Finale

a witch hunt, and we might be
better off making the first move.”
    “Stage a fight?” I echoed, dread trickling through me like a winter chill.
    “We’d know the truth,” Patch murmured in my ear, running his hands briskly over my arms to warm them. “I’m not going to lose you.”
    “Who else would know the truth? Vee? My mom?”
    “The less they know, the safer they are.”
    I let go of a conflicted sigh. “Lying to Vee is getting really old. I don’t think I can do it anymore. I feel guilty every time I’m around her. I want to come clean. Especially
about something as important as you and me.”
    “It’s your call,” Patch said gently. “But they won’t hurt her if they think she has nothing to tell.”
    I knew he was right. Which didn’t leave me a choice in the matter, did it? Who was I to put my best friend in harm’s way for the sake of appeasing my conscience?
    “We probably won’t be able to fool Dante—you work too closely with him,” Patch said. “And it might even work out better if he knows. He can back up your story when
he talks with influential Nephilim.” Patch shrugged out of his leather jacket and slipped it over my shoulders. “Let’s get you home.”
    “Can we make a quick stop by Pete’s Locker Room first? I need to pick up my cell phone, and the untraceable one you gave me. I dropped one during the attack, and the other got left
behind in my handbag. If we’re lucky, my new shoes are still on the sidewalk too.”
    Patch kissed the top of my head. “Both phones need to be put out of service. They left your possession, and if we assume the worst, your Nephilim abductors put their own tracking or
listening devices on them. Best to get new phones.”
    One thing was sure. If I’d been unmotivated to train with Dante before, all that had changed. I needed to learn to fight, and fast. Between dodging Pepper Friberg and advising me on my new
role as Nephilim leader, Patch had enough to worry about without needing to rush in from the sidelines every time I got in over my head. I was immensely grateful for his protection, but it was time
I learned to take care of myself.
    It was full dark by the time I got home. I walked through the door, and my mom hurried out of the kitchen, looking both worried and aggravated.
    “Nora! Where have you been? I called but kept getting your voice mail.”
    I could have slapped my forehead. Dinner. At six. I’d completely missed it.
    “I am so sorry,” I said. “I misplaced my phone in one of the stores. By the time I realized I’d lost it, it was almost dinnertime, and I had to backtrack all over town. I
never found it, so now I’m not only out a phone, but I blew you out. I am
so
sorry. I didn’t have a way to call.” I hated that I was forced to lie to her again. I’d
done it so many times it seemed like once more shouldn’t hurt, but it did. It made me feel less and less like her daughter, and more and more like Hank’s. My biological father had been
an expert and unrivaled liar. And I was hardly in a position to be critical.
    “You couldn’t stop and find some way to call me?” she said, not sounding for one minute like she believed my story.
    “It won’t happen again. I promise.”
    “I don’t suppose you were with Patch?” I didn’t miss the cynical emphasis on his name. My mother regarded Patch with as much affection as the raccoons that often wreaked
havoc on our property. I didn’t doubt she fantasized about standing on the porch with a rifle perched on her shoulder, watching for him to show his face.
    I inhaled, swearing this would be the last lie. If Patch and I were really going through with the staged fight, it was best to start planting seeds now. I told myself that once I took care of
Mom and Vee, everything else would be downhill. “I wasn’t with Patch, Mom. We broke up.”
    She raised her eyebrows, still not looking convinced.
    “It just happened, and no, I don’t want to talk about it.” I started for the stairs.
    “Nora—”
    I turned back, and there were tears in my eyes. They were unexpected and not part of the act. I merely remembered the last time Patch and I had broken up for real, and a viselike sensation
squeezed me, stealing my breath. The memory would forever haunt me. Patch had taken the best parts of me with him, leaving a lost and hollow girl behind. I didn’t want to be that girl again.
Ever.
    Mom’s expression eased up. She met me on the stairs, rubbed my back