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6:27 p.m.

By the time we drive straight from Paz’s childhood home to mine, there are six Shield-Cast agents waiting outside my building.

Civilians are being told to cross the street, and once there’s no one on this block except for those paid to keep me alive,

that’s when Agent Dane opens the car door and lets us out. He’s still trying to rush me inside as if there’s a sniper, but

I freeze.

The bloodstain—my bloodstain—outside the building is faint, almost like this one part of the sidewalk has been discolored.

I thought for sure I wouldn’t have come home to this. It’s difficult to remove blood from concrete, but we have the resources

to get this handled. Why weren’t power washers and enzymatic cleaners used to remove my bloodstain? Or a painter to redo the

entire block? How about a construction crew to jackhammer this slab of sidewalk so I don’t have to see this eyesore? I don’t

need this reminder to remember that this is where I almost bled to death.

I’m transported back into the night of the assassination attempt. It’s so upsetting how Mac Maag got around my hyperthymesia because he used a different name and matured since I last saw pictures of him five years ago when he was fifteen years old. If only I had recognized his voice when he threatened my life over the phone, I wouldn’t be staring down my blood right now.

Paz also wouldn’t be grabbing my hand as he is now. He doesn’t even say anything. He knows what it’s like to stare down blood,

both his father’s and his own. There’s something about staring at my bloodstain that enrages Paz so much that he squeezes

my hand.

“I could’ve lost you before I knew you,” Paz says.

If I had been assassinated, then Paz would have killed himself back in Los Angeles.

We would have both died without ever meeting.

That’s a dark thought, but that’s all it is. Some horrible alternate reality. “You didn’t lose me,” I say. “And I didn’t lose

you.”

We’re both here, surrounded by Shield-Cast agents tasked with keeping me alive, but it’s almost as if Paz and I are becoming

each other’s personal bodyguards.

The stakes are higher, though.

If one of us dies, the other will have to fight like hell to survive.