A vibrating body jolts me awake. Derry’s arms are wrapped around me like a vice. While I needed his comfort before, it’s my turn to give him mine.

My shifting makes him clasp me tighter, and his teeth chatter in my ear. He isn’t cold. He’s shivering from something else. Withdrawal. How much energy does a Sumair need? Brody mentioned it being months between feedings, but Derry hasn’t gone over forty-eight hours. Has he built up a tolerance? Is having it readily available driving his need? If that’s the case, refusing to augment from me has been harder than he’s let on.

My initial thought is to utilize his unconscious state to share my energy, yet he’s made it clear he doesn’t want me to offer him that relief. Going against his wishes isn’t a great way to transition into a considerate girlfriend. Thankfully, augmentation isn’t the only relief trick in my arsenal. I place my hands on his trembling cheeks. They’re sweat slick from his suffering. The craving is eating at him, chewing carelessly through his reserve.

As with Connor, I gently urge away the suffocating strain of his addiction. I can’t entirely remove the need, so I subdue it, stopping before my fire fuel locks onto its chosen target. The pain reduction allows him to fall deeper into sleep. His breathing evens out, the convulsing stops, and he looks every inch the angel I fell asleep next to. Brushing an unruly bronze strand from his face, I roll on my back to stare at the ceiling. Our relationship is a beautiful disaster I’m not sure how to prevent.

The only way there’s any long-term hope for us is for me to transition, and I can’t agree to that for obviously life-threatening reasons. Talk about some heavy guilt to haul for eternity. Yoked upper back, Bro. Don’t even get me started on my core. He won’t want me to carry that. Neither will he want to be tethered to an eighty-year-old woman if I somehow keep from imploding.

What if I could cure his addiction? The way the cards are stacking up, I doubt there will ever be a vacancy in Hotel-de-food-source, but what if he doesn’t want to live a human life? He doesn’t strike me as particularly bothered by his Sumair status.

I’m relieved he isn’t awake to hear my conflicted thoughts. He needs to come to his own conclusions without my meddling. I refuse to be the sole proprietor of his fate. That’s too much pressure.

His soft snores aren’t helping me get back to sleep, and I don’t have the heart to wake him when he’s resting so peacefully. I can’t stay in bed, not with the fire circling the drain, gaining strength the longer I lay here. I’m experiencing a sort of withdrawal of my own. I need to run.

I slip from the bed, grabbing suitable running gear on my way out. Downstairs, my father is asleep in the recliner, shivering. I take an afghan and cover him.

“I’ll fix this for you, Dad. I promise.”

I sprint from the driveway, taking the course coming second nature to me. The midnight air helps ease the stifling heat. My movement is the only sound, as if the world has stopped. I should hear animals complaining about my property intrusion during a time allotted to them, but I’m granted unsettling silence.

Reaching the top of Halfway Hill, I run in place, testing my legs and deciding they’ll be good without the midway cooldown. I need to get back before Derry issues an EMBER alert.

“What are you doing here?” I recognize her Pine and Ginger scent before her snarly voice. Does she think I’ve invaded her private sanctuary? Guess Molly missed the memo I previously staked a claim on this hilltop.

My tone is equally curt. “What are you doing here?”

Her eyes narrow on me. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

The dimly lit sky creates menacing shadows on her fierce face.

“Shouldn’t you be, too?”

“This is the only time we get to be free of security detail. You should be asleep.”

“Last I checked, no one gave me an itinerary,” I bark.

“Well, they should,” she barks back.

She’s holding her forearms to minimize the tremor. Everyone’s running low on energy, yet my only concern is my mother, who hasn’t even displayed any withdrawal symptoms. Pretty sure a shame bird just flew into my fire fuel turbine.

“Are you okay?” Her glare is the only answer I’m getting, so I push ahead. “Let me help you.”

“I don’t want and/or need your help. We’re going back soon.”

I expected it to happen. The only reason they came in the first place was for my safety, and apparently, the only real danger is me. That must not be a big enough threat to warrant continued supervision.

I regret bickering with Brody. Frig, I’ll miss him. My traitorous eye twitches in agreement. “When are you leaving?”

“Dawn.”

I gasp. Does he not even plan to tell me goodbye?

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Molly furrows her brow. While it should make her appear more frustrated, it does the opposite. She appears sympathetic.

“He’s not coming back with us.” She looks down her nose at me. “If your enabling offer is serious, his would be the throat to shove it down.”

I don’t get the dynamic of their relationship, they being the Sentry: Phelan, Brody, Molly, and Connor. I get she and Connor are siblings, but why were they placed on the same team? More, does the Tribunal do any vetting, or do they strictly take the word of the Scholars as gospel?

Something happened to Molly that twisted her in a terrible way. Genetics seem to play no role in their personality traits. She and Connor are night and day. I can’t fathom them sharing blood ties.

“Molly, can I ask you something?”

“No.”

Heh, I’m asking, regardless. “You mentioned once how Connor is your big, little brother.” I rub circles with my thumbs and fingers, gauging her willingness to answer. “What did you mean?”

She proceeds with a goosebump-inducing laugh that has me rubbing my arms furiously to ward away the chills.

“He’s technically older than me by ten years,” she answers dispassionately, but her tone can’t mask her emotions. She’s upset. “What difference does it make?” She uncrosses her arms, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. “I’m older now.”

“They had to convert him early, right?” She needs to talk it out, and I’m the safest prospect for expulsion she’ll ever find.

“The Writers wrote the accident that ended him, but the Readers caught it in time. It would’ve been nice if they’d gone ahead and saved my parents, too.”

I catch a small glimmer of the grief she keeps smothered inside all her bitterness. Misery cake. Not delicious.

“My parents died, yet we lived. They took him, leaving me to whatever fate would have me. Connor was inconsolable. He fought them at every turn.”

A dammed stream is pooling in her eyes. She doesn’t allow her tears to spill over the edges, though. Tough nut to crack, this girl.

“It took them fifteen years to accept he wouldn’t yield. As long as I was alive, they couldn’t control him—typical unruly teenager. He got free. No clue how, but he came back. Kept sniffing around until they put a stop to it by hauling me in. It was like looking a ghost in the face. He was living and breathing in front of me, except he hadn’t aged a single day. He was exactly as I remembered him. I, on the other hand, was all grown up.

“They wanted someone to take care of him…babysit him, if you will. They hadn’t converted someone so young before. He didn’t need a babysitter. He just needed me. I was his only connection to this earth. He’s spent fifty years trying to fix the age discrepancy.”

“Is it working?”

“A bit at a time, I reckon, but seeing him like that angers me all over again for what they did to him.”

“They couldn’t be all bad. They let him have you.”

“Aren’t I just super lucky?!” she exclaims with mock enthusiasm. “I get the pleasure of being the only girl in an all-boys club, my life—which wasn’t even bad, I should add—was taken from me so I could appease one person’s desire to maintain a familial connection.”

“You’re angry at him?”

“No.” She lets out a frustrated groan. “Annoyed. Rueful. Sorry for myself. I’m not angry at him, but I’m stuck with this, whatever this is, indefinitely. I had a life, Sheyla. A real future lined up. I had a boyfriend, a potential lifetime with him, and I loved him. Everything I’d worked the last fifteen years to get back was swept right out from under me without anyone ever bothering to ask me if that’s what I wanted.”

I can relate. People seem content to choose for me, too. It isn’t ideal. Handing over the reins is a daily struggle.

“See, I have to be bitter, Sheyla.” She refuses to allow her tears to fall. “I have to be hateful, and callous, and downright putrid. If I let myself be free to express what I really feel, they’ll see it. We have no secrets. Phelan has the noose so tight I’m being strangled, but I can’t afford to cut it. I can’t do that to Connor. His guilt would destroy him.”

“Can’t you just leave?”

“Where would that leave Connor? My teammates?” She kicks at the earth with her combat boots. “I’m an insignificant piece to this grandiose puzzle. I don’t matter.”

“You do matter,” I argue. “We all matter.”

“Some of us matter more than others. You’ll see when you transition.”

I let out a feral groan that rivals hers. “Everyone keeps alluding to the crap I’ll see when I transition. Well, it’s all for nothing. I’m not transitioning.”

“Yep, yours will be an all-out explosion.”

“I don’t get why it’s so necessary. I have powers now. Can’t they use those without me transitioning?”

“A human life is a temporary one. Your role needs to extend beyond that.”

My eye practically twitches right out of my face. “Why?”

“They won’t accept a half-hearted effort from you,” she warns. “It won’t be enough. They’ll want the whole sha-BANG, fireworks and all.”

I’m exasperated. “What do they want from me?”

“Everything you can give them.” Her voice is eerily low. “And, what you won’t give them, they’ll take.”

I shudder, not liking what she’s implying. If there genuinely is an ensuing war Mel’s trying to prevent, I doubt the Tribunal are the good guys.

“You should go find Brody tomorrow morning. He won’t tell you he needs you, and I’m not happy leaving him as he is.”

“Maybe you should take him.” While it’ll hurt me to be without him, I don’t want him to suffer.

“He can’t come. Phelan ordered him to stay. He wouldn’t have left you, anyway.”

“Phelan ordered him?”

“We have to obey his commands. It’s part of our conversion makeup. There’s a rank order.”

“Sounds to me like there’s dissension in the troops,” I mutter. “Time for reorganization.”

She smirks. “If they’d let a lady lead, I’d run things in a totally unique way. Of course, you’d be dead right now, so that’s a moot point.”

I force a smile that more accurately represents a grimace. Not long ago, I was hoping for that specific reprieve from her.

“You make it hard not to tell you things. You’re a vacuum for emotional diarrhea of the mouth.”

“That’s an unpleasant analogy.”

“I won’t tell him you’re coming. That way, he can’t prepare.” She grunts before turning abruptly.

“Thanks.”

As she stalks off, I’m left contemplating what we do for the people we love. Yes, love. It’s far too soon to be spouting promises of eternal affection to Derry when our forever is uncertain, but there is love there.

In the short span I’ve known him, he’s completely reworked the function of my heart, and I’m absolutely certain without him there to wind the clock, time would stop. Probably. Confidence is a lot easier to have lying next to him.

Standing in the deathly quiet field sans Molly, I’m not convinced my priorities are properly aligned. I’ve caused dissension, as well, with my fixation on pausing everything to tend to my mother. They’re all important, and they’re all my family. Rectification step one is to help Brody, whether he likes it or not. I’m not opposed to force. Step two is to fix Mel and Ryan. I broke them, after all.

Starting back to my house, I hope Derry’s still asleep. There’s something ridiculously compelling in the combination of my warm bed and his arms. As long as he’s there, it’ll be all right. It has to be.