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When he opened them again, Kiko was still staring at his cake.

He watched as her jaw slowly hardened.

Then she looked up, glaring around the dark half of the kitchen.

“NAOKO TANAKA.” Her shout echoed loudly through the mostly empty kitchen, making Nick wince. “I KNOW YOU’RE HERE, YOU FUCKING BIG MAN COP COWARD… COME OUT RIGHT NOW! STOP HIDING LIKE A BIG CHICKENSHIT COWARD AND COME OUT HERE AND FACE MERIGHT NOW!”

Nick scowled.

He glanced at the reflections on the metal and saw Jem hiding a smile.

“DETECTIVENAOKO TANAKA––”

“All right.” Nick stepped out from behind the metal storage container like she’d yanked him by the arm. “I’m a vampire. You don’t have to fuckingscream.Jesus.”

He moved without thought.

He said the words without thought.

Something about her tone made him respond to her like he would have back when they were friends. He spoke to her exactly like he would have as a human. In those few seconds, he forgot all of it… all the reasons he’d been hiding.

Once he faced her, however, he came to a dead stop.

He stared at her, feeling like he’d been punched repeatedly in the gut.

The pain in his heart grew so bad he couldn’t move.

He didn’t try to push it away.

He owed her that.

He fuckingowedher that one thing.

Kiko seemed to measure him with her eyes.

He couldn’t tell exactly what she was thinking, or how she was reacting to seeing him, but he got the sense she’dwantedthat. She’dwantedto see him for herself, with her own eyes. She’d wanted to see who he was now… without other people intervening and telling her things.

Kiko was clearly done hearing about Nick second-hand.

He had no idea what conclusion she drew from looking at his vampire face, but after avery longfeeling few seconds of her staring, she nodded.

Her voice grew brusque, military concise.

“You should bring it to him,” Kiko said, motioning at one of the cakes. “You should be the one to give it to him.”

Realizing whose cake she meant, Nick felt his jaw harden.

The cake she pointed at, a big one on a sunrise-pink plate right next to Nick’s, had a long human name written across the front in Jem’s neat handwriting. Jem baked a longish cake to accommodate that name, with images of deserts and mountain lakes, clouds and high temples in swirling fog, an eagle with outstretched wings.

All of it belonged to a man Nick had considered one of his closest friends not too long ago. That same close friend shot Nick in the face at the last Miri and Black wedding.

He’d been trying to kill him for what he’d done to Kiko.

Deservedly.

He’d been trying to kill him… deservedly… for what he’d done to Kiko and Miri.

Dexter Orville Houstonit said in dark red frosting.