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Had he scared her?

“No. Not scared.” Tai’s mouth puckered more. “It was super weird, though. You just stood there… like a zombie. When I got up and went over to you, you walked around the coffee table and then you were lying on the couch. Sleeping.”

Nick frowned. “Seriously?”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. It was super weird.”

Nick fought to pull his mind back online.

He could still see that asshole behind his eyes.

That cold, glass-like stare. The weird clothes. The smell of blood and death.

Tai spoke up again.

“I saw him, too,” she offered. “I don’t think that was a dream.”

Nick scowled, looking at her. He was about to argue, and to tell her to go hide, but she went on before he could.

“Well… thatmighthave been a dream,” she conceded. “But if it was, then I had it, too. But I think I was stuck in your dream again. That’s been happening a lot lately.”

As if remembering specific things, she grimaced.

Nick felt a colder pit forming in his stomach.

He was about to press her, but she jumped towards him lightly on her slippered feet.

She grabbed his arm, shaking it.

“Someone’s at thedoor,Nick.” She peered into his face with intent eyes. She looked worried again, like she had when he first woke up, and suddenly much younger than how he usually saw her.

She suddenly looked and sounded her age.

It hit Nick in the same set of seconds that he almost always forgot how young Tai was. Maybe not young in terms of years, meaning, she was likely much older in years than a human who looked and sounded like her.

But for a seer, she was damned young.

She was practically a baby.

She still liked stuffed animals at night, for fuck’s sake.

“Ms. James isn’t here,” Tai repeated. “She’s at work still. I called her before. When the man in the hat was here…”

Nick winced, but Tai kept going.

“…When I told her about him, and about you going to the couch and lying down, she told me not to disturb you. She said I should leave you alone. That she would call someone.”

Tai’s mouth puckered more.

“But she called me right after that. She saw those people on her camera as they left their cars and came up to your door. She showed me what they looked like. She also said I shouldn’t open the door. She told me to get you. She said I’m not supposed to be here… and they’re official. She said they’re definitely official…”

Nick struggled to follow all of this.

As her words slowly sank in, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising.

“Official?” He frowned, fighting to think. “Official how? Are they military, Tai? Archangel? Did you know the uniforms?”

Tai shook her head.