I nod and get into the car. I don’t bother offering to drive. The second bucket of blood I lost has me feeling lightheaded and woozy. Even I know when to tap out. I reach into the paper bag from the gas station. When my hand wraps around the last two Slim Jims, I sigh with relief. It’s not nearly enough to refuel me, but hopefully I’ll stop seeing double. I scarf one down in record time and tear into the next one.
Ethan gives me a bemused look as he maneuvers the Jeep back onto the road. “Do you have a plan for when we get back to Vegas?”
I chew carefully before I swallow with a gulp. “That depends on what you decide to do.”
“WhatIdecide to do?” His eyebrows pull low over his eyes.
“Ethan, I need to tell you something.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
“Good, because I have questions.” He huffs a relieved laugh. “So many questions.”
He thinks I’m about to explain everything to him. He’s right. I plan to ... but there’s something he needs to know first. My nails dig into my palms. Gods, am I doing this now? I guess I am. “Ben was killed because of me.”
The car swerves with a screech of wheels as he whips his head around to stare at me. With a curse, he jerks his eyes back to the road and rights the car. It feels like an eternity before he speaks. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” I grip the half-eaten stick of dry meat as though it’s a lifeline. “Someone from my past—someone from the Shingae—is after me.”
“The Shingae?” His voice rings with frustration. “Where the hell is that?”
“It means the world of gods in Korean.” When Ethan doesn’t comment on my answer, I take that as my cue to continue. “There are many names for it across the worlds, but there is a world of magical beings unknown to humans.
“All the folklore, fairy tales, mythology ... they’re mostlynotbullshit. The stories are bastardized and sensationalized, but they’re based on the truth. It doesn’t matter which culture the lore originates from—that’s just semantics. The Shingae and the beings from there ... like me ... we’re the source of those tales.”
“Beings from the Shingae”—he wipes a hand down his face—“like you?”
“I’m a gumiho,” I whisper, tears springing to the surface. “A nine-tailed fox spirit.”
Beast. Monster. Spittle flies out of their snarling mouths as they pelt me with stones.
I push away the unwelcome memory and release a strangled breath. “I ... I was born a gumiho, but I haven’t taken my fox form in over a century.”
“A ... century?” Ethan repeats slowly.
“I left Korea and came to the US when I was eighteen. I’ve been roaming the country for over a century,” I say. “I move from city to city every few years before anyone can suspect that I don’t age.”
He breathes in and out through his nose. “You’re a hundred-something-year-old gumiho who doesn’t age.”
“One hundred thirty-two yearsyoung,” I quip, then cringe. He doesn’t laugh. Of course he doesn’t laugh. I clear my throat. “Yes.”
“Your spirit eyes, your ability to heal, your immortality are your powers—your magic—as a gumiho?” He sounds clinical ... detached. Like a PI gathering evidence to get to the bottom of a case.
“The spirit eyes, yes. The rest ... I don’t know. And I’m not immortal.” My hands are shaking, so I clench them in my lap. “I turned my back on the Shingae when I left Korea. There are a lot of things about my powers that I don’t understand.”
“And there are other beings from the Shingae ... like you ... living in the US?” He continues with his line of questions.
“Not too many and not exactly like me ... but yes. Most magical beings prefer to remain in their originating countries, where their lore lives on strong. They’re more powerful—in magic and in numbers—in their homeland.
“Plus, being an immigrant is just plain hard. It’s just easier to stay in your comfort zone, you know?” I glance at Ethan with a strained smile, but he doesn’t look at me. “But sometimes, we need ... change. Humans come to the US to fulfill their American dream. We mostlycome here to get lost in the masses. Either way, America is still a melting pot, even for magical beings.”
The silence stretches on, and I fold first. “I know this is a lot—”
“It is,” he cuts me off, his jaw clenched so tight I’m worried he’ll crack a tooth. “Maybe more than I can ever wrap my head around. So let’s focus on the important stuff for now. Tell me how any of this makes you responsible for Ben’s death.”
“Ben was poisoned. The thin cut on his earlobe, it was made by a dark mudang’s poisoned dagger. The autopsy picked up nothing, because the poison is from the Shingae. Humans have no way of harvesting it or detecting it.” I heave a shuddering breath. “And in my old life ... I was known as Mihwa.”
After a few seconds of stunned silence, Ethan makes a series of harrowing lane changes—I smell tire burn—to exit from the freeway.
“What are you doing?” I gasp.
