After a few blocks of hiking in the rain, Wendy found a bus stop. Within moments the bus came around the corner. Perfect timing. She dug in her backpack and took out enough change to pay.

“Where you headed?” the friendly driver asked.

Wendy was the only person on the bus so she sat in the middle, facing front. “Doesn’t matter,” she mumbled as she stared out the window, searching for signs of movement in the darkness.

He closed the doors and drove off.

“What are you doing in this area so late?”

“My uncle owns a boat he keeps docked by the waterfront,” she lied easily.

“A boat, eh? I own a boat. What kind?”

“A white one.” She leaned her head back against the seat.

After a few more failed attempts at conversation, the driver stopped with the onslaught of questions and just drove his route. Wendy figured from the map on the small board inside that this route would take her about a mile from the park.

Did she want to go back to the park? Not really. Maybe she should go home? No. Not after Jax said the Red Skulls could hurt her family. She didn’t want to endanger them. That didn’t leave her any other option.

“This is the last stop for the night, miss.” The driver turned in his seat. “Do you want off here? I’m not supposed to but if you need I can drop you off somewhere else. I can—as long as it’s on my route back to the bus barn.”

Wendy sat up. She had missed the stop for the park altogether. She looked up at the map and tried to place where she was—by the St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

“This is fine,” Wendy answered. She stood and waited for the doors to open. Something moved just at the edge of her vision, and she froze on the last step. Was it a trick of the rain, a part of her imagination?

“Is everything all right, miss?” The driver’s palm rested on the handle, waiting for her to exit so he could close the doors.

Was everything all right? Her skin tingled, and she had to force her hand to let go of the railing and take the first step onto the pavement.

She moved into the circle of light cast by the street lamp and waited as the bus pulled away from the curb. She should have taken his offer for him to drop her off somewhere else, but where?

Wendy ran toward the Catholic church and ducked into the large entryway by the antiquated wooden doors with the brass lion knockers. She pulled out the sleeping bag from her pack, unzipped it, and wrapped it around her. With her back pressed to the wood, she pulled her backpack against her legs. Here under the safety of the church and guarded by the lion doorknockers, she would wait until morning.

Life was so much better before she’d learned about morphlings. She’d almost rather still think she was crazy. But she wasn’t. She was apparently sane. Just sane with unreliable-or-absent memories. She was broken. And she needed to fix herself before she could fix or help the others.

Something large flew by and cast an ominous shadow along the sidewalk in front of the church.

“What in the world?” Wendy whispered and watched again. She grabbed her flashlight, tightened her grip on the sleeping bag in front of her neck, and tiptoed down the front steps of the church. She shined the beam all around the treetops. Her heart raced and her hands shook. But she didn’t see or hear anything, so she went back to the church steps.

There, standing on the top step was Peter, his hands in his jacket pockets, looking like he just stepped out of a magazine.

“You would really leave without saying goodbye to me?” He walked off the top step and into the light. His hair and clothes were sopping wet. His eyes looked wounded.

“How did you get here?” Wendy turned to scan the street for a car or Tink’s scooter. She hadn’t heard any vehicles approaching.

He shrugged in a teasing manner and smiled. “I flew.”

“I see,” Wendy said. “As the crow flies, huh?”

Even dry, with the sleeping bag wrapped around her shoulders, Wendy still shivered from the rain. Or from Peter’s closeness—she wasn’t sure.

He stood in front of her now, gazing down into her eyes. The rain poured down his face in rivulets, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“No, not crow. I’m faster than a crow.” One corner of his mouth lifted, revealing his dimple. That dimple made him seem oh so much more charming.

That dimple could be her undoing.

“You were right,” he said. “We were watching you. That’s because two weeks earlier, the shadows were swarming your house. Your house was a dead zone. I’m not sure why, but I put my best team on it. We didn’t know if a morphling was coming, but two more times, the dead zone moved around your house. I did it to protect you, but I have a crazy feeling that the shadows are actually gathering to help you.” He sighed. “Now I sound crazy.”

His body trembled slightly in front of her, but he didn’t draw any closer, and he didn’t touch her. How was it that she wanted him to? She wanted him to kiss her, really kiss her. To feel his lips pressed to hers and to hear him say she meant something to him.

“Wendy,” her name fell from his lips.

She met his eyes. The water dripped from his face to hers, and he leaned in. He pulled her into his embrace. His body heat slowly merged with hers as he nuzzled closer to her. Her heart filled to overflowing. She wanted this moment to be locked away forever in her memory, but knew it couldn’t last.

“Please. Don’t leave me,” he whispered against her cheek.

“You can’t save everyone, Peter. You can’t save me.” She started to cry, her tears mingling with the raindrops.

“I can try.” Peter buried his head into her neck, and she could feel his lips press against her skin in the gentlest of caresses. Maybe it wasn’t a kiss, maybe it was just him whispering something she was unable to hear in the rain.

He took her hand and pulled her back up the church steps and to the door. After shaking off the excess water from the bag, he wrapped it around them both, and he sat in the corner, pulling Wendy against his side.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t ask questions. He just held her protectively against his side and hugged her.

They sat and enjoyed the silent comfort that came from being close to someone. No words were exchanged. No apologies were given. Words would only complicate things.

Wendy leaned her head against Peter’s chest and listened to his heartbeat. It only took a moment for the coolness of his skin to warm up. His clothes were still wet, but at least he was warm. Peter nuzzled the top of her head with his cheek.

“Sleep, Wendy. I’ll watch over your dreams.”

“I remember you saying that once before.”

“And I’ll do it again.”

How easy it would be to let herself fall in love with Peter. But then she remembered she couldn’t trust him, and as painful as it was, she resolved not to fall in love.

But in her dream she could fall in love, so Wendy let herself dream.

And like she’d done in her dreams many times before, Wendy dreamed she was flying.

Peter held Wendy in his arms and tried not to jostle her as he pulled his specter goggles on over his eyes so he could scan the perimeter. Even though he didn’t need them, it was always easier to use them in inclement weather.

Once again he could see the shadows, skirting the light and floating among the trees. Through the goggles, they looked like blurred shapes in light blue. Always at about the same distance, never leaving but never coming any closer to Wendy. They didn’t seem to want to harm her, but he kicked himself for not bringing Tink’s scanner.

He wasn’t going to leave her unprotected again, not when the shadows’ presence always attracted a morphling. Ugh. How he hated them, wanted to kill every single one of them.

Wendy moved as she snuggled under his arm. He took a deep breath and could smell her honey and vanilla shampoo. He pressed his mouth to the top of her head in a gentle kiss. What was it about her that made him so possessive? Was it her innocence, her laughter, her fighter instinct? He almost laughed out loud and woke her when he remembered the time she’d sliced his arm with a knife.

At the same time, though, she was childlike in her fears; she’d whimpered in her sleep at the safe house. Quite a few times, as he checked on her and listened outside her door last night, he heard her cry out in fear. But he never could make out what she said.

About an hour later, her REM cycle started, and Wendy began to kick out and twitch. “Don’t let go of me!” she cried out in fear. He wrapped his arms around her tighter.

Peter froze. His body began to tremble as her words brought him back to his own personal nightmare—to that night on the boat. He closed his eyes and whispered. “Never.”