Go on, Kate. Close your eyes.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but before she could come up with a place, she heard the skritch of claws on metal, saw the sudden flash of headlights. The horrible shift of gravity before the crash. The deafening screech of metal and tires and breaking glass and then . . . silence. Her mother’s face, cheek against the wheel, and in the glass behind her mother’s head, the fractured light of two red eyes.
Kate gasped, and tried to sit up.
“I’m sorry,” said August, a hand against her good shoulder. “It’s over. I’m done.”
No, no, what had . . . Kate scrambled for the memory, but it was already falling apart. It was like waking up too fast, the dream crumbling before you could grab the threads. She’d seen something, something . . . but she couldn’t catch it. The pieces were broken again. Her bad ear was ringing.
“What was I saying?” she asked, trying to shake off the strange panic.
August looked down, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
Her head spun. “For what?”
“I can’t control it,” he said. “Trust me, if I could . . .”
“What are you talking about?”
August ran a hand through his black hair. “It’s just something that happens around me. Around us. People open up. They tell the truth. Whether they realize it’s happening or not.”
Kate blanched. “What did I say?”
He hesitated. “I tried to tune most of it out.”
“How considerate,” she growled. “You really should have told me about this up front.”
One dark brow twitched up. “Well, it’s only fair. I can’t lie to anyone.”
He turned his attention back to her stomach. “You’re going to have scars,” he said, pressing an adhesive over the stitches.
“Not my first,” said Kate. She looked down at the lines of white tape tracing lines across her stomach. “Your father would be proud.”
August winced a little.
“How does a surgeon end up running South City?”
“His whole family dies.”
An uncomfortable silence, and then August said, “What about your father? Any word?”
Kate looked at the cell. There were a handful of messages, all for someone named Tess, who was probably the girl she’d stolen the phone from back in the restaurant bathroom. She hadn’t stopped to get her name.
“Not yet,” said Kate, deleting the texts.
They both knew that was a bad sign. Harker should have seen the message. Should have known it was her. Should have called by now. She’d tried a second time while August was in the pharmacy. Now she tried a third.
She tried to draw a deep breath, and winced; she was still waiting for the pain to blur into a blanket, something she could ignore, or for the comforting numbness of adrenaline and shock. So far, no luck.
Her stomach began to ache in a different, hollow way. “You didn’t pick up any food in that pharmacy, did you?”
August frowned. It obviously hadn’t occurred to him. Of course. He didn’t eat food. Only souls. And maybe it was the pain, or the blood loss, or the exhaustion, but Kate started to laugh. It hurt, God it hurt, but she couldn’t help it.
“What’s so funny?” asked August, pushing to his feet.
“What’s a Sunai’s favorite food?”
“What?”
“Soul food.”
August just stared at her.
“Get it? Because—”
“I get it,” he said flatly.
“Oh come on, it’s funny.” He just shook his head, but she saw the edge of his mouth twitch as he turned to go.
“How often do you . . . you know . . . eat?” she asked, and just like that, the smile was gone.
“When I need to,” he said in a way that made it very clear he didn’t want to talk about it. He rattled the change in his pocket. “I’ll go see if there’s a vending machine.”
The moment he was gone, the cell phone rang.
August stood in the alcove, staring at the vending machine.
His vision unfocused, and refocused, and this time instead of the shelves of packaged processed foods, he saw his reflection in the glass.
You are not a monster.
He ran a hand through his hair, trying to push the damp curls out of his face.
He’s not your father, August. He’s a human.
His rain-slicked shirt clung to his narrow frame, the sleeves pushed up to the elbows, black tallies spilling down his left forearm.
Four hundred and twenty-two.
He leaned his forehead against the glass and closed his eyes, fatigue washing over him. He wanted to go home. Wanted to take Allegro into his arms and sit on Ilsa’s floor and look at stars. What were they doing? What was he doing? Maybe they should have gone south. Maybe they still could.
“Did it eat your money?” asked an old man.
August straightened. “No,” he said wearily. “Just trying to decide.”
He fed coins into the groove, punching numbers at random, and collected the contents from the bottom drawer. And then, just as he was turning back toward the room, he saw it.
A pay phone.