Page 46

Nevermore’s mouth curves. “Besides taste?”

“She’s got no fear.”

“No. She’s got plenty. She just hates letting men see it.”

I don’t answer because he’s right, and I hate when that happens.

Sweet stops a few feet away. “Miss Mercy said she called Hyde.”

“Good,” Nevermore says.

She looks at him, polite as church. “You’re Nevermore. Vice president. Pretty in a graveyard way. Lightning I didn’t see yet.”

His eyes cut to me. “Mercy’s been chatty.”

“She gave me the safety tour.”

“And you memorized it?”

“I listen.”

Her gaze flicks to me when she says it. Damn woman.

Nevermore looks amused. “You should keep doing that.”

“I plan to.”

“But you don’t plan to tell us who Razor is?”

Her face blanks.

There it is again. The crack under the sunshine.

“I don’t know a Razor.”

Nevermore glances at me. “She does lie badly.”

Sweet’s cheeks flush. “Y’all are rude.”

“Y’all are in danger,” I snap.

Her eyes flash. “No, I am in school. First day, actually. I saw a dead man on a motorcycle, got renamed by a funeral witch, drank moonshine before noon, learned one of my teachers knows how to contour tractor trauma, and met a biker who thinks saying he doesn’t do relationships is a personality. That’s a lot, but I wouldn’t call it danger.”

Nevermore’s mouth twitches.

Mine doesn’t.

“You forgot the Reaper stalking you.”

“I was trying to.”

That lands quieter. Too honest.

For a second, nobody speaks.

Then Sweet adjusts the strap of her bag and looks me dead in the eye. “I appreciate the concern.”

“It ain’t concern.”