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Lyric walks toward the bar without looking behind her.

Temple watches Briggs lower himself to the ground. “She knows you were being nice, right?”

“Lyric doesn’t like people doing things for her.”

“She could say no without removing your skin.”

Briggs looks toward the bar. “She’s tired.”

Temple glances at me, then at Rider, as if waiting for someone to confirm that explanation. Nobody does.

Bliss throws a marshmallow at Briggs’s head.

He catches it against his chest. “Why?”

“You looked too serious.”

“I was sitting.”

“Sadly.”

“I have a complex emotional range.”

“You have hungry and louder hungry.”

Temple takes the marshmallow from his hand. “This one is mine because you owe me damages.”

“I caught it.”

“It was thrown at you by a neutral party.”

“Bliss is never neutral.”

“That sounds like a personal problem.”

Briggs begins arguing, but his attention shifts toward the bar halfway through the sentence.

His voice stops.

I follow his stare.

Lyric stands near the far end with a man I recognize from one of the Detroit organizations. His suit jacket rests across the bar while he leans close enough that his shoulder brushes hers. Lyric smiles at something on his phone before taking it from him.

She types something into the screen.

The man touches her arm.

Briggs rises so abruptly that Temple’s blanket catches beneath his shoe. He nearly takes both of them down before she yanks it free.

“Holy shit,” Temple says. “Warn the village before the giant moves.”

Briggs doesn’t hear her.

He crosses the lawn with his hands hanging at his sides, but the tension in his shoulders makes every person around the fire stand.

“Fuck,” Cade mutters as Bliss slides from his lap.

The man sees Briggs approaching and straightens. Lyric follows his attention before turning.