“If you didn’t know Sherwood was dangerous, you haven’t been paying attention,” Adam said.
“Not that.” I waved the issue of Sherwood away for later consideration. “I meant Samuel.”
“I know,” said Adam gently. “But he’s an old wolf, and not stupid. He has backup if he needs it. Sounds like he has Bran involved already.”
My phone rang again.
“Samuel?”
The person on the other end of the line didn’t say anything. I couldn’t hear breathing, but I could hear the faint sound of the wind in some trees. I disconnected.
“Wrong number or something,” I told Adam. I had more interesting things to think about than a crank caller. “First-string wouldn’t be Bran. Bran’s not part of the team. Bran would be... I don’t know. Coach, maybe. Or the franchise owner. First-string—that’s Charles all the way.”
“Agreed,” Adam said.
I nodded. “Okay, that’s good. He’ll be okay if Charles has his back.”
“And he knows he can come to us,” he said.
“And I can check with Charles to make sure that there really isn’t anything we can do.”
“Yes.”
It started to rain. Out of habit I checked the temperature, but we were a few degrees too warm to have to worry about freezing rain. This rain would only get us wet.
“What do you think is so bad that it has Samuel on the run?” I asked, my voice sounding small in my own ears.
“I have no idea,” said Adam.
He put his hand on my knee and gave it a squeeze. For absolutely no rational reason at all, that helped.
—
Jesse and Tad were doing homework on the kitchen table when we got home.
“Glad you’re alive,” Jesse said. “There’s pizza in the fridge—we saved you some. Kind of nice just having the three of us plus one in the house. When you put something in the fridge, it doesn’t magically disappear.”
“Glad you’re alive, too,” I said with maybe a bit too much emphasis.
Both Tad and Jesse looked up.
“I thought that your death had been indefinitely postponed, Dad.” Jesse sounded worried.
“It was,” Adam said. “But since we never want boredom to be a thing in this household, today it’s Mercy’s turn to have a killer on her tail.”
Tad and Jesse both looked at me.
“The Harvester is out to get me,” I said with perfect truthfulness. Almost perfect truthfulness. “We think.”
There was no way to be sure that the Soul Taker was after me just because I was connected to it. But Zee and Adam had both decided that probably I was in its sights, metaphorically speaking.
Jesse rolled her eyes, but Tad, who could hear the truth in my answer—or at least knew a little bit more about the story of the Harvester than he had last night—stiffened. He looked at Adam, who nodded once.
Jesse missed that exchange. She had other things on her mind.
“Dad, you’ve been to Southeast Asia. Have you been to South Korea?”
“Yes?” he said cautiously.