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I close my laptop and swivel around in my chair. I glance down at my bracelet. I hadn’t called the Bargainer tonight, nor had I the day before, and many nights before that. Somewhere along the way, Des started inviting himself over.

Des crosses my room and peers out my window. Far below us, girls in gowns and boys in tuxedos cross the lawn. “What’s going on tonight?”

“May Day Ball.”

Des glances over at me, his eyebrows raised. “Why aren’t you getting ready?”

“I’m not going,” I say. I pull my legs up onto my chair.

“You’re not going?” He sounds surprised.

Isn’t it already obvious? I’m wearing boxer shorts and a worn T-shirt.

I suck in my lower lip and shake my head. “No one’s asked me.”

“Since when do you wait for permission?” he asks. “And also, how is that possible?”

“How is what possible?” I ask, staring down at my knees.

I’m grumpy. Officially grumpy. If I still went to my former high school, I wouldn’t have to hear the excited squeals of girls as they got ready, and they wouldn’t notice how my door was ominously shut.

“That no one’s asked you.”

I shrug. “I thought it was your job to understand people’s motives.”

When I look up, Des’s arms are folded across his chest, and I have his full attention.

“What?” I say, suddenly self-conscious at all the attention.

“Do you want to go to the May Day Ball?” he asks.

Oh God, I’m not admitting this to him. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “I don’t see how that matters.”

He cocks his head, and sweet baby angels, he’s going to read me. He’salreadyreading me.

“It does matter. Now, do you?”

I open my mouth, and I know that everything is in my eyes. That I don’t fit in, and people don’t entirely like me. That I’m an outsider and I want in, I always want in, but I don’t get to walk inside that particular door. I’m forever banished to watch other people live their lives while I wait for mine to begin—or end. It really could go either way. My existence so far has mostly consisted of me holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Des is moving, closing the remaining space between us, and I’m just staring at him like a fool, my knees pressed close to my chest.

He kneels in front of me, the air shimmering beyond his shoulders. He takes my hand, his eyes serious.

My heart’s in my throat, and I can’t swallow it back down. I feel bare in the most exquisite way, and I’m not sure why that is.

He begins to smile. “Would you, Callypso Lillis, take me to the May Day Ball?”

Present

Eli. The MostWanted List. That’s all I can think about as I step outside Des’s home and face my ex.

Our last confrontation feels like a million years ago. Honestly, after everything that’s happened in the Otherworld, this just seems … so insignificant by comparison.

“Were you trying to get caught, or did you just not give two shits about it?” Eli asks.

“I didn’t give two shits about it.” I fold my arms over my chest and lean against the entryway wall. Now I feel the heat of my anger coming back. This bastard. “I can’t believe you had the audacity to come into my home and threaten my lifeand then, as if that weren’t enough, you put my name on the goddamn Wanted List.”

“Callie, I never would’ve hurt you,” he says, his voice soft. He looks almost wounded. And I’m sure it is wounding on some level, considering he is the protector of his pack.