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“Touché,” I say, and gulp from the beer. It’s warm. “Shall we duel for the dishonor of our siblings?”
Sam frowns at me, suddenly serious. “You know, I thought—for most of the first year we lived together—that you were going to kill me.”
That makes me nearly spit out beer.
“No, look—living with you, it’s like knowing there’s a loaded gun on the other side of the room. You’re like this leopard who’s pretending to be a house cat.”
I roll my eyes.
“Shut up,” he says. “You might do normal stuff, but a leopard can drink milk or fall off things like a house cat. It’s obvious you’re not—not like the rest of us. I’ll look over at you, and you’ll be flexing your claws or, I don’t know, eating a freshly killed antelope.”
“Oh,” I say. It’s a ridiculous metaphor, but the hilarity has gone out of me. I thought I did a good job of fitting in—maybe not perfect, but not as bad as Sam makes it sound.
“It’s like Audrey,” he says, stabbing the air with a finger, clearly well on his way to inebriated and full of determination to make me understand his theory. “You acted like she went out with you because you did this good job of being a nice guy.”
“I am a nice guy.”
I try to be.
Sam snorts. “She liked you because you scared her. And then you scared her too much.”
I groan. “Are you serious? Come on, I never did anything—”
“I’m as serious as a heart attack,” he says. “You’re a dangerous dude. Everyone knows this.”
I take the remaining throw pillow and press it over my face, smothering myself. “Stop,” I say.
“Cassel?” Sam says.
I peek out from under the cushion. “Don’t traumatize me any more than you already—”
“What kind of worker are you?” Sam’s looking over at me with the benevolent curiosity of the drunk.
I bite off what I was going to say, hesitate. The moment drags on, suspended in amber.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he says. “It doesn’t matter.”
I know what he thinks my answer is going to be. He figures I’m a death worker. Maybe he even thinks I killed somebody. If he’s really clever—and at this point I have to assume he’s more clever than I am, since he’s saying that he figured out I was dangerous long before I did—he’s got a theory that I killed one of the men the Feds are looking for. If I say I’m a death worker, he’ll swallow it. He’ll think I’m a good friend. He’ll think I’m honest.
My palms sweat.
I want to be that friend. “Transformation,” I say. It comes out like a croak.
He sits up fast, staring at me. All traces of humor are gone. “What?”
“See? I’m getting better at being truthful,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. My stomach hurts. Honesty freaks me right the hell out.
“Are you crazy?” he asks me. “You shouldn’t have told me that! You shouldn’t tell anyone! Wait, you’re really—?”
I just nod.
It takes him a long moment before he can come up with anything else.
“Wow,” he says finally, awe in his voice. “You could create the best special effects in the world. Monster masks. Horns. Fangs. Totally permanent.”
I never thought of that, never considered using working for anything fun. The corner of my lip lifts in an unexpected smile.
He pauses. “The curses are permanent, right?”
