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Roman glanced sidelong at his uncle. “What?”

“About not lettingThe Oneget away,” Dean said with a wolfish smile.

Roman blinked.

“Oh, come on,” Dean drawled. “You can’t hide anything from your old uncle.” He leaned across the car to whisper, “I heard you.” He sat straight again and waggled his brows. “You were right outside my room, and you were both being very loud. Especially for two people who are definitelynotinto each other.” He smiled at the road.

Roman stared out the windshield. “I don’t know what to do,” he confessed. He knew what hewanted—and that was a life with Shay. A new future for both of them. But that didn’t mean that what he wanted was the right answer here.

Dean dropped his smile and sighed. “Remember what I said. About your dad and his stupid rules. You want this girl, you go after her. End of story.”

“What wouldyoudo?” Roman asked him. “If it were you? IfThe Oneyou speak of was being targeted by someone like Don?”

A haunted look entered Dean’s eyes. He stared out at the road, the apple of his throat bobbing. “I would’ve wanted to protect her,” he admitted. “Same as you.”

“So, youwouldn’thave said screw it and just did what you wanted, then.”

“Our stories are different. It may not feel like it, but you and that Selkie have the upper hand right now. Getting out of Yveswich was step number one. If you think about it, that whole security breach situation is a bit of a blessing in disguise for you two. Your dad has no home to go back to at this time, and neither does her mom, for that matter. You guys managed to get away, against all odds. You can go anywhere—anywhere you want. The world’s yours.”

Roman sighed. “Then why doesn’t it feel like it?”

“Just keep your chin up.”

“I’m trying.” Silence prevailed for a few minutes before Roman remembered something he’d been meaning to talk toDean about. “Pax had a couple of weird episodes after we left Yveswich. I was hoping to get your opinion.”

Dean frowned. “What do you mean byepisodes?”

“We were evacuating, I was driving, he was fine, and suddenly, out of nowhere, he started screaming and covering his ears.Make it stop, make it stop,he was saying. His eyes turned black, a bunch of dark lines appeared in the skin around them, some of his blood vessels popped… Scared the shit out of me. I thought he was dying or something.”

“Surge?” Dean guessed.

“He’s had them before, but never anything like that. It was super weird—my windshield shattered and the brakes failed… We went off the road, the car was smoking. Then the same thing happened again, a couple of days later. We were staying at a motel in Arbor—that was the day before you showed up. Long story short, a group of Don’s men found us and attacked, and Pax, he…” He trailed off, his mouth suddenly so dry he could hardly swallow.

The memory of those men, popping like balloons, their blood spraying the motel, the ground… His breakfast threatened to come back up.

“Pax what?” Dean prompted.

“I don’t know, he…” Roman drew a shaky breath. “He snapped.”

“Snapped,” Dean repeated, his brow scrunching.

“Yeah, something in him just…I don’t know,snapped,”he said again, throwing a hand up in anI-don’t-knowgesture. “That’s the best way to describe it. This...power,unlike anything I’ve ever seen or felt, just blasted out of him. He killed them,” Roman concluded, the confession raspy. “Don’s men—Paxton killed them. Every last one of them. Almost killed me and Shay, too. It was like they vaporized. There was hardly anything left of them but some blood.” The closest comparison Roman couldthink of was when Darien had exploded the head of that demon at the harbor. But that wasjustthe head. The level of magic it would have taken Paxton to make those men disintegrate like that…

Roman swallowed another surge of nausea.

For a moment, Dean just drove, deep in thought. Then he said, “You still have him on suppressants?”

“Double now.”

“He’s going to have to learn how to control it.”

“How are you supposed to control something like that, though? It was complete insanity. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Youfigured out how. To control yours. You had a similar…episode.”He curled his fingers into air quotes. “You were only ten when it happened.” Dean spoke of it so casually, as if Roman should already know what he was talking about, but?—

Roman was clueless. “Whenwhathappened?”

“Your first Surge. I wasn’t there—I only heard about it secondhand from your mom.”