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“W-what?” I stared at Hart in horror. The very thought of looking at Elliot… like that… My stomach roiled with nausea.

But Hart was excited by this. “You haven’t seen him? They didn’t have you ID him?”

“N—” I shuddered.

“So it’s possible he wasn’t in the car.”

“I—” My head was reeling, my heart pounding, sweat running down my spine. Was it possible? It didn’t seem like it could be, as desperately as I wanted to think it was.

“Jesus fuck, sit down. You look awful.” He guided me to the edge of the bed Elliot and I hadn’t been sleeping in—it was closer to the bathroom—and helped me sit down. Then he grabbed one of the trash cans and handed it to me. “If you’re gonna barf, do it in here.”

I looked up at him, trying to decide if it was good idea or a really terrible idea to let myself hope that Elliot might not be?—

But if I let myself hope, and then he was?—

“Hart, the car was on fire . And they thought it was me in it. Someone was in it. Who the fuck else would it be?” Agitation and anxiety were making me snippy.

“ Was someone in it?” Hart asked.

“Why the fuck else would they send a deputy to tell—” I choked, swallowed. “He came here to tell Elliot that I was dead.” I covered my face with my hands. “ Fuck .”

“ Send a deputy?” Hart asked.

I looked up. “Yes, send a deputy.”

“He wasn’t at the scene?”

“I don’t fucking know, Hart, okay? I kind of stopped paying attention to details once he said?—”

The elf crouched down, one hand on each of my knees. “Seth, I need you to focus for me, okay?”

I stared at him. “You need. Me. To focus .”

“Yes. Because a deputy was sent to tell Elliot that you were dead. And nobody asked anybody to identify the body. And we’re in the small-ass fucking town where your father killed your mother. ”

I stared at him.

His long fingers tightened on my knees, and I winced involuntarily.

He jerked his hands back. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “The point is that I will bet you anything that they were trying to kill you.”

Now I gaped at him. “Are you fucking kidding me? It was an accident.”

He gave me a look that asked if I seriously thought that.

I made a small strangled noise as a mix of guilt and panic hit. “You’re saying it’s my fault someone killed him?”

“Jesus! Fuck. No. Fucking hell.” He ran a hand over his long braid, still crouched by my feet. “I mean, yes, someone tried to kill him, but that stripey asshole is a slippery fucker.”

“And, what, he set the car on fire?”

“I don’t know how the car got on fire,” Hart retorted. “You’re the fucking arson specialist. As a matter of fact, you are the fucking arson specialist, so why didn’t you ask to see the car?”

“Did you seriously just ask me why I didn’t want to see the burned-out car that quite possibly has my boyfriend’s body in it?!” Now I was getting angry.

“We don’t know that,” Hart replied.

“Then why the fuck did they send a deputy ?”

“I believe the car’s on fire,” Hart replied, his voice infuriatingly even. “Or was. What-fucking-ever. But do I believe Elliot is still in it? Since they didn’t ask you to ID the body, no, I don’t.”

I stared at him again. “So because they didn’t offer to show me a charred corpse…?” Nausea surged, but I kept it down.

“Because they came out here too fast,” he replied. “When was the last time you tried to notify next of kin—or whatever—before the car was cool enough for you to do a survey of the scene and collect DNA?”

He had me there. But, oh, holy shit, was hope a dangerous thing.

“Where the fuck is the Sheriff’s Office?” Hart asked me, then.

I looked up. “What?”

“Sheriff’s Office. Where the fuck is it?”

I pointed vaguely. “You don’t have GPS?” I don’t know why I got weirdly hung up on that detail.

“We’re in the ass end of nowhere,” came the response. “I forgot my fucking phone charger, and you’re goddamn lucky I managed to find this hotel.”

I frowned at him.

“I’ll get a damn charger when stores open up,” he snapped. “But in the mean time, I’m going down there and I’m going to find out what the fuck kind of bullshit operation they have going.” His lavender eyes flashed. “Because I’m smelling something and it isn’t fucking roses.”

I was still staring at him when the door slammed shut behind him.

Hart had been gone for… I wasn’t sure how many hours. It might have been two or four or… I honestly had no idea.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep, that kind of fitful half-sleep that leaves you just as exhausted as when you started. But something woke me.

I was curled in the fetal position on the bed, Sassafras snuggled up against my legs behind my knees.

There was diffuse light in the room, which meant it was after sunrise, but I didn’t know how long after.

Hart hadn’t come back—I’d given him my key, so he could get in—and I didn’t know what that meant.

If he’d made any progress in learning more about what had happened, or if he was just pissing off the Augusta County Sheriff’s Department. Honestly, it could have been both.

In front of me, my phone started vibrating, its face glowing in the dimness of the room—now that I was more awake, I could hear rain, which explained the post-sunrise gloom.

I stared at the phone, the light eerie. It took me a long time to push my head up enough to even bother looking at the number.

By the time I did, the screen had gone dark.

I was about to put my head back down when it lit up again. The number had a 540 area code. Local. Maybe it was Hart calling from the Sheriff’s Office. Or Noah, from jail.

I swiped the phone. “Hello?” I sounded like shit.

The voice that answered me was one I never thought I’d hear again. “Seth, are you okay? You sound like shit.”

I burst into tears. Thick, heavy sobs that were the result of stress and relief.

“Baby, baby…”

I was crying too hard to say anything.

“Baby, please talk to me.”

“They—they told me you—” A sob choked me before I could finish it.

“Oh, fuck ,” he breathed. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I called as soon as I got here.”

“Where’s here?” I asked him, wiping my nose on my arm because I didn’t have anything better.

“Helen and Ray’s,” he answered. “I might have gotten a little… lost trying to get here.” He paused for a moment. “I’ll ask Helen come get you,” he said, then.

“Hart and I will come to you,” I told him, interrupting the breath he’d drawn.

“Wait, why the fuck is Val there? Not that I won’t be glad to see him, but?—”

“Elliot, they told me you were dead ,” I blurted. “What the fuck did you think I was going to do? Not call him?”

He went silent for a moment. “They who ?”

“The Sheriff’s Department,” I replied. “The car burned up ?—”

“Yeah, because he shot it.” It was Elliot’s turn to interrupt me.

“ Shot it?!” I repeated. “Who shot it? Why was anyone shooting at my car ?!”

“The cop,” Elliot replied. “But I wasn’t really trying to get a good look at him, because he was shooting at the car I’d just gotten out of after he’d fucking run me off the goddamn road .”

“The sheriff ran you off the road?”

“I don’t know if it was the sheriff or a deputy or some other fucker in the car,” he replied, agitated. “But it was some asshole in a uniform with a gun, and I was trying not to get shot.”

“And I thought you were dead! ”

“I called as soon as I got to a phone!” he retorted. “I’m sorry you worried.”

“Worried? Worried?! Being told you were dead is well fucking beyond worried .” I wasn’t being rational about this, and I knew it.

But I couldn’t stop the words. I’d spent the last thirteen or so hours believing I would never see him again, never hear his voice, never feel his hands on my skin, and I didn’t think I was doing too terrible a job of holding it together.

I hadn’t screamed incoherently even once.

“Baby—”

“I’m sorry ,” I interrupted him yet again. “I’m just… so fucking relieved that you’re alive, and angry that someone tried to kill you again , and exhausted, and?—”

“Baby.” This time his voice was gentle, tender. “It’s okay. I’m alive, I promise. And Helen and Ray are taking good care of me…”

“You need taking care of?” Anxiety immediately spiked again.

“It’s fine, baby,” he said soothingly. “A few bruises, that’s all. I got run off the road, I shifted and slid out of the car while the asshole was shooting, so I’m a little scraped up, but I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure?” I knew I sounded desperate. I felt desperate.

“Yes, I’m sure. Now go get Val and get out here, okay?”

I sniffled again. “Okay,” I agreed. I wanted to see him—no, needed to see him. Needed to touch him. To reassure myself that he really was alive and real and not a hallucination conjured up by my exhausted and grief-stricken brain.

He let out a breath. “Seth—don’t let the cops know I’m alive, okay?”

I was about to object, then realized he was right. “Okay.” I swallowed. “El?”

“I love you, baby.”

Tears tracked their way down my cheeks, but I swallowed them back. “I love you, too,” I told him. “So much.” I couldn’t make myself hang up the phone.

“I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay.”

He was the one who ended the call.

I was soaked through by the time I got to the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office, since I had to walk through the rain from the hotel.

I stepped through the front doors, my dark t-shirt clinging to my skin.

I’m sure the look wasn’t even remotely flattering, given my physique, but I was so emotionally wrung out that I really couldn’t have given any fewer shits.

I walked up to the receptionist. “I need to see Agent Hart,” I told her. “I believe he’s here somewhere.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “Sir?—”

“I will absolutely just start yelling,” I warned her. “If that’s what it takes.”

I must have looked somewhat unhinged, because she immediately picked up the phone on the desk. “Sir, there’s someone here to see Agent Hart. It seems… urgent.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said when she hung up the phone, although that didn’t seem to make her any happier.