“Who else . . .” She frowns.
“Who else knew the Legendary Flame was Farah Field?” I ask.
“Morgan!” she says, shushing me. We get a few curious looks from the other patrons in the diner. Vee turns her head like it’s on a swivel, no doubt doing the same thing I did at Kicks when Max said she knew my mother. We don’t talk about this. Ever. And considering Vee and I haven’t talked since the night my mother died, she can’t even begin to guess where I’m going with this.
If she only knew.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “I’ll be dead by the end of the night, anyway.”
Also, holy shit, my back is killing me. I shift, and something like a scar tugs along the side of my spine. My hands are halfway to lifting my shirt to check if I can see anything before I remember I’m in a public place.
“What? Morgan, are you okay?” Vee’s voice rises even louder than mine did a minute ago.
Jasper crashes through the door, rushing toward me.
“Oh, look,” I say. “My date is here.”
This time, instead of taking the seat across from me, he throws my laptop bag on the ground and sits next to me, eyes intent on mine.
“You’re okay?” he says.
I tuck my shirt back into my pants. “I’ve been better.”
“Can I get you anything to drink?” Vee’s looking nervously between us, and I give her what I hope is an insouciant smile. Let her wonder if I really am dying. Or why I suddenly don’t care about protecting my mother’s secret identity. Not like I can give her a straight answer about either, anyway. I’ve died, butI’m not dead. I’ll probably die again soon, but I can’t say I’m actively dying now. Surely a massage is all I’d need to sort out this massive kink in my back. Wait until the masseuse hears how I got it.
“Just water,” Jasper says distractedly.
“Two beers,” I say. “And do you have any nachos?”
“Chips and salsa,” she says with a soft smile as she writes the order down. “Though there’s onion in the salsa. You don’t want that.”
I roll my eyes. “We’ll have the chips. Put queso on the side too.” I need Jasper well-fed while I yell at him for getting me killed in a villain dive bar brawl.
“Just the water,” Jasper says. “We’re not staying.”
“We aren’t?”
“Two waters it is.” Vee stuffs her pad into the front of her apron and walks away.
When she’s gone, we stare at each other for a long time before Jasper says, “So, how are you feeling?” The way he wrinkles his nose says even he knows it’s an awkward question.
“Oh, you know. Just died again, then got sucked back in time. The usual.” I wince as I lean in and the scar—or the memory of the stab wound, whatever the hell it is I’m feeling—pulls.
“You’re okay, though?” He sounds so hopeful. His golden retriever vibe would be irresistible in so many other circumstances. If I’d met him in an undergraduate chemistry class, I’d have offered to be his study buddy for the semester while secretly hoping he might teach me to do way more than study.
“It’s not something you bounce back from.” I shift again, trying to relieve the ache in my back, but I can’t quite find the right spot to sit. “But it hasn’t killed me yet. Not permanently, anyway.”
“Did you see who stabbed you?” Jasper reaches for my arm, like he might be trying to turn me to check for wounds. I pretend not to notice, even though some small part of me would really like him to touch me. Maybe pat my shoulder and tell me it’s going to be okay. Maybe more. But the portrait of Mother on the ceiling is still watching, and I can practically hear her tell me now is not the time to be soft.
“No,” I say, pulling clear of his grasp. “That’s kind of the point of stabbing someone in the back. So you don’t see them. Anyway, what does it matter who stabbed me?”
“It would be useful to know for when we go back to Kicks. We’d be able to keep an eye out for them and?—”
“Absolutely not.” I bang on the table to punctuate the point and Vee, who is arriving with water glasses, jumps. “We’re not going back there.”
“I think we should at least?—”
My casual act is over. I don’t need to repeat this experiment to know what the outcome would be. We walked into the lion’s den and got eaten for dinner.
