And that’s when I noticed the dark red stain on the carpet. I could have killed Alec. And none of this was his fault.

“This has to stop.”

“I know. We’ll find a way. I swear, Kaylee, this will never happen again.”

But it was hard to take heart in his words, because they sounded more and more hollow every time I heard them.

19

SABINE WAS SITTING in the passenger seat of my car when I tried to leave for work at nine-thirty Sunday morning. I saw her the moment I stepped onto the front porch, and for a second, I considered simply marching back into the kitchen, where my father was cleaning Alec’s head wound, trying to figure out how to keep Avari out of our lives for good. To my surprise, he was more sympathetic to Alec’s dilemma this morning, rather than less, since he’d now personally fallen victim to possession.

But ignoring her would only be prolonging the inevitable. And Sabine’s presence was starting to feel inevitable, though I’d only known her a week. The mara was a force of nature—a tidal wave of fear, and pain, and need—and the only way I knew to survive her was to grab the nearest tree and ride out the surge.

She didn’t look up as I jogged down the porch steps; she just stared out the window, long dark hair covering the only visible side of her face. A glance up and down the street showed no sign of her car, and I decided right then not to even ask how she’d gotten to my house.

I exhaled slowly as I walked down the driveway, struggling to contain the sudden white-hot flare of my temper, determined to face my latest problem head-on.

Despite her obvious B and E, the driver’s side door was locked, and Sabine didn’t turn to face me when I tried the handle. Nor did she unlock the door and let me into my own car, though she’d clearly gone through some effort to let herself in. If I couldn’t see the back of her rib cage expanding with each breath, I might have thought she was dead.

That’d be just like Sabine, to die in my car—one last trauma for me before she’d probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

Gritting my teeth, I unlocked the door myself and slid into the driver’s seat. “What are you doing in my car?” I demanded, still clutching my keys for fear that if I put them in the ignition, she’d grab them and run, as the next part of whatever stunt she obviously had planned.

“Waiting,” she said, and her voice was oddly nasal.

My spine tingled. Had Avari somehow gotten ahold of her, too? Had he found another body to wear while he tortured me?

But then she turned, and I understood. She wasn’t possessed—she’d been crying.

Great. A bawling Nightmare. What’s next? A schizophrenic Minotaur?

“How did you get in here?” I asked, not sure I really wanted the answer. I should have just kicked her out and headed to work—I’d probably be late asit was. But I so rarely had the upper hand with Sabine that I couldn’t resist the opportunity to find out what could possibly make the big bad mara cry.

Sabine reached between her seat and the passenger’s side door and held up a long, thin strip of metal with a hook on one end. A slim jim.

My fist clenched around my keys. “I don’t even want to know how you learned to use that.” My curiosity—not to mention my patience—was fading by the second. “If you expect me to feel sorry for you, you’re out of luck,” I said, trying not to stare at her swollen eyes, flushed face, and tear-streaked cheeks.

“I don’t want your sympathy.” She sniffled, then grabbed a tissue from the minipack in my center console and wiped her face. It didn’t help. “I want you to fix this.”

“Fix what?”

“This!” She spread her arms, as if to encompass her entire screwed-up life. “Nash won’t talk to me. I went back last night, and he just kicked me out again. He won’t even listen.”

I have to admit, I took a little joy in her pain; she’d certainly dished out enough for me. “I’m surprised he let you in in the first place.”

Sabine frowned like I wasn’t making sense. “I went in through a window.”

“You broke into his house!” But then, why not? She’d broken into both my dreams and my car….

She shrugged. “Harmony always forgets to check the windows.”

“That’s not the point.” Though I made a note to mention that little security lapse to Nash. “You can’t just break into his house and expect him to be happy to see you!”

Her frown deepened. “He always was before. We never could stay mad at each other, and after we had a fight, one of us would sneak into the other’s room, and instead of apologizing, we’d—”

“Stop!” I shouted, louder than I’d intended to in the confines of my car. For a couple of endless moments, I could only blink at her, trying to process what she’d almost said, while subconsciously denying that we were even having this conversation. “I get the picture, and I don’t need to hear about it.” Or think about it, or ever, ever get stuck with a visual. “And anyway, that’s not normal, Sabine. In fact, it’s messed up. Sounds like you two had nothing in common but sex.”

Hurt flickered across her tear-streaked expression, and again, my heart beat a little faster in satisfaction. But she recovered quickly. “I don’t think you know what’s normal, Kay. Sometimes messed up is just the way things are. And even if we weren’t a normal couple, so what? Screw normal. Normal is dull, and Nash and I were lightning in a bottle. We burned hard and fast, but never burned up.”