He stared at me over his shoulder incredulously. His legs were long enough that if he really wanted to put distance between us and escape me, he could. “I just bet he did.”

“It was when he was only fifteen. You two worked for someone named Kara. You sold the cadavers to a medical school, but you kept the jewelry to sell to help fix his eyesight. And you...” I strained to remember what I’d seen. “You wore a gold cross around your neck. Makes me think you were religious.”

His expression was now a mirror image of how Bishop looked at me last night after the memory meld. “I’d stop talking now if I was you, gray-girl.”

Stop? But I’d just gotten started. And I was on a roll. I had to keep pressing. There was something here—some connection I knew was vital. “Bishop changed his name to show how much he wanted to forget the past. Kraven’s your last name, isn’t it?” I was guessing now, but I knew I was right. “James is your first name. Just because you go by your last name doesn’t mean that you’re forgetting who you were. You remember. Come on, tell me something. Anything.”

“Why?” There was the faint echo of pain in his voice. “So you can understand him better? Sorry, I’m not really in the mood to help pave your way to true love, sweetness.”

True love? Maybe in my wildest dreams. But I’d never been a dreamer, I’d always been a realist. Even now. “You’re kidding, right? He’s an angel who’s been around for years and years. He’s an angel of death—an assassin. How could I ever seriously think somebody like him would be interested in me beyond his...inconvenient addiction?” It hurt to say it out loud, even if it was the truth.

“Interesting choice of words.”

“I mind melded with him yesterday and heard everything. If he feels anything for me, it’s the result of his soul’s bizarre bond to the gray that attacked him.”

“He did say something like that. Nice and neat explanation, isn’t it? But if you think that’s all it is between you two crazy kids, that should be freeing, right?” He groaned. “You have bigger problems than whether or not my little brother holds a torch for you. Way bigger if you don’t find that missing soul of yours.”

I stopped walking and looked around, trying to pinpoint my location. “Where are we?”

It wasn’t as densely populated here on the east side of the city as it was closer to my house downtown. This wasn’t the stop I would have gotten off at to go to Crave. We’d gone farther than that—I hadn’t even realized I’d missed my stop until now.

However, I did see something I recognized. On the lawn of a huge house on a large lot we were walking past was a for-sale sign with my mother’s name on it.

“House for sale,” Kraven said, watching me check out the property. “Looks expensive.”

“I wonder if this is the house,” I said, staring at it through the iron gate at the end of the driveway. “My mother said she can’t sell it.”

Suddenly, I gasped as a wave of hunger crashed over me, stronger than anything I’d ever felt before. It was enough to make me drop to the ground, hard enough to bruise my knees. I couldn’t find my breath. I reached up to grasp one of the iron bars to keep me from collapsing completely.

Kraven eyed me cautiously. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I can’t...” I struggled to breathe properly, to think, but I couldn’t. I shook from head to toe. It was as if there was something inside me, a ravenous beast that wouldn’t let me think or feel anything but emptiness, hunger, stretching wide and cavernous—never full, never satisfied. What I usually felt was only a pale version of this.

If I didn’t feed soon, I was going to die.

It was the only clear thought I had.

Was this what Stephen warned me about? Was this stasis?

I was moving, but not through any choice of my own. It took a second for me to register what was happening. Kraven had picked me up, thrown me over his shoulder and was rapidly running away from the house. He didn’t put me down again until we were a couple blocks away, near a line of stores.

I stood on shaky legs next to a small Italian restaurant. Through the glass windows, a few tables with red tablecloths were clearly visible—people eating, drinking wine, enjoying themselves.

It helped to move away from the house, but not as much as I’d like it to. Some people walked by us, moving toward the entrance to the restaurant—two of them, a man and a woman. When Kraven let go of me I immediately made a move toward them, not able to control myself.

Kraven grabbed my arm and held me firm until they disappeared inside.

I think I hissed at him. Like an angry snake.

“Nice,” he said as he pulled me around to the side of the building where nobody in the front could see us. “See? This is what I expected with you being all gray. But no, you normally have to be all innocent and nonthreatening. Makes it difficult to do my job.”

“Are you going to kill me?” I gasped for breath. “You better. Because I’m so hungry right now I know I’m going to attack somebody. I can’t control this.”

“Yeah, right. I’m going to kill you for having a momentary burst of crazy. If I did that, my little brother would carve your initials into my spleen before he cut my head off.”

I pressed my hands to my temples. The pressure was intense and the hunger came in crashing waves, one after another. I could barely stay on my feet.