I SHOULDN’T be here.

Against my better judgment, when I’d arrived home the previous evening, I hadn’t told Dad what had happened—or more specifically who had reappeared in my life. It wasn’t the smart choice, but it was the only choice I could make. I’d wanted to run, but the ghost of Clay’s lips on mine all night made it impossible. If I did, I’d always wonder what had come over him to react that way.

This is a mistake though. Clay is dangerous.

I also needed to know how he’d found me so easily—Dad and I had put a great effort into disappearing two years earlier and every time we’d moved since. This meeting was purely for self-preservation. At least that was what I told myself as I lied to Dad, asking if I could drive his old Ford F150 to work so I could grab a few supplies on the way home.

I’d gotten ready for work as normal, only forgoing my contacts, even though I had no intention of going. Instead, I’d gone straight to a payphone and called in sick before heading toward the address that Clay had pushed into my hand after our kiss. At each set of traffic lights, I reminded myself again of the fact that I was only going for reconnaissance.

It’s not a date. Remember that he wants to kill you—your kind.

I pulled the car up to the address on the card, and my heart stopped. A seemingly abandoned warehouse, dilapidated and collapsing in places, stood surrounded by broken fences and a fallen barbed-wire fence. I swallowed down the fear that rose and threatened to make me lose control. When I’d decided earlier that I would meet Clay, despite the risks, I hadn’t expected his chosen meeting place to be something straight out of a horror movie.

I recalled all of the neighboring places that I’d driven past to get there. They had all appeared relatively well-kept and were buzzing with activity. The mess in front of me looked like it had sat empty for at least five years. It didn’t escape my notice that it would be the perfect place to hide a body—not that there would be a body to hide if he killed me.

With great difficulty, I swallowed down my doubt. I’d made the decision to be there, and, for better or worse, I would follow it through. My fingers tingled with heat as I pushed open the large roller door, wincing as it squeaked and shuddered its way into motion. It wasn’t exactly the subtle entrance I’d been hoping for, and now there was no turning back. As if there ever really had been.

I’d barely slid the door shut, locking myself into a darkened corridor, when I saw a familiar figure through the dim light. For a moment, I stood motionless wondering if this would be the moment my curiosity finally did me in.

“Thank you for coming,” Clay said softly.

“I almost didn’t,” I admitted, and he nodded to show he understood. “Why are we here?”

The question must have confused him because he tipped his head to one side like a puppy.

“Couldn’t we have met somewhere a little more public?” Somewhere that has less of a serial-killer vibe to it?

“This is where I’m staying at the moment.”

“You live here?”

He smiled in response to my question. “Follow me.”

Taking a deep breath to cool my skin and steady my nerves, I followed him deeper into the abandoned warehouse. As he led me through the twisting hallways, I paid close attention to the layout. It was another ritual Dad had instilled in me: always have an escape plan. Especially in a situation like this, when cornered by a dangerous individual.

I really shouldn’t be here. What if we aren’t alone?

I glanced around quickly to ensure that no one else was following us. Certain—or at least as certain as I could be—that we were alone I trailed the path he laid. Despite the fear bubbling along within me, the simple beauty of the derelict building took me aback. The roof had been dismantled in places, allowing a patchwork of daylight to enter and bounce around the space. What should have appeared just as dilapidated and neglected as the outside, instead appeared airy because the holes in the ceiling allowed a natural light to pass through to softly infuse the area with the morning sun.

The inner workings were less claustrophobic than the entrance corridor. The once-white walls were now adorned with bright, overlapping, multicolored graffiti. Each tag was a claim for space by some faceless vandal, but somehow they blended together to grant the barren innards a warmth. It was almost as if each graffiti artist had imprinted the walls with a part of themselves, leaving behind a lingering presence. Overall, the colors combined to make it almost welcoming.

If only I was there under better circumstances.

Clay turned to me as we approached a heavy wooden door in the middle of the maze. He opened it, revealing a smaller hidden space. Despite its rundown state, the room was almost magical. The roof had almost completely collapsed onto the floor, which allowed the sun to pour in and bounce off the once-white walls. In one corner, a sleeping bag stretched out over a vacant patch of floor resting beside a pile of camping gear.

“Welcome to my house,” he said with a wry grin.

“Why am I here, Clay?” I had been asking myself the same question again and again, but voicing it to him helped to restore my confidence. I may have come at his request, but it was on my terms.

“I told you. I wanted to apologize for the way I reacted.”

“With who your family is, could you have had any other reaction?” I asked.

There was no point in trying to deny any of the accusation he’d hurled at me that day or convince him he was wrong in order to cover my own ass. We were both aware that I wasn’t human. I suspected he knew exactly what I was as well as I now did.

I was lost in the memory of that afternoon when I noticed Clay staring at me.

His brow furrowed slightly, and his mouth was pressed into a hard line. It was as though I was a great puzzle just waiting to be solved.

My gaze met his and with the memories of that day of my discovery fresh in my mind, a swirl of questions raced through me. There was one that burned through me brighter than any other. “Do you know who killed my mother?”

He winced at my words and shook his head sadly.

“It was the Rain though, wasn’t it?”

He looked down at his feet. “It’s possible. If she was . . . like you, then she was dangerous.”

“Why? What made her dangerous?” I growled. “Was it because she could do this too?”

I pulled the card that he’d written the address of the warehouse on and held it between my fingers, forcing heat into it. Pins and needles pricked my fingers as the fire within me built until it was almost painful. I focused the heat into the card forcing it to smolder and burn. Curls of smoke rose from between my fingers, and he stood mesmerized by the flames as they consumed the card.

Once the fire I’d set licked at my fingers, threatening to burn me, I dropped the flaming card to the ground and stamped it out under my shoe.

As if releasing the card broke some spell over Clay, he recoiled from the sight of me. The small action was enough of a reminder of his reaction to the heat in my body two years earlier. My mouth curled into a sneer.

“You’re a killer, from a line of killers,” I said. “Nothing will change that. Obviously, I made a mistake coming here today.”

His frown deepened as his gaze snapped back to mine.

Without waiting for him to say anything else, I turned to leave.

“Don’t leave.” He rushed to my side and grabbed my wrist before I could go.

My heart skipped. Despite the years, I was able to repay some of the pain he’d inflicted on me back onto him.

I met his sorrow-filled gaze, and guilt weighed down my limbs. I didn’t want to feel guilty; he didn’t deserve my remorse. I was only giving him back a fraction of the agony I’d endured at his hand. I didn’t seem to be able to control any of the reactions I had around him though.

Instead of allowing my guilt to overtake me, I reminded myself of the reasons I was right to hate him.

It didn’t stop my traitorous body longing to have him pressed against me again.

“It’s not like that,” he said. “The work we do . . . that I did. It’s about the lives we are able to save, not the creatures we kill. That’s why we do it.”

I flinched at the word “creature.” Is that what I am to him? “How can you justify murder? Who gave you that right?”

He failed to understand the rhetorical nature of my question, or he understood and answered it anyway. “It started with Noah’s flood. Warriors with special training were given forty days and forty nights to wash away all the evil from Earth the way the rain rinses clean the forest. That was the legend of the Rain—the beginning of our time. Since then we’ve been around to destroy the stray creatures that have wandered back out of the darkness.”

There’s that word again. “I am not a creature,” I hissed, unable to continue to listen to his excuses and justifications.

His expression softened. “I’m sorry, Evie.”

“Sorry for what exactly?”

His gaze was downcast again, and his palm found the back of his neck. “I told you. For what happened that day. For who I am.”

I was dangerously close to giving in to the part of me that longed for nothing more than to forgive him for everything he was apologizing for, but I couldn’t. What would he have done if I hadn’t left Ohio?

Before I had a chance to say anything more, Clay spoke again. “I know you might not believe me, but I never told my family about you.”

It was almost as if he’d issued the words as a magic wand to fix everything that had happened between us. As if he could erase his cruel words and my broken heart with one good deed.

How dare he show up after two years and act like he didn’t shatter my teenage heart just because he didn’t tell his family about me! “Why not?”

My question seemed to put him off-guard. “Because they would have killed you if I did.”

The casual way he spoke of my death made it easy to set my jaw and will away all emotions beside the healthy dose of fear that was a constant undercurrent running through my body. “Don’t I deserve to die just because of what I am?” I jeered.

His brow knitted together, and his mouth mashed into a hard line that turned down at the corners. “No . . . I . . .” He sighed. “I don’t want that.”

“Who cares what you want? What gives you the right to pick and choose who gets to live? Why do I get that honor but my mother didn’t?” I asked, my voice rising by almost an octave as I was filled to the brim with thoughts of my mother, of my father’s grief, of everything that the Rain had cost my family. So much had been lost because of Clay’s beliefs and the organization he was raised in. How was I supposed to be okay with any of that? My body quivered even as it heated as the thoughts rushed through me. “She didn’t get to live even though she never hurt anyone!”

As if he’d been barely suppressing his emotions for our whole conversation so far, my ire sparked its counterpart in him, and he exploded. “I don’t think that I have any right! I was raised to believe that everything other deserves to die. There is part of me that still thinks that I made the biggest mistake of my life in not killing you on sight!”

The fire in my veins reacted to the threat in his voice, and a fever raced over my skin. The air around me grew thick with heat, and a visible haze surrounded my hands. Clay stepped closer to me. One of his hands hovered near his waist, and I was certain he was reaching for a weapon. I prepared to defend myself. There was no way I would go down without a fight.

He raised his hands in surrender as he closed the distance between us. At the sight, the heat in my limbs dissipated a little. For a moment, he stood almost motionless.

“But I couldn’t,” he continued, his voice so soft that he sounded almost completely defeated. “Is that what you want to hear? I couldn’t kill you.”

His fingers clenched and unclenched, his muscles twitched and shook, and his chest heaved as he worked to bring his breathing under control. He narrowed his eyes and frowned. The sorrow in the depths of his gaze made my fingers twitch with the need to comfort him. Once more I had to battle against the desire to forgive everything that had happened. To take him in my arms and kiss his perfect pout.

“Goddamn it, Evie,” he muttered as he reached for the brown curls of my wig and pulled it from my head. He tossed the hairpiece to one side of the small room. Then his fingers curled around the tie in my hair and pulled it out, releasing the strands from the braid I’d set them in and allowing it to frame my face in flame-like tendrils. His eyes trailed from my eyes to my hair. “I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since you left. At first I thought it was just because I didn’t get closure when you disappeared so suddenly, but I don’t think that’s it.”

He met my eyes before his gaze trailed down to my mouth. His tongue slid forward to slick his lips with moisture as his gaze lingered on me. After a heartbeat, he lifted his eyes back up to mine again, scorching me with their brutal intensity. His lips parted, and his breathing sped. The heat in his eyes made my stomach flutter and my heart clench. Ever so slowly, he lifted his hand back to my face and brushed the back of his hand over my cheek. Then he curled his palm around the curve of my jaw as his fingers played with my hair.

“I care about you, Evie. I know that I shouldn’t, but I do.”

Between the look he gave me and the sweetness in his words, I decided I owed him a confession of my own. It was as close to an apology as I would give him after the hurt he’d caused me. “I never lied to you,” I whispered. It was important for him to know that. “Back in school, I never lied about what I was. I just didn’t know. You have to believe that.”

He studied me for a moment, his eyes focused steadily back and forth between each of mine as he weighed my words. “I do.”

I closed my eyes to protect my heart from the potential for agony that his intense gaze hinted at. It was all too easy to fall for him just as I had in high school. Something told me that it was not going to end well for either of us—I was still a monster in his eyes, and he was still Rain—but I couldn’t find it in myself to care when he looked at me like that. A heat that had nothing to do with fear or anger burned through my body.

“You obviously know what you are now though.”

I nodded.

“A phoenix?” he asked, whispering the last word as if to protect me from the weight of it.

“It doesn’t make me a bad person though,” I said. “I’m not evil.”

“I really hope you’re right about that. Part of me, a part I don’t like very much, still feels like I’m making a mistake.”

“Why did you come then?”

He breathed out a shaky sigh. “I had to see you. I . . . I don’t care who my family is, or what they stand for,” he said. “Not anymore.”

A smile formed on my lips as a warmth that had nothing to do with fear or anger crept through my limbs. “So what happens now?”

He rested his forehead against mine as he wrapped his arms around me. “That’s the million dollar question isn’t it?”

“And what’s the answer?”

He threaded his fingers into my hair and eyed my lips with a hungry stare. My skin burned hotter where he touched me, and I was certain it had to have been hurting him, but he didn’t let it show if it was. If anything, he gripped me tighter as he ducked his head forward and captured my lower lip between his before slicking the tip of his tongue across the surface. It was the smallest movement, but it echoed throughout my entire body. Every inch of my skin tingled in anticipation of his caress.

In the years since I’d run from his rancor in Ohio and fled the city with Dad, I’d been too busy trying to survive to feel desire or crave companionship with another, but Clay’s kiss made me desperate for his touch. Because of how tightly he held me, it was obvious he was just as affected by our union as I was. It made me crave things I’d never known I’d wanted. Touches I’d never experienced.

Too soon, he pulled away. I whimpered in response to the loss.

“Evie, I don’t want this,” he murmured.

“What?” I asked incredulously. He’d pursued me, kissed me twice, and now he was telling me he didn’t want me?

“What I mean is I don’t want this now, like this. I don’t want to be shaped by my mistakes. I want what we had in Ohio before I stupidly threw it all away.” He raised his hand and scrubbed the back of his neck.

“But you can’t turn back the clock.”

“I know, and I’m not trying to. I just . . .” His breath caught and he gave a strangled chuckle. “God, why is this so hard?”

Eyeing the prominent bulge in his jeans, I resisted the urge to chuckle at his unintentional joke. The earnest look on his face as he watched me stilled my tongue though, and I thought I might have an idea of what he was trying to say, but I didn’t want to assume just in case I was wrong.

He met my gaze, and I could see a swarm of self-doubt buzzing behind his eyes. It was almost as if we were back in the school corridor and he was offering to show me the local sights again. “I just want you to be sure that you want this, that you want me, before we go any further. We come from two different worlds, and mine isn’t safe for you. Being with me will be dangerous.”

“Clay, the world is dangerous to me because there are people like the Rain in it. I’m no stranger to living day to day, or doing whatever is needed to survive.” Although Dad did most of the actual theft and fraud, I knew how to evade capture when I needed to.

He frowned as he reached out to brush a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m just saying that I’m willing to walk away from that part of my life for you, but I can’t be with you unless I know that you’re aware of the risks.”

I nodded. “You won’t hurt me,” I said with a confidence I almost believed. He’d had the opportunity to do so on a few occasions now. Despite his words of caution, I didn’t think he was a threat. At least not at that moment. The echo of the fear I’d lived with for the last two years was still present in my mind though.

“I won’t,” he agreed, “but that doesn’t mean my world won’t come back to haunt us.”

“If I said no, that I didn’t want this and walked out of here, will the Rain stop hunting me?” I knew the answer as well as he did.

Dropping his gaze to the floor, he shook his head sadly.

I trailed my finger along his cheek, before cupping his face in my palms. “Then any danger they pose isn’t your fault, is it?” I pressed my lips against his, eager to get back the mood from earlier.

He pulled away from me again. “Will you come back tomorrow?”

“What’s wrong with now?”

“I want you to go home and think about what I said. If you’re willing to try to see where this might lead, then come back tomorrow.”

“And if I don’t come back?”

He couldn’t meet my gaze when he said, “Then I’ll have my answer about how you feel.”