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Manny looks at me with such disappointment that it feels like a physical blow. I’m tempted to swing back, but then his face smooths into something accepting.

“I remember feeling like that. It’s hard, being made of humans, but not feeling human. Don’t confuse person and human, that’s all. Would you say Gloria isn’t a person? Doesn’t need friends?” he nods towards the airy woman beckoning everyone to follow her deeper into her lavish home, smiling and exuding nothing but love and graciousness.

“No,” I have to admit. Because I might be a dead thing, but I’m usually an honest thing.

Unless I feel like lying. Or need to.

I’m an inconsistent dead thing. Dead. Living. Hate people. Love Rhea and Manny, and even this baby I’ve never met.

“I just want to get home to check on Victoria.”

“Home, huh? You know, that apartment above the shop office could be built out. Expand the back of the office, turn it into a duplex, three bedrooms, a second for a lawn. You could—”

“I work for you. I can’t take a house from you,” I say, but I’m touched.

And I suddenly have the sick fantasy of running up the stairs from the shop, slinging off my shirt and sliding into someone’s arms, some little wife waiting to welcome me home, sharp teeth, stitches, and all...

Well. It’s a fantasy for a reason.

“In the winter, I wish you would think about at least renting it out. I’d take the money,” Manny chuckles, and I chuckle back, but I know it’s likely his idea of rent is something unheard of, like twenty bucks a month.

“It was a slip of the tongue. I meant get back to the apartment. I’ll hang there until she’s well enough to drive, and then I’ll go back to my crypt. It’s cozy enough, Papa Bear, so don’t worry,” I toss on, just to give him some kind of acknowledgment that I know what he does for me. What he means to me.

“Why was she in town anyway? The holiday? Does she have relatives here?” Manny asks.

I shrug.

But now I’m curious.

Why is she here? Did she say?

Why was she near my home—a graveyard, at night?

She can see me for what I am.

She’s from California.

She knew what a CrossRealms was. She didn’t have to say it; that shudder spoke volumes.

Rhea comes back, a plate of food outstretched. I made a plate for your company.”

I take the plate and nod. “Thanks.”

“Aren’t you coming to eat?”

“Not right now, hon. I think he’s worried about the girl. He’s going to go check on her, right, Laz?”

Another nod. Check on her. Check her story.

I leave White Pines without more than a grunt of farewell, dark eyes starting to glint with electric green as unwelcome thoughts circulate.

Calm down. So what if Victoria knows those things and comes from that state? So do I.

Yeah. And I’m supposed to be a hitman’s hitman. The killer of the hardest to kill, the kind of messy deathmonger you use when you want to send a message that ordinary bullets won’t cover.

But I came here, to Pine Ridge, to be better. Because I didn’t want to be what they made me.

Maybe she’s the same.