City of the Lost (Rockton 1)

"Marginally successful?"

"Yeah," he says.

"Same here. I know Hastings wasn't a good person..."

"No one deserves to die like that."

I nod, and when I go quiet, he gives me that long, cool stare.

"Which doesn't mean some people don't deserve to die," he

says. "Just not like that."

I squirm and veer a little to the side.

"Did you go there planning to shoot him?" he asks.

I realize he means Blaine. "Of course not," I say before I can stop myself. I take a deep breath. "I'd rather stick to--"

"Blaine Saratori didn't deserve to die. He deserved to be beaten within an inch of his life and spend weeks in hospital and months in rehab, and never really get over it, not physically, not psychologically. But that wasn't going to happen. You didn't plan to shoot him, but it's bullshit to pretend you killed an innocent man. And it's bullshit to even think about that in comparison to this."

"I don't believe I said I was thinking of it."

"You were. But I'll shut up about it. For now."

"How about for good?"

His snort says Not a chance.Then he points up. "That was a great horned owl."

I peer into the night sky.

"It's gone now," he says. "I'm changing the conversation. But as long as you're looking up, do you see that?"

I follow his finger to see a distant strip of swirling green through the clouds.

"Is that...?" I begin. "The northern lights? I didn't think I'd be far enough up for them."

"You are. It's just coming into the right season, so you won't get a lot of good views yet."

"What causes it?"

As we continue walking, he explains that it's electrically charged protons and electrons from the sun entering the earth's atmosphere at the poles. I'm so engrossed in looking up that I nearly bash into a tree. He gets a chuckle out of that. When we reach my yard, he says, "There's your fox," and I see it slipping from the forest edge.

"It's not mine," I say, giving him a smile. "Because that would be wrong. A wild animal is not a pet."

He shrugs. "Can still be yours. Just don't try domesticating it."

We watch as the fox trots back to its den with something in its mouth.

"Grouse," he says.

"Which is a bird, right?"

He sighs.

"Hey, you promised me a book. I haven't seen it yet."

"Been a little preoccupied. And I'm making sure you actually want it and aren't just trying to be nice."