“I don’t want a lecture,” I said to Sam.

“I didn’t plan on giving one.”

He crossed the room, his boots thudding heavy on the floor before he sat on the edge of my bed. He balanced his elbows on his knees and folded his hands together as he looked over at me. His right eye was circled in deep red and purple from the punch I’d caught him with yesterday. I was still feeling the ache of the fight in my ribs.

“What are they about?” he asked.

“What are what about?”

“Nick.” Sam gave me the look he always gave me when he knew I was being a dumbass on purpose.

He’d meant the flashbacks.

“What, Anna didn’t tell you?”

“She didn’t.”

I sighed and leaned into the dresser behind me. “A girl.”

“You know who she is?”

I’d been thinking about her for days. No, weeks. But the flashbacks never gave me anything important.

“I don’t even have a name,” I answered. “Nothing. She’s like a ghost.” I scrubbed at my face, closed my eyes, and saw her again. “I have to know if she’s real. Or alive.”

Sam glanced at me, catching what I didn’t say. “She was part of a mission, wasn’t she?” I didn’t answer. He nodded, like he already knew anyway, like it all made perfect fucking sense. “What if you go there,” he said, “and you find out you killed her? Or what if you find out she’s nothing like you thought? You think filling in the blanks is somehow going to fix everything?”

“Maybe.”

“It won’t.”

“This is starting to sound like a lecture.”

He looked away and let out a half laugh. “You’re right.”

What I didn’t tell him was that I needed to know if I’d killed some innocent girl only because the Branch had told me to. I needed to know once and for all if I was just as bad as my dad. Maybe I’d been following in his footsteps all along, hurting people because it was in my blood.

“If you won’t stay for me or Cas or even yourself,” Sam said, “stay for Anna. You have no idea what she’s like when you’re gone.”

I frowned. “What’s she like?”

He thought for a second. “Restless.”

I pushed away from the dresser. “You never told me this before.”

“That’s because you always came back.”

I let out a grunt. “I’m not leaving for good, you know. Anna’s a big girl.”

“Don’t be a dick. You can’t promise that. Not when you’re messing with things that trace back to the Branch.”

What he meant was, You can’t promise you won’t be dead in a week.

I pictured my body rotting in a shallow grave in the middle of nowhere, and Sam, Cas, and Anna waiting for me to come home, wondering if this was the time I wouldn’t. The guilt nearly changed my mind. Nearly.

“I have to go,” I said.

Sam cracked a knuckle and thought for a second. Finally, he stood up. “What’d you pack, then?”

He wasn’t asking about the clothes.

“A couple of knives. A Glock.”

He took a few steps toward me as he reached behind him, beneath his T-shirt, and pulled out the Browning. He dropped out the clip, checked the bullets, and slammed it back into place. “Take it.” He handed it to me.

“I got the Glock.”

His expression never wavered. “Take it. You’re on your own, you’ll need more guns. Just in case.”

I gave in. The Browning was his gun. If he was offering it to me, then it meant something important. “Thanks.”

“If you need us, call. We’ll be there in a second.”

“I will.” I wouldn’t.

He clapped my shoulder. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“The shit I do can’t be half as stupid as the shit Cas does.”

Sam laughed and shook his head as he turned away. “I’m not going to reply to that.”

“Because it’s true.”

He pulled the door open and disappeared into the darkened hallway.

I took his spot on the bed, staring at the gun in my hands. I pictured the next few days alone, without Anna or Sam or even Cas within shouting distance, and started to wonder if I was making one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

The three of them were all I knew. All I’d ever needed to know.

But living like this, wondering about the past, about the mistakes I might have made, was tearing away at my insides like a handful of pills.

I had to go.

No matter what I found.

8

ELIZABETH

JUST AS EVAN PROMISED, EVERYONE changed their plans for me. It was a testament to how much sway Evan had over the group. Everyone did what Evan wanted.

The group had decided to have a bonfire out by Walsh Lake instead of going to Arrow. Evan picked up Chloe and me right on time, and he made his friend Sean move to the backseat, so I could ride shotgun. Another car with five of Evan’s friends inside trailed behind us on the road.

Walsh Lake was north of town, and though the drive usually took twenty-five minutes or so, Evan sped nearly the whole way, cutting it down to fifteen. He had a foreign sports car, one of those compact cars that rode close to the ground, with a rear spoiler that was nearly as tall as me. It was a manual transmission, and I couldn’t help but watch Evan as he shifted through the gears, the muscles and tendons in his forearm twining in a weird sort of dance.