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My brows dip low, and Harlan raises his hands again, lowering his voice even further. “I thought she was dead… She looked like she’d been mauled by a fuckin’ bear.”

Gut twisting into yet another knot, my gaze shifts to the interrogation room window. The blinds are closed, but I can make out a silhouette. “And you brought her here? Why isn’t she at the hospital? And what the hell do you expect me to do about it?”

Harlan’s eyes go wide with urgency as his whisper almost seems reverent.“She healed, Gideon. She fucking healed. Right before my goddamn eyes.”

My eyes narrow at him. “Is this a joke or some shit? I gotta be?—

Harlan’s baritone voice rises to a shout—something I’ve never seen him do. The man’s about as good-natured and even-keeled as any decent man could ever aspire to be. “No, god damn it, boy! That woman went from half dead and lookin’ like a shark’s chew toy to skin as fresh as a baby's bottom!”

Harlan stops himself, red-faced, and takes a deep breath as he raises a shaky hand to scrub at his trim beard. “Now, normally, as you know, protocol would have me call in an ambulance and just wish her well, but…”

“But what?”

“Well, for one, she quite obviously doesn’t need an ambulance, and I have a feeling it would set in motion a chain of events that I’m not sure I could ever forgive myself for when she ended up as some government science experiment. And two, when I asked her where she was from, she gave the name of some place I can’t pronounce.”

“So, what? She European or somethin’?”

With comically wide eyes, Harlan shakes his head, voice dropping to a whisper again. “She said it’s anotherrealm.”

I can’t manage to do anything other than blink.

Once.

Twice.

Before bursting into fucking laughter.

Harlan scowls down at me like I’ve just pissed on his Bible.

“Laugh all you like, boy. You’ll see.”

I’m only ten years his junior, but I have too many tears spilling from my eyes to bother reminding him. “God damn, it feels good to laugh. This almost makes the two-hour drive worth it.”

Harlan’s frown deepens, shaking his head. “Prepare to put your foot in your mouth, asshole. Now calm the fuck down, can’t have you meetin’ her like this, or she won’t feel safe leavin’ with you.”

The abrupt halt of my laughter makes me feel like I just stepped off the edge of a cliff.

“Say what now?”

“Well, I can’t exactly bring her home with me unless I want Leanna to put me in an unmarked grave, and there ain’t no one else I’d trust to take proper care of her.”

Now I know why he refused to tell me until I was face-to-face with him. He knows damn well I’d have said fuck no.

The scowl on my face could sink ships, but Harlan only gives me a frustrating smirk.

“Saddle up, boy. It’s happening.”

I huff a disbelieving laugh. “The fuck it is. The last thing I need is some crazy-ass homeless woman fuckin’ with my ranch and?—

“Would you shut the hell up and pick that sorry bottom lip up off the floor before you trip over the dang thing with all this complainin’? Ain’t shit to fuck with on your ranch other than interruptin’ your dick-tuggin’ schedule.”

Before I can even muster a reply, Harlan turns and grips the door handle, mumbling a string of curses I can’t make out other than, “…ungrateful titty-baby…”,before he swings the door to the interrogation room open.

With no choice but to follow, lest I defile the scarce few morals I still hold, my eyes land on the woman sitting on the other side of the table, and my jaw drops so hard it nearly hits me in the dick.

WINNOW

Ihave the honor of being woken up by two tiny, wet noses sniffing me awake, followed by the roar of an enraged mother. As if being drugged and tossed into a foreign realm wasn’t bad enough, some gigantic, clawed beast has to attack me on top of it.