along the bottom of the screen: SOS HOTEL STAFF WANTED FOR MURDER.

“Who was killed?” Victor asked, leaning between the front seats.

Zee hit the unmute button, and my brother’s dulcet tones filled the van . . . “Unlikely my brother had anything to do with the Stephanie Hotel chef’s murder, but fleeing the scene does not look good.”

“Uh, excuse-moi, is it my fault he had a heart attack after experiencing the best orgasm of his life? I think not.”

“Zodiac, did you kill the chef?” Victor asked.

Zee showed him a tiny gap between his finger and thumb. “Just a bit. But it was mostly natural causes.”

“Adam Vex should turn himself in. I’m sure he doesn’t want any other uncomfortable truths brought to light . . .”

“That asshole.” The video ended and Zee lowered his phone.

“Uncomfortable truths?” Victor echoed.

“How I murdered my whole family, at a guess.” Heroes definitely did not do that. Agent Leomaris would have to revoke our hero status. We’d be wanted criminals. More wanted than we already were. This was bad.

“You should have murdered him harder, Kitten.” Zee huffed and flopped back into the passenger seat.

My brother was clever enough to turn our fame against us. He might even make himself out to be the good guy, the one doing the right thing.

“He’s trying to shake us out of hiding,” Victor said. “He knows our reputation is good and is keeping us safe, but if he can damage that, we’ll have nowhere left to run to. We’d have to return home.”

“Heads up . . . incoming.” Zee sat upright, and we all watched a troll sprint down the road into the parking lot, posh jacket and tie flapping. He saw us, or maybe just saw the bright pink van, and veered in our direction.

Wait . . . that was the same guy I’d seen on the side of the road. Was he running from the cops?

“Adam?” Victor asked.

“Uhm . . .” Cops were notoriously unfriendly to Lost Ones, and he did look scared. Why else would he be running flat out, and where was his car? “Open the door.”

Victor grabbed the sliding door handle and heaved it open just in time for the troll to fling himself inside, landing hard at Victor’s feet. Victor slid the door closed, and a moment later the two cop cars raced into the rest stop.

“Don’t tell ’em I’m here.”

“Stay down,” Victor said, in his no-nonsense tone.

“They’re parking up. Fuck . . . They’ve seen our van. One is coming over.” Zee turned to me. The last thing we needed was human cops recognizing us after my brother had suggested to the world we were murderers.