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“OrI’ll kill every remaining Fonte on the island, everyone on Saverio will die, and it will be all my fault.” She pressed the cool, sweating glass to her cheek. “I hate hurting people.”

“No, really? I couldn’t tell.”

“I have one job.One. Why can’t I do it?”

He gave her an appraising look, trapping his lower lip between his teeth. “You said you felt hungry.”

“Hmm?” She dragged her gaze from his mouth, but his eyes—warm and dark, like molten chocolate cake flecked with toffee—didn’t make it any easier to concentrate.

“When you touched your first Fonte, you said you felthungry. Have you ever reallybeenhungry?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Everyone’s been hungry.”

“Not like when dinner’s late—trulyhungry. So famished you’d choke down dirt to fill the hole in your belly.”

“I suppose not.”

“Well, when you’re that empty, and you get your hands on food, you know you’ll be sick if you eat too fast, but you can’t help it.”

She stared into her glass as though it might hold answers, but all she found was her own warped reflection. “Okay…”

“That’s why they locked you up in here, right? To remind you about connection and community by taking it away from you?” He waited until she looked up, then held her gaze. “They starved you, and you gorged yourself the first chance you got.”

Unease sat heavy in her gut. “Are you trying to say I kill people because I’m so pathetically lonely I gobble them up? Because that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“I’m saying it’s not your fault.”

Her throat constricted. “Books make it sound romantic to die from loneliness, but to kill someoneelsewith your loneliness? Now,that’sa talent.”

Dante leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Maybe if you took the edge off, you’d gain some control.”

Her lips twitched. “What, like an affection snack?”

“Something like that.” Dante drummed his fingers on the table. “Could you get a pet?”

“Apet?”

“Small? Furry? Domesticated animals?” He mimed clawing at the air. “Like a cat.”

Alessa took a slug of whiskey, coughing at the burn. “You’re proposing I get acat.To fill the gaping, empty hole inside my soul. Acat.”

“Why not? Maybe you’d see better in the dark.”

“Or kill a cat.”

“You think so?” He looked surprised. “They have fur over their skin.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. If I killed a sweet little kitty, I’d never forgive myself.”

“For a cat? You’ve already—”

“Killed three people? Is that what you were about to say?”

He had the decency to look uncomfortable.

“At least they agreed to it. An animal can’t.”

Dante still looked thoughtful.