By then my heart was in my throat. I swallowed it and unbolted the door.

“Are you okay?” we said in unison. And then, to confirm how eerily alike we were, we both exhaled and said “I’m fine” at the same time.

I ushered her into the hallway. She had her scarf over her head like a peasant girl, but she was still drenched from head to toe. Water dripped off the end of her nose. But she was alive. Her skin was glowing again and her eyes were back to normal. I didn’t have to ask her if the Touch had worked, but I did anyway. “Did everything go all right?”

She pulled the scarf off her head and her curls sprang out, vibrant once more. “I did it. But I can’t say that anything is right. Just like I thought, Bryce used the Touch on Pedro and you the second he got it. You shouldn’t be here. You need to hide or something.”

I shook my head. “My family won’t leave. And I can’t leave them.”

Her eyes widened. “You have to make them understand that—”

At that moment, Nan stepped into the hallway. “I do understand,” she said.

Taryn looked from me to Nan, questioning.

Nan smiled like she was a hostess, greeting guests at a tea party. “Nick won’t properly introduce us, but I’m his grandmother. And you are Taryn. It is nice to finally meet you, after all I’ve heard. Come in and have something to eat.”

Normally I’d shrink away in embarrassment, but I was too busy trying to sort out the visions that were flashing in my head. Headlights. Screams. They seemed so close. Taryn reluctantly followed us to the kitchen, like it was the last thing on earth she wanted to do. She helped Nan set the table and pour the tea anyway. Ten minutes later we sat around the kitchen table, nursing steaming mugs. I guess none of us felt much like drinking. Taryn didn’t even bother to remove her tea bag. She just stared at it. “I’m sorry that your family has become such a big part of my family’s curse,” she said softly. I couldn’t tell if she was addressing me or Nan.

“It seems that our family had some responsibility for inserting ourselves into it,” Nan answered. She looked Taryn over. Now that she was drying out, her hair was shiny and her cheeks were turning rosy. She looked even hotter than I remembered. It was pretty stupid considering everything else that was going on, but I still wanted her. “Nick has told me so much about you.”

I kicked her under the table to get her to stop giving the poor girl the hairy eyeball. Then I said, “Um. So what do we do now?”

Taryn shrugged. “Well, I wanted you to run away.”

“But would that do any good? Wouldn’t it just find us?”

She nodded. “Wishful thinking. It doesn’t stop until it does.”

I took a big gulp of tea and remembered too late that it was still hot. It scalded all the way down my throat and I grimaced back the pain. “What is it anyway? This thing that’s coming for us?”

She shuddered. “It’s death. And it can take any one of a million forms.”

“So like, TB? Being chopped up in a meat grinder?” Lightning flashed in the sky. “Electrocution? Anything?”

“No. It’s the worst. It’s whatever form you fear most.”

I stared at her. “I’ve never thought about that. Do people seriously sit around and try to think of the worst way to die?”

“Well, dear,” Nan said, “that’s because you’ve always been busy thinking of so many other things. But truthfully, I think that, deep down, most people know very well which type of death they would fear the most.”

Taryn nodded. I stared at her, confused, but then I suddenly remembered what she said. “I always have this feeling I’m going to die in a horrific car crash.”

Nan continued, “When I was five, I almost drowned in the ocean. I’ve been so afraid of drowning ever since.”

“Shhh,” I muttered, scanning the corners of the ceiling for—I don’t know what. Shadows, ghosts, some guy with a sickle. “You don’t want it to hear you. Whatever it is.”

Taryn said, “You don’t have to say it out loud. It already knows. Even if you don’t think you know. It does.” She shuddered again.

“Let’s find something else to talk about,” Nan said, slitting open a box of Entenmann’s with a knife. “Crumb cake?”

We all stared at it like it was a brick of dog crap. We’d lost our appetites. And clearly Nan was off her rocker. Death was coming for us, and she wanted us to sit and enjoy crumb cake. She’d let us go through our most feared deaths instead of getting a Touch just because she hated “that nonsense” so much.

“Nan,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, “can we talk in the other room?”

She shook her head and cut herself a large piece of cake. “I don’t want my tea to get cold.”

“Nan,” I grumbled. “Fine. Don’t you understand? This is why you have to do it. You have to.”

Taryn stopped staring at her tea and looked at me. “Do what?”

I explained my idea of Nan getting the Flight of Song Touch, and Taryn’s eyes widened.

“Right! Wait.” She turned to Nan. “You don’t want to?”

Nan pushed her plate away without taking a bite and began fingering the Miraculous Medal around her neck. I knew what she thought: Leave it in the hands of God. He will make everything right. I’d heard her feelings about the Heights all too often, too: nothing good could be found in the Devil’s Playground. “That’s right. The Touch is the source of my family’s problem. It’s not the solution. It’s sinful.”

“Oh, I guess,” Taryn said softly, then gave me an “is she insane?” look. “Good thought, though.”

Nan stood up. Her expression, for once, was grave. “Lovely chatting with you both. Now I must get ready for bed.”

She started for the staircase, her shoulders slumped and her head down. Normally she would have cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher, but I could tell she was rattled. And who wouldn’t be?

“Good night,” I called after her, and then I couldn’t resist getting one last dig in there. “You might want to forgo your bath. I’d stay away from water altogether, if I were you.”

Nan didn’t respond. Taryn swallowed and grimaced like there were knives in her throat. She’d shredded the paper napkin into a pile of confetti. “Maybe she will sleep on it and change her mind?” she offered.

I shrugged. “Maybe.” I kept my voice light to hide the dread that had crept over me. There was still a long night ahead of us, and evil always seemed more possible in the darkness.

Lightning lit the sky far away, but the thunder didn’t come as an answer. As I walked Taryn outside, there was no noise at all—no crickets, no humming of the streetlights—as if the entire town was holding its breath for what was to come. The Park was between storms, so the clouds had parted like a curtain, revealing the silver-dollar moon and thousands of pinpoint stars. Now, everything seemed hushed, the way the Park liked. As I held Taryn’s hand, even the You Wills were gone, leaving a silence that was almost too silent. It was unnatural. Foreboding.

“Can we talk somewhere else?” Taryn asked.

I nodded and followed her down the gravel driveway, but when we were walking together, still holding hands, she did very little talking. It seemed like she was afraid to say something. The air was so humid you could almost taste it. We ambled slowly to the corner in the darkness, then kept right on going to the playground on the Fifth Avenue bay.

Tiny pools of water glistened on the seats of the swings. Taryn’s skirt was still damp from before, so she didn’t bother to wipe the swing dry before she sat on it. I sat down on the swing next to hers.

“I’ve known a lot of guys,” she said, digging her bare toes into the sand. “They all wanted something from me. But not you. You’re different. You’re like my angel.”

I laughed. “Are you crazy? I am not your angel. I ruined your life in a thousand ways, remember?”