“Just like who, Yaya?” Tad asked.

“Never you mind. Don’t matter. I have to pick some things up from the Blue Box Store. The one on Forty-Ninth Avenue and Homer.” She leaned back in her seat, pulled her headphones from her pocket, and slipped them on. “Now let me sleep. I’ve had too much excitement and need to calm my heart before we get to Blue Box. The new one, not the crappy ones outside town.”

The steady thump of techno music pulsed out of the earbuds, loud enough that I could easily hear it. Worse, the music crawled over my skin, the vibration as intense to my body as to my ears. I shivered and rubbed at my arms.

“Cold?”

“No, don’t you feel that?” I pointed at Yaya.

Tad shook his head, frowning at me in the rearview mirror. “Feel what?”

“The vibration of the bass, the music. It’s the same as when the Supe Squad came up behind us in the big rig. I could feel the pulse of the engine on my skin.”

“Weird. You definitely aren’t a naga. I couldn’t have thrown you over the fence like you did to me. And I don’t feel vibrations on my skin—ever.”

“What kind of Super Duper does?” I asked, my voice quiet even though I didn’t need to be. It wasn’t like Yaya was going to hear me.

“I don’t know, sis. But whatever you are, there’s no doubt about it. You’ve stirred up a hornets’ nest just by existing.”

“That’s a comforting thought,” I muttered.

“I know, right?” He laughed softly, but the sound faded. “I am sorry, Lena. I didn’t want this to happen to you. None of it.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be sorry. Things happen for a reason, right? Maybe you and I are meant to be like this.” The words were the kind of platitudes I’d heard my whole life, but they’d always applied to other people. People who had bad things happen to them.

But not me.

The words didn’t feel as deep or comforting coming out of my mouth this time.

“You really believe that?”

I opened my mouth to say yes. Shut it, and tried again. “Maybe.”

He laughed again. “Who do you think Yaya was comparing us to? She was going to say we were supernaturals just like . . . and then nothing.”

I put my chin on the back of the bench seat and stared out the windshield. “We don’t know anyone who was a supernatural. At least no one Mom and Dad talked about.”

“Grandma and Grandpa on Dad’s side. They were strange,” Tad said. I let out an exasperated sigh.

“Grandpa was an illiterate mill worker, and Grandma never lived anywhere farther than three miles from where she was born. Weird, yes. Supes? No way.”

“What about Aunt Betty, on Mom’s side?”

I snorted. “The lady with the affliction of terrible hats? Bad taste is just bad taste, Tad. You’re stretching here.”

“I want to know who she was going to compare us to. How else are we going to figure it out?”

“How about asking her?” I leaned away from the front and stared at the material ceiling of the car. I reached up and touched a hole that was almost the same size as the hole in my sheet back at the hospital. From one death trap to another. The thoughts rolled around in my head and I couldn’t stop them. Two days ago, I’d been in the hospital dying just for existing.

Now I was facing some sort of death sentence just for existing. My lot wasn’t improving as much as I’d hoped when I’d told Merlin to turn me.

“We’re here, Yaya.” Tad reached over and touched her on the shoulder. “We’re here. Do you want to wait in the car and I can get whatever you want, or do you want to come in?”

“I want you to stop saying want,” she grumbled, then slipped off her earbuds. Had she heard everything we’d been talking about? Call me a cynic but I was betting yes. “I’m not telling you who you’re like now either. Not my place. Not my story.”

Bingo.

How in h-e-double-hockey-sticks had she heard us over that heavy bass, though?

The three of us got out of the car and headed across the parking lot, weaving between cars to make the straightest route possible. The doors slid open. We stepped into the box store, the artificial lights buzzing high above us. My skin itched with the sound, and I wanted to scratch at every inch of me.

I settled for clamping my hands under my arms and then strode forward with Yaya.

“Yaya, what are we doing here exactly?”

“I need to talk to someone. Well, you need to talk to him too.” She grabbed a stock boy and twisted him around to her. “Where’s the manager?”

“Ah, I don’t know.” He tried to pry her off, his eyes flicking to Tad and me as if we would be on his side.

“I’d tell her, she bites when she’s angry,” Tad said. I laughed, falling into old patterns. No matter how ridiculous, we backed each other up. Even if it was an outright lie.

“You remember that time she bit the postman, barking at him like a dog and grabbing his ankle?” I smiled and shook my head as if remembering.

Tad grinned. “He had something like thirty stitches on top of a tetanus shot.”

Yaya gave a sharp nod. “And I’ll do it again if I need to. Go all the way up the leg to where the meat is soft and easy to bite off.”

The stock boy paled. “Manager is in receiving, I think.”

Yaya let go of him and patted his blue vest. “Good boy.” With that, she spun and strode farther into the store. Tad looked at me, shrugged, and fell into step behind her.