Dee looked absolutely ridiculous, delicately tugging the leaves on a new planting as if to turn the plant already stuck in the dirt, and I had no idea what she was attempting to do. Probably trying not to get dirt under her nails. My gaze drifted toward the other girl. She was on her knees, one hand planted in the fresh soil, her back slightly arched with her ass right up in the air. My lips parted, and yeah, my mind immediately went there, picturing her roughly in the same position with less clothing.

Which pissed me off, because that was the last place it needed to go. I didn’t even find her that attractive for shit’s sake. No way. Not at all.

She settled back on her haunches as Dee said something to her, and then she slowly turned her head in my direction.

“Hey,” Matthew’s voice snapped in my ear.

I dragged away my gaze, frowning as I rubbed my hand over my chest. Shit. No shirt. “What?”

“Are you even paying attention to what I’m saying?” Matthew demanded.

“Yeah.” I paused, distracted. I watched the girl turn back to the flower bed, where she started digging furiously with a shovel. “Dee has a new friend. She’s human.”

There was a sigh on the other end of the phone. “We’re kind of surrounded by humans, Daemon.”

No shit. “Yeah, but this one moved in next door.”

“What?”

“I have no idea why they allowed it.” I paused as I glanced over at them. My sister handed her some kind of plant that actually looked like a healthy weed. “But Dee’s crawled right up her ass and you know how Dee is. Ever since…Dawson and Bethany, she’s been desperate for…” Desperate for everything Dawson had been and I wasn’t.

That’s the damn truth right there.

“School is one thing,” Matthew said, glossing over what I hadn’t said but definitely hung between us. “But that close—your home and the colony? What in the world was the DOD thinking?”

“I don’t think they were thinking.” But that didn’t seem right. They never did anything without having a reason.

“You need to be careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

“I’m being serious.” Exasperation filled his voice.

“I’ll take care of it,” I promised. “Don’t say anything to the Thompsons yet about her, okay? I don’t need to deal with however they’re going to react on top of all of this.”

Matthew agreed and then ranted on for about thirty minutes, alternating between my new neighbor and the Arum. I was catching bits and pieces of his conversation as I watched the girls from where I stood on the porch. I didn’t need Matthew telling me how serious nearby Arum were and the precautions we needed to take, and I think he knew that, too. But that was Matthew, the prophet of doom.

But with confirmation of the Arum moving in, this crap between Dee and that girl needed to end before something happened and drew one of those bastards right to us, like it had with Dawson.

When I got off the phone, I went inside and grabbed a shirt, and then went back outside despite my empty, grumbling stomach. I was hungry and annoyed. Never a good combination.

Dee rose as I crossed the driveway, brushing the grass off her hands, but the girl stayed on the ground, smacking the soil. I dropped my arm over Dee’s shoulders, holding her still when she tried to squirm free. “Hey, sis.”

She grinned up at me with hope in her gaze. God only knew what she thought about me making an appearance, but I was really going to let her down. “Thanks for moving the bags for us,” she said.

“Wasn’t me.”

Dee rolled her eyes. “Whatever, butthead.”

“That’s not nice.” I tugged her close, smiling down at her when she wrinkled her nose. I felt eyes on us and when I glanced up, I saw that the girl was watching us. The sun had pinked the heights of her cheeks—or something else had. Her hair was pulled up but sweat had dampened the loose tendrils around the nape of her neck. The smile slipped from my face. She was going to be such a problem. “What are you doing?”

“I’m fixing—”

“I wasn’t asking you,” I said, interrupting her as I directed my attention to Dee. “What are you doing?”

The girl shrugged and picked up a potted plant, totally unfazed by me, and my eyes narrowed on her. She acted as if I wasn’t even standing there. Unacceptable.

Dee punched me in the stomach. Knowing she could hit a hell of a lot harder than that, I let her go. “Look at what we’ve done,” she said. “I think I have a hidden talent.”

I looked over at the flower bed. Yeah, they had done some major work on it. Then again, how hard could it really be, pulling up weeds and planting new shit? I arched a brow when the girl looked at me.

“What?” she demanded.

I shrugged and honestly, I couldn’t care less about it. “It’s nice. I guess.”

“Nice?” Dee all but shrieked. “It’s better than nice. We rocked this project. Well, Katy rocked it. I kind of just handed her stuff.”

Ignoring my sister, I turned my full attention on the girl. “Is this what you do with your spare time?”

“What—are you deciding to talk to me now?” She smiled, and my jaw tightened as she grabbed a handful of mulch. “Yeah, it’s kind of a hobby. What’s yours? Kicking puppies?”

At first, I wasn’t sure why she had said that to me, because no one talked back to me. No one was that insane. I tilted my head to the side. “I’m not sure I should say in front of my sister.”

“Ew,” muttered Dee.

The girl’s face flushed even more, and I felt my lips kick up at the corner. What was she thinking? “It’s not nearly as lame as this,” I added, gesturing at the flower bed.

She stilled. Pieces of red cedar drifted to the ground. “Why is this lame?”

I raised both brows.

The girl wisely retreated, but her jaw jutted out as she returned to spreading the mulch, and my eyes narrowed even farther. I could tell she was forcing herself to keep quiet, and that made me feel like a shark that scented blood in the water.

Dee sensed it, because she pushed me. “Don’t be a jerk. Please?”

“I’m not being a jerk.” I stared at the girl.

Her brows flew up, and there it was. The attitude. I didn’t like it…but I did, and realizing that amped me up. “What’s that? You have something to say, Kitten?”

“Other than I’d like for you to never call me Kitten? No.” Running her hands over the mulch calmly, she then stood and grinned at Dee. “I think we did good.”

This girl was legit ignoring me.

“Yes.” Dee pushed me again, but this time in the direction of our house. “We did good, lameness and all. And you know what? I kind of like being lame.”

As I stared at the fresh plants, I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that she was standing there, pretending like I wasn’t even here. This chick was not even one bit intimidated by me. That floored me. I couldn’t be reading her right. Yeah, most human girls didn’t run from me. They wanted to run to me, but one look would send them scurrying away. This girl was basically like, whatever.

“And I think we need to spread our lameness to the flower bed in front of our house,” Dee continued, practically humming with excitement. “We can go to the store, get stuff, and you can—”

“She’s not welcome in our house.” Annoyed, I knew where this was heading. “Seriously.”

Dee’s hands balled into fists. “I was thinking we could work on the flower bed, which is outside—not inside—the last time I checked.”

“I don’t care,” I snapped. “I don’t want her over there.”

“Daemon, don’t do this.” Her voice dropped, and then I saw her eyes turn too bright. “Please. I like her.”

Hating the look in her eyes, I exhaled softly. “Dee…”

“Please?” she asked again.

I cursed under my breath as I folded my arms. I couldn’t give in to this. There was too much at stake, like her life. “Dee, you have friends.”

“It’s not the same, and you know it.” She folded her arms. “It’s different.”