“We’re always careful. I mean, all rubbered up, sir!” He snapped a salute.

“Oh, good, you can tell my dad that. Tell him it’s okay because you were wearing protection. Just be ready to outrun a bullet.”

Liam fed her a chip. She tried to crunch it in some sensual, provocative way, but most of the chip broke off and hit the floor. They both laughed and Liam gathered her to him.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too.”

“No,” Liam insisted, his voice heavy with emotion. “I don’t mean like a throwaway line. I mean that I think about you every hour of every day. I see you every time I close my eyes. I don’t shower after we’ve been together because I want to be able to smell you on my skin.” He hesitated, feeling embarrassed as his fair skin colored. “That last might have been a little creepy.”

“Not even a little creepy,” she said, her own voice husky. “And I love you that same way. Desperate love. You know? Like sometimes it just kind of wells up, and for a few seconds I can’t breathe or swallow.”

Suddenly angry, Liam spun away from Emma. “We have to get past this. We have to be together. I mean, what is the problem? Why can’t I just go to your dad and say, ‘Look, Mr. Aguilar, Emma and I love each other, and I know you still think about me breaking that trellis when I was twelve, but let it go, all right? Let it go.’”

“Mmmm. That will so not work.”

“Let me try at least.”

She held him out at arm’s length. “Liam, listen to me: It won’t work. He’ll ground me for three months. There will be no way for us to see each other. To be together. Like this.”

Liam cursed. Not at Emma—at life, it seemed. He tore into the bag of cookies with enough violence to cause half the cookies to scatter across the countertop.

They ate in silence, glum, chewing and drinking juice.

“Please tell me this doesn’t end like Samantha Early,” I said.

Messenger did not answer. He was watching them. Having tastefully not intruded on their lovemaking, he watched now with a palpable hunger. He swallowed and I saw that even as he watched them, he was seeing another image, a faraway image.

“I have to water the plants,” Emma said.

“Yep.”

And just like that, we were in the backseat of the car again, and Emma was driving as Liam distracted her with light kisses on the side of her neck.

“What do you think of them?” Messenger asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Your opinion. Your judgment. That is our subject now, the question of your instincts.”

I shifted uncomfortably. I did not like the idea of being judged, certainly not of being judged on my ability to judge others. But Messenger waited, knowing, I suppose, that I would answer, whatever my qualms.

“I like them. They’re in love,” I said.

“Are they? Did you look inside them?”

“What? You mean, poke inside their heads? No. Of course not.”

“Then how do you know whether this is love or mere lust?” He seemed honestly perplexed.

“It’s pretty obvious.”

“Is it?” He sighed. “I suppose it is for you. I must resort to less delicate means. I have filled myself with their memories and feel what they feel. Yes. It is love.”

I whispered the word, “Duh.” I don’t know if Messenger heard me or not.

Night had fallen, turning the forest around us into a place of eldritch fears, a fairy-tale forest wherein might lurk witches with interests in gingerbread and plump, flavorful children. The headlights cast irregular circles of light on the macadam but did not reach beyond the ditch to our right or the tangle of weeds to our left.

“And what do you think of that? Of love?” Messenger asked me.

“Okay, that’s getting—”

Suddenly his insinuating voice, that whisper that always seemed to be directly into my ear, became strident. “Understand something, Mara: You will answer my questions. You will reveal everything to me and hold nothing back.”

It was said with undeniable authority. His tone was not pleading nor was it cruel. He stated it as a simple fact, as though it was beyond question. And as he spoke, he seemed to grow, to become a foot taller and as much wider, and a cold, dark light shone from him.

Then he returned to his normal size, although how could I know what was normal for this creature?

“Understand that I ask you questions out of respect. In the hope that you will understand that you must . . . that you may . . . trust me. I can as easily enter your mind as the minds of any of those we meet. But if you are open and honest with me, Mara, I will not do that.”

I was feeling that I’d been pushed around just about enough. And I was readying a devastating response when—

“Look out!”

At the same instant the car swerved sharply and there was the sound of impact. Stiff rubber and unyielding steel on flesh.

And a frantic, squealing sound that went on and on, rising, falling, a visceral cry that spoke wordlessly of pain.

Emma pulled the car to the side, almost into the ditch, and jumped out, followed immediately by Liam.

The squeal came from an ancient dog, gray in the muzzle, with shaggy, tan fur. The dog, a mix of who knew how many breeds, dragged itself sideways, trailing blood, to the side of the road and lay there, panting, unable to go farther.

“Oh, God!” I gasped. The dog’s side was ruptured. Its fur was ever more matted as blood seeped out.