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Silence settled around us. Just the breeze through the palm trees and the distant sound of waves.

I dropped the gun, and turned back to find Zee had scooped the unconscious Victor off his feet and was cradling him in his arms. Around us lay eight very dead trolls.

“Uhm . . . Kitten, did we just murder a mafia don’s son and a whole bunch of enforcer bros?”

I chewed on my lip as the reality of the last few seconds began to sink into my thawing thoughts. It did not look good. “Yeah?”

“Okay.” Zee blinked. “Maybe we should . . . run? Just a thought.”

“Yeah, I think that’s probably a good idea. Is Victor . . .”

“He’s okay, I think. Just bloody and out cold again.”

I sighed. “Okay, uhm . . . to the van?”

“To the van.”

Zee took Victor outside, and after I stuffed all our belongings back into our bags, I found him out there, with Victor still in his arms, standing beside the van.

A van with four slashed and very flat tires.

“So . . . I guess we walkin’?” Zee mumbled. Sirens sounded far off, but getting closer. “Sure, because why the fuck not add some cops right now?” Zee eyed the one road, and our only escape route unless we wanted to swim. Our only choice was to follow the road—on foot—away from the sirens and into the gloom, where more palms swayed and not a single light lit up the dark. “I guess we go thaddaway.”

I spotted the blue lights now. If we were caught with eight dead trolls, on top of all my brother’s bad publicity, Syros’s lies would see us arrested. We couldn’t get caught. “Yeah . . . Let’s go.”

With our bags in my hands, and Victor in Zee’s arms, we headed into the humid gloom where hopefully nothing else bad waited.

CHAPTER 4

The road twisted and turned, but the night was warm and the stars were bright, so it wasn’t all bad. Huge leaning trees muscled out the palms now, and a whole chorus of things chirped and chittered in the dark.

“Is he awake yet?” I asked, peering over at Victor draped in Zee’s arms.

Zee jiggled him. “Does he look awake? No, he’s not awake, and he ain’t gettin’ any lighter. Skinny as a pole does not mean he’s as light as one.”

“Shall I take him?”

“No, I got him.” He shifted Victor’s position. “What? Why you smirkin’ like that?”

“Nothing.” I smirked.

“Spit it out, Kitten.”

“It’s cute, that’s all. You carrying him, like you always do. You know, after we first met him you claimed to hate him, but it was so obvious you were secretly in love with Victor the whole time.”

“Ugh, I was not. If you remember correctly, you were in love with his power-daddy vibes, an’ I caught them feels off you . . . like an STD.”

“I don’t think love works like an STD.”

“It fuckin’ does,” he snorted, not believing it for a second. “Else why would I love such a stuffy, boring, neck-sucking, furniture-making fossil?”

“Sure.” I chuckled back. “You caught love off me.”

We ambled onward. The road had to go somewhere, right? Maybe somewhere with a phone so I could call Leomaris and explain all this.

“Shouldn’t Sleepy McFang Face be awake by now?” Zee asked.

I tucked my thumbs into my pants pockets. “I think he got a power-up like you did, and that’s why he was able to freeze the mafia trolls with only a word. And it seems like maybe the boost at the same time as the shotgun blast to the back knocked him out. Like you uh . . . you know . . .”