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“At least it’s clean,” she mutters. “Doesn’t look like a slaughterhouse.”

“Is that how you grew up?” I ask before I can stop myself. “In a slaughterhouse?”

Penelope fixes me with a cool, level stare. “We had a back room,” she says flatly. “And my sister was messy.”

I bite back a laugh at that, although Penelope doesn’t seem to find it funny. The truth is, my little brother was the same way. I hated it, hated the blood trails he’d leave all over the wooden slat boards in that big Wyoming farmhouse where I grew up. That was never my style.

“Sit,” I tell her, pointing to the sofa. “I’ll fix you a sandwich. Got some canned soup, too.”

Penelope stares at me. She’s still clutching the knife like she plans to use it, and I still kind of want her to do. “What did you do with my stuff?” she asks. “My phone? My suitcase? Purse?”

“It’s all in your car,” I say. “And the car’s ‘round back where I towed it. You can get your clothes after you eat if you want.”

Her eyes glitter. “And my phone?”

“Maybe.” I still haven’t decided. I might let her call her Hunter mother, but I don’t want her calling anybody else. Certainly not whoever she was talking about meeting in Avens. The last thing I want is some human showing up here.

Penelope’s still eyeing me with suspicion, although she does sink down on the sofa. I can feel her gaze on me while I move around my little kitchenette to fix our food. I’ve no idea if she’s hungry or not, but I’m ravenous. Back when I thought she was a Mary, my appetite wasn’t for food. Now, though, the adrenaline has all worn off, and I need to eat.

It’s nothing fancy, but I do heat a couple of cans of chicken and rice soup and put together a pair of ham-and-cheese sandwiches. I don’t have a dining table—why bother, when it’s just me?—but I do have a set of old TV trays, and I unfold those in front of the couch and deliver Penelope’s soup and sandwich right in front of her.

She stares down at it in suspicion.

“Don’t be like that,” I tell her. “You watched me fix it.”

She looks up at me, then, with those big brown eyes, so much like the first Mary’s. My heart clenches up. Mary would never have conceived of TV, much less TV trays, and I can’t imagine how she’d feel about this setup. She’d probably hate it, honestly. She’d tell me I need a proper table, with four places set in case of guests.

“You don’t seem like a poisoner anyway,” Penelope says, picking up her spoon.

I can’t help but grin. “No. Not a poisoner.”

I sit down on the opposite end of the couch, a huge gap between us. It feels so noticeable after having been buried inside her, after having felt the sweet, rhythmic contractions of her cunt as she came.

My face feels hot, and I’m grateful she doesn’t have my Hunter senses to know what I’m thinking.

For the first few minutes, we eat in silence. I don’t know what to say to her, and instead my thoughts keep flicking back and forth between the memory of fucking her and the vague, uncomfortable wish that she’d just go ahead and kill me. Except I don’t really want to die. I just don’t want to be in the situation at all.

But then she says, “What kind of killer are you?”

I look over at her, startled by the question. She’s afraid, a little, but not the way most humans would be. She stirs her soup around, her sandwich half-eaten on the old chipped plate, but when she feels my gaze, she looks up to meet my eyes.

“How were you going to kill me?” she asks.

“Why are you asking?” My breath feels wrong. Too short, too tight, like I’m strangling. Like Penelope’s strangling me somehow, killing me with those lovely dark eyes.

“I’m curious.”

“I told you, I’m not going to kill you”

“Might not let me go, either.” She’s still staring at me, and for a moment, I almost feel like she’s the Hunter in this situation.

I sigh. “Look, you know the old tongue, you know about the First Death. You can pray to the old gods. I believe that you were raised by a Hunter in some form or fashion. But asking me how I kill—that’s personal.”

Penelope’s eyes glitter, and her mouth quirks up, almost but not quite into a smile. “You were literally going to do it to me. What’s the difference?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” I say stiffly. “Finish your sandwich.”

“I’m just trying to make conversation.” Penelope does pick up her sandwich, though, and takes a big bite that she washes down with a swig of water. Then she says, much to my annoyance, “I guess you went through it, too. The First Death. Most Hunters don’t.”