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"That I'm a serial killer?"

"Still under review." She tips her head. "I think you know exactly what's happening to me."

My wolf goes still.

"And I think you're scared to tell me."

Too close.

I look at the dark yard instead of at her.

She steps into my line of sight. Small and stubborn and lit faintly at the edges in a way she can't see.

"Gage." Her voice drops and loses its armor. "Are you scared of me?"

Never.

"For you," I say.

The truth. Out before I can lock it down.

Her face opens. The anger falls off it. For one second she looks at me the way I've let myself imagine at three in the morning. Not the monster next door. Not the neighbor who never talks. Like she sees the rest of me.

Then glass shatters inside the shop.

Sid hisses.

Maren runs.

I catch her around the waist. "No."

"That's my shop."

"Behind me."

"You're doing it again."

"Yes."

I don't apologize.

We go in together. She won't stay back, so I keep my body between her and the room and let her fist a hand in the back of my shirt.

A jewelry case lies in pieces across the floor. Glass everywhere. Nothing else has moved.

Sid stands in front of the antique mirror, spine bowed, every hair on end.

The glass is black.

Not dark. Not throwing back the dark. Black the way a well is black. A hole punched clean through the wall into somewhere else.

"What the hell?" Maren breathes.

A hand slams the other side of the glass.

Pale. Human. A woman's hand, fingers spread, the palm flattening white against the surface like she's pushing up out of deep water.

Maren screams.