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Ruby smiled sheepishly. “Playing Candy Crush.” Grabbing Greta under the arms, she lifted, setting her on the kitchen counter. “To be fair, a rocket could’ve launched in your living room and I wouldn’t have heard it over the sound of your satanic ventilation system.”

“They were going to charge me $800 to fix it. What’s the point of living in an apartment if maintenance charges for repairs for things that were broken when I moved in?”

Kavya clucked her tongue. “You make well above six figures. You can afford the fee.”

“It’s about the principle.”

With a sigh, Kavya nodded toward the empty space where the door had been. “Can I go now? Sye is waiting for me.”

Ruby tuned them out, throwing up a hand in goodbye and turning to Jonah. “You good? You’re pretty quiet for someone I usually couldn’t beg to shut up.”

He blinked at her, snapping out of whatever haze he had been in. Handing her the expandable faucet from the sink, he attempted a cocky grin that made him look like a depressed clown. “Forget sometimes how quick you thermies are. She could’ve killed all three of us before you even got here.”

She accepted the faucet, exchanging it for a paper towel. The bleeding on his arm had slowed, but soaked through his white shirt. “There’s a lot of ‘could haves’ in life, it’s probably better not to dwell on them. Plus, she didn’t.” She flicked the water on. “Time to find out why.”

The cold water slapped Greta in the face, dripping down her chin and onto the granite counter. She spluttered to life, coughing and groaning. Ruby tossed the nozzle toward the sink.

“The TCA will be here in twenty. Please try not to destroy my apartment any further in the meantime,” Lucas pleaded, gliding out of the front door.

“Hi again!” Ruby slapped her palms beside Greta’s thighs. “My sidekick and I have a few questions for you.”

“I am not your sidekick,” Jonah protested.

“Then you are…her boyfriend?” Greta asked.

The bark of laughter that flew from Ruby’s lips startled everyone in the room.

Unladylike, loud, and complete with a snort at the end, her amusement could not be more obvious.

Maybe in a different life. With a different end to their months spent together.

Maybe, if he hadn’t been an asshat and pretended to not know her.

Maybe if she became human once more and he was the only man left on the planet and she was really, incredibly lonely, but only if the electricity ran out and all the libraries disintegrated and—

Jonah rolled his eyes. “No, we’re coworkers. But that doesn’t explain who you are.”

Mascara ran down Greta’s cheeks with every blink, water clinging to her lashes and smudging the makeup. “Edward didn’t mention you.”

The room dropped ten degrees.

“But he mentioned me?” Ruby didn’t understand why it surprised her, but it did. Edward had also told her name to the farmer. Four years of searching, assuming he had forgotten her, only to be sought out twice within a week. What the hell was happening .

“He has a message for you.”

Sirens blared in the distance. They wouldn’t reach the apartment before the TCA called them off.

Jonah shifted in front of Ruby, partially blocking her from Greta’s view. “What does he want from her?”

Greta grinned. “He’s waiting.”

“For?” Ruby leaned around Jonah, nudging him to the side.

“You.”

If Ruby clenched her jaw any tighter, her teeth were going to shatter. This was a pointless waste of time. Was that what Edward wanted? Was he distracting her from something else that was happening?

“I’m going to shatter your collarbones.” She ripped open one of Lucas’s cabinet drawers and grabbed a rolling pin. “Want to elaborate before your shoulders are Jello?”

The threat only made Greta laugh. Hints of golden capped teeth flashed in the fluorescent kitchen light. She shrugged. “He said you’re not ready. But when you are, he’ll come find you. That he looks forward to seeing you again soon. And to not make him wait too long, or he’ll have to push harder.”

The sirens cut off in time for the group to hear the dining room table finally collapse from the couch. Its thud echoed through the apartment.

“Sorry, just one thing that’s been bothering me.” Jonah reached around Ruby, turning off the still spraying water and turning to Greta. “Who the hell are you?”

She leaned back on her hands, crossing her dangling feet at the ankles—the picture of nonchalance. “A follower.”

“Of what? Edward?” Ruby narrowed her eyes. “Why? What could he possibly have to offer you?”

“An end.”

Car doors slammed outside. Jonah glanced toward the door. “An end? That’s what you call this suicide mission he sent you on? You came here, to a TCA agent's apartment, knowing they would capture and kill you?”

Greta tugged at her hair. It came off in her hand and she tossed the white wig into the sink.

The pale locks soaked in the pooled water, sticking to the metal sides.

“I was dying anyway. Stage four thyroid cancer. Working at a coffee shop for health insurance to get pain pills. He took away the pain. And now at least my death will have meaning.”

“No death has meaning.” Ruby sighed. In a way, she could understand the desire to have a lasting impact on a world you would soon depart from.

Edward had manipulated a dying woman’s fear of being forgotten, filling her head with lies of importance.

Her hatred grew with every passing second.

“Not a single one. We’re born. And we die.

And there’s no meaning in either, just chance, just luck.

But most at least get to die a human. You’ll die a monster.

Less than human. And for a coward who hides in the shadows, scribbling out little notes to pass along like a freak. ”

Lucas reappeared in the doorway. “They’re here.”

Greta’s stare was unnerving, unblinking, as if she was memorizing her every feature. “He’s right. You’re not ready yet. You don’t understand.”

“You were manipulated by a psychopath who believes god knows what, and curses people to live like him. You’re right, I don’t understand. I will never understand someone who can live the way we do, lose people the way we do, and still want to inflict this pain on others.”

Agents flooded the apartment. Greta hopped down from the counter.

Ruby tensed, ready to fight, but Greta only put her hands up in surrender.

The agents approached cautiously, hands on guns.

She held out her arm pushing away the sleeve of her undershirt.

They exchanged confused glances before injecting her with tranquilizers.

She slumped to her knees, her head rolling on her shoulders.

“You’re wrong,” she whispered to Ruby. “All human deaths have meaning. All have an impact. All change those around us. But some are senseless. Some are caused by greed.” Her mouth kept moving, but no sound remained as her consciousness slipped.

They dragged her away, Lucas making his way back into the room. He glanced around his destroyed apartment. Beer bottle shards scattered the floor. A slice of pizza stuck to the television. Water coated every surface in the kitchen.

He took a deep breath and scrubbed his hand over his face. “I think I have to move now.”