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“What are you getting at, River?” he asked with an irritated ring in his voice.

“Okay…” Palms steepled beneath my chin, I continued, ignoring the bite of annoyance in his tone. “Hear me out. I think these are tied to specific places the Watchers used to access Earth. Kind of like wormholes, but they’re actual structures. Watchtowers.” I pulled out my phone. “I haven’t researched what the other coordinates are, but I think if we go to them, we can find out where the Watchers are…”

“River.” Ryder lowered the cellphone from my face. “This is a bunch of scribble.”

“No.” My eyes clung to the bright light of the screen. “My dad knew what my mom was. He must’ve known about the Watchers and their connection to these sites, that’s why?—”

Ryder’s demeanor hardened. “We both know your dad isn’t the most reliable…”

“What?”

“Listen.” His hands hovered beside my arms, as if he were about to start rubbing them, then they dropped to his lap. “This sounds like a story your dad tells himself so he can live with the facts, that your mom died and there was nothing he could do to save her.”

“How can you say that?” I clenched my jaw to keep it from quivering. “I’m telling you this is real.”

He sighed dramatically, like this was the biggest waste of his time even though he knew how important this was to me. “Say the Watchers are real—hypothetically. Their job is to protect mortals, right? So…where are they now? The world’s gone to shit.”

I twirled the frays on my cutoffs, tugging at the loose threads. “When my mom left, it…broke their power.”

He scoffed. “And let me guess, you think you’re the one to save us?”

He might as well have thrown his drink in my face. What the hell was wrong with him? “Well, that did cross my mind, but now you’re making me feel stupid for even considering it.”

“Oh, River.” Ryder doused my name in a bitterness that made his lips pucker. “There are no chosen ones in this life. You said your eyes were open now, so look around.” He stretched his arms along the wooden curve of the bar top. “Earth isn’t made for you to rule, it’s made to make you suffer. You’re not a savior. You’re one of us. Forgotten.”

My jaw dropped. “You’re the one who pushed me to find out who I was. Now you don’t accept it?” I had no words. Actually, I had two. “Fuck you.”

Ryder shrugged and downed his glass. I didn’t think it was possible, but my mouth fell open even wider.

“I have to go.” His chair screeched across the hardwood as he stood and threw down a twenty. “Leif and I are going hunting.”

The conversation I overhead him having with his brother at their house resurfaced in my mind. “Oh, to find that person you’re looking for.”

A muscle around his jaw tightened. “We already found her.”

Her.

Heat engulfed me as shame flooded my system. Maybe that’s why he was suddenly being so standoffish.

I swiveled in my chair. “You planning on stringing her along, too?” The comeback burned in my throat, and I salivated with ire.

“Not if I can help it.” The light from this angle made it look like a sheen coated his eyes—but there was no way Ryder cared. He’d wielded his words like throwing knives, and they’d found their target, right in my heart. With the little dignity I had left, I met his stare.

And immediately wished I hadn’t.

Iciness radiated from his eyes, such a deep hunter green they bordered on black, and squelched the fire in my veins. His shadow fractured in the dim light, stretching out behind him in two elongated pieces, dousing me in a bitter coldness. At some point my nails had snuck between my teeth—he didn’t reach to stop me.

He left without another word.

The scent of his jacket—aged leather and pine—lingered in the air. I stared, unmoving, any loving part of me emptier than his vacant seat. I don’t know how long I sat there as the blood rushed to my head, and the shock settled over me. As my toes and fingers tingled, and every inch of me went numb. As the part of me that waited for him to return withered and died, and I chugged a second and third drink. I do know at some point autopilot kicked in, deciding it was time to go, and I mindlessly shuffled out the door.

Twilight steeped the alley in the hues of the dwindling sunset. Dragging my nails against the building, I stumbled towards the street, letting the bumpy stone scratch my fingertips. Tears stung my eyes, and my breath came in heaves, and I was cradling the wall before I could stop myself. Scream sobs echoed in the narrow space as I withdrew from the world, tasting, feeling, seeing, smelling, hearing nothing but the buildup of pain and humiliation as I whittled down to a shell of a human.

There were a lot of crappy outcomes in this hand I’d been dealt, but nothing compared to this—opening myself up just to be shut down. To be left with no sense of belonging.

I reached for my necklace, forgetting it was missing. A pulse of anguish lingered where my hand brushed bare skin. Fresh tears lined my lids.

A translucent tendril of energy reached out from my body, as if searching for a conduit. I watched, felt, the smoky wisp sweep across dumpsters, the windows, as if it were an extra limb that moved as inconspicuously as a shadow. Touching, prodding, weighing its resources—metal and glass—and stalling at the lack of…elements.