“Vivi!” I bark in disbelief.
“What? I didn’t know it wasyou, Lucky!” Her eyes meet mine in the mirror. “How could I? I just thought he was this mysterious, bendy, probably British sex god?—”
“Oh my hell, you’re @viwantsataste!” I bark, nearly running us off the road as it all pieces together. “Aunt Vivi! You… The shit you’ve said to me! The messages!”
“Who’s British?” Mormor asks in confusion.
“Not him,” Dad mutters with disgust.
Vivi’s talking faster now, both amused and panicking. “But then that picture of you and the girl went viral, and I saw it, and I just… I knew that hair. That jaw. That’s a Torvik jaw. I just about dropped my phone in holy water.”
“What do you mean?” Mormor asks, oblivious to the horror of what’s happening in this car.
“He’s your nephew, Vi!” Dad calls out in disgusted, annoyed horror.
She throws her hands up. “Imagine howIfelt when I realized I’d been flicking the bean to my own fucking nephew!”
“Holy shit,please stop talking!” I scream as I scrape a hand over my face, wishing I could summon Cher and turn back time. I should never, ever have asked.
Mormor gasps as she finally understands. “Vivi! You… and you say it aloud? In this family car?!”
Dad mutters curses, scraping his fingers through his hair like he’s trying to shred his own brain.
I’m gripping the steering wheel like it’s the only thing that can save me from this nightmare. “I’m gonna puke.”
Mormor starts praying, chastising Loki for unleashing this unholy chaos within our family.
Vivi leans between the seats, red-faced. “You don’t understand! I didn’tknow. But when I saw that post—oh, sweetheart, I’d know that jawline anywhere. You could carve a stake with it.”
“Vivi!” Dad barks at the lusty turn her words take. “You’re fucking sick. We’re done talking about this!”
“Thank you, Dad!” I breathe out as I rub my hand across my forehead. What a circus. How? How is it this insane,always, when it comes to my family?
“Drive faster, before Freya smites us all,” Mormor mutters.
I do. The car lurches forward into the dark. The desert swallows our horror and our shame in equal measure.
Mormor is calling Vivi a sinner, Vivi’s defending her search history, Dad is muttering abouttherapy. And me—I’m gripping the wheel, half horrified, half hysterical, thinking: this is what made me.
The madness, the loyalty, the—I have to admit it—lovethat somehow permeates every disaster. It’s somehow all a part of me, whether I like it or not.
“You are now arrivingat your destination.”
Our destination is still nearly a hundred yards down the dusty driveway. Goosebumps break out as I look out at the empty desert around us. It’s eerie. The desert is too quiet.
Our tires crunch over gravel as I cut my headlights. The sudden dark swallows everything—the road, the sky, us. The only light left is the thin silver wash of the moon. Ahead, a blackshape sits on the edge of the sand: a cabin. Weathered wood, one chimney, no movement.
“This is it,” Henrik murmurs through the speaker on Dad’s phone.
Dad peers out at the cabin. “Kill the engines.”
We roll to a stop. The silence afterward is suffocating. My pulse is louder than the wind. The place looks wrong for Phoenix—too plain, too human. No polished glass or manicured landscaping, just rustic boards and peeling siding.
I open the door slowly. Sand grinds under my boot. The air smells like rain that never came.
Then the world explodes in light.
Motion sensors—every floodlamp around the cabin snaps on, bleaching the desert white.
