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I fell asleep before either ball dropped.

And they left me on the couch, which is where I woke up the next morning when my mother started making breakfast in the kitchen. She was trying to be quiet, but I guess I hadn’t been terribly deeply asleep.

I hadn’t had New Year’s breakfast at my parents’ foryears, and I’d forgotten that my mother felt obligated to do to New Year’s breakfast the same thing she did to pretty much everything, but particularly holidays—way,wayoverdo it.

Caramel pecan rolls, which I used to make—

I sat up, biting back a groan, then noticed that Taavi and Elliot were both asleep in Elliot’s pillow-nest on the floor, Taavi tucked up beside the couch. I smiled to myself, then winced as I very carefully maneuvered off the couch to pad into the kitchen.

“Oh!” My mother was clearly not expecting me to be up. “How are you feeling, honey?” She was using a loud whisper, trying not to wake up either Elliot or Taavi.

“Okay,” I answered. “Want me to make the pecan rolls?”

I watched my mom’s brown eyes go misty. “Oh, honey.”

I bent carefully and kissed her cheek. “I’ll make them,” I told her. “And I love you, Mom.”

She hugged my arm—presumably so she didn’t hurt me—and then went bustling about the kitchen with a happy, teary smile on her face.

At least if I was going to freak her out and almost get killed twice, I could be a good son and bake the pecan rolls for New Year’s breakfast.

It also reminded me that I really do love baking when I’m not being crushed under the weight of existential dread and an unsolved murder or two.

While, technically, there was still one unknown killer, they knew at least three of the people involved, which meant they were really just eliminating suspects at this point until they found the right one.

Don’t get me wrong, I understood that this case wasn’t over yet—but the pieces were there. The FBI was involved, and both Olsen and Smith were dedicated to the case.

I wasn’t going to think about all of the other ways that the justice system could fail Gregory Crane and Janice Butcher and Tara Redsky and the others. I wasn’t going to think about what happened when four human men sat trial before a jury of their peers—theirhumanpeers—at least some of whom were likely to be either afraid of shifters or actively anti-shifter. I wasn’t going to spend my nights worrying about the fact that there was still so much that could go wrong, because that’s how you end up completely fucked in the head.

Well. More fucked in the head than I currently was, which was already plenty, thank you.

I was going to trust in the people I knew cared and hope to hell that they could manage to pull out a plea bargain or something that would land these four in prison for long enough that Elliot wouldn’t have to worry about them again.

And I was going to hope that he had enough people here in Shawano who cared about him to make sure he stayed alive—that the family or friends of the killers weren’t going to try to go after him for some sort of fucked-up revenge.

So much for baking while not under the weight of existential dread.

I pressed the heels of my hands into the dough, trying not to let my anxieties over-knead it. Nobody wants anxiety-bread. At least not mine.

Fortunately for me, Taavi woke up and came padding into the kitchen, the elastic having come out of his ponytail at some point while he was sleeping, his dark hair hanging down longer than he usually let it get.

Mine needed another week or two before I’d be able to tie it back again, so I kept brushing it behind my ears, which meant I probably had quite a bit of flour in it at this point, not that you could see it against the white strands.

Taavi ran a hand over my lower back, leaning into my left side. “Morning.”

I smiled down at him. “Happy New Year.”

“Feliz Año Nuevo.”

I assumed it meant the same thing, but maybe he was telling me to go fuck myself, I don’t know.

He stood on his toes, and I bent slightly so that he could kiss my cheek. “Coffee?”

“Mom made it.”

He left my side to go fetch himself a mug, then came back to watch. “Need help?”

“Nope. Mom might.”