I hunched my shoulders. “Okay. Who in my family is a Super Duper?”

He laughed, falling onto his back and flashing me in the process. “A Super Duper? Are you kidding me? That’s not what you call supernaturals, is it?”

“Stop laughing. That’s what we called them in the hospital.”

“Say that to the wrong Supe and you’re going to have a fight on your hands.” He grinned and I glared at him. “Okay, okay. I don’t know who in your family is a Super Duper”—he half choked on the words—“but you’re right. Someone is supernatural, or you never would have caught the Aegrus virus.”

“What do you mean?”

Ernie cleared his throat. “The virus only attaches to those who carry some amount of supernatural blood. It can’t attach to pure humans. So Flora, being a pureblood, and your mom, being a pureblood, would never be able to pick up the virus. A pure-blooded Super Duper”—he snickered—“can pick it up but just gets sick. It’s you halfers that get sick and die. The virus is too much for the little bit of each.”

The epiphany hurt my brain, and I ran it through my brain twice before I realized what he was saying.

“If my mom is pure human, and I caught the virus, it means—”

“That your papa is most likely some form of supernatural. You got it.” He shimmied deeper into his seat.

Fricky dicky, that was a revelation I’d not been ready for. Dad was a Super Duper? How could we not have known?

“Don’t beat yourself up for not knowing,” Ernie said. “Most Supes hide from their families too. It’s better that way with the current atmosphere.”

I counted my breaths in and out as I did my best to calm myself. Nothing I could do about Dad right now. Though a little honesty would have been nice. I frowned. “Why wouldn’t he have said something when we went home?”

“No idea.”

Me neither.

“Okay, back to the other stuff. The halfers who get sick, they’re the only ones, right?”

“Yup.” He fluttered his wing tips over his head as if egging me on. “Keep going.”

I scrunched up my face, the thoughts coming together in bits and pieces. “That’s why the government hides away those who are sick in places like Whidbey. They don’t want everyone to know how many halfers there are out there? Because if they knew how many halfers there were, people would realize how many supernaturals there were?”

“You got it now. You’re a smart one. In the whole wide world, at least half of the population has some amount of Super Duper blood. They don’t have to be halfers like you and your brother. Just a speck of the supernatural, down to I think something like a sixteenth the last time I asked, was enough to make you vulnerable. That’s about half the population in the world. And that’s a big kill zone. Imagine what would happen if half the population keeled over. Or became . . . Super Duper like you and your brother.” He grinned again.

“Wow,” I whispered as I pulled into my parking spot at the back of the bakery. “Ernie, thank you.”

“Anytime you want info in trade for food, you’ve got it.”

I stepped out of the car and he followed, flying near my shoulder. I glanced at him. “Do you mean that?” He’d been more honest with me than anyone else so far.

“Sure. I like you. You remind me of Flora when she was young. Feisty and full of life. Nice rack too.”

I rolled my eyes as I walked to the back door. I pulled my bakery keys out and held them in front of the knob. No need to use them, though; the door was cracked open.

The bakery hadn’t been open since I’d gotten sick; I’d closed it down thinking I’d be back soon enough. Before I’d known it was the Aegrus virus. My main helper, Diana, was supposed to be checking on things every day, making sure all the fridges and such were running so nothing spoiled. But that was an early-morning task.

There was no way Vanilla and Honey should have been unlocked this late at night. I held a hand up to Ernie, motioning him to be quiet.

The back of my bakery was the kitchen, pantry, and cold storage as well as my office. Even though my office wasn’t sealed off, I didn’t mind. When I was doing the numbers I liked to feel I wasn’t separated from the rest of the bakery and goings-on.

Behind my office desk, three men dressed in black pried at my wall safe, their backs facing me.

“John, get that pry bar. We’ll take the whole thing.”

One of the men turned around, saw me, and froze. “Boss. We got a problem.”

“I doubt it, Johnny. Get the damn pry bar.”

“We got company.”

The other two men spun around so all three were facing Ernie and me. The cherub floated up to the ceiling. “You got this. Kick their asses so we can bake some cake!”

“I don’t know how to fight.” Who was I kidding? This was my bakery, my baby, and they were ransacking it. I wasn’t going to just stand there and let them take what they wanted.

“You don’t have to, your instincts should ramp up and help you out.” His blue eyes twinkled down at me. “Here they come.”

What did he mean, I didn’t have to know how to fight? I tore my gaze from him as the first thug approached me, grinning from ear to ear.

“Here I thought we were taking cash, and we’re going to end up with a beauty prize as well.” In his hands he held a length of rope he slowly spooled out in a loop, like a lasso. I took a step back, my butt bumping up against one of the countertops.