“Someone knows we’re here,” Connor says, “and wants us gone.”

“I’m sorry!” Kele pleads. “Nova promised she wouldn’t tell anyone, but she must have. It’s my fault.”

“Maybe so and maybe not.” Pivane turns to Connor. “Either way, it’s not safe for you in this house. We’ll need to move you.”

“The old sweat lodge?” suggests Kele, which somehow sounds appropriate, since this is making them all sweat.

Pivane shakes his head. “I know a better place.”

34 • Una

The knock on the shop door is so quiet, Una barely hears it from upstairs. She has just put a steak on the skillet. Had the skillet been sizzling any louder, she might not have heard the knock. She descends from her upstairs apartment into the luthier shop where she used to apprentice but now runs. As she crosses through the workroom, her bare feet smart from sharp wood shavings on the floor. She continues on through the showroom, where her handmade guitars hang from above like sides of beef.

Pivane is at the door with Lev, Connor, and Grace. She waits for an explanation before inviting them in.

“Something happened,” Pivane tells her. “We need your help.”

“Of course.” She opens the door to allow them entrance.

Sitting on stools in the back room of the shop, Pivane explains the events of the evening. “They need a safe haven,” Pivane tells her.

“It won’t be for long,” Connor says, although he probably has no idea how long it will be. None of them do for sure.

“Please, Una,” says Pivane, holding intense eye contact. “Do our family this favor.”

“Yes, certainly,” says Una, trying to hide the trepidation in her voice. “But if whoever shot at them knows they’re here—”

“I do not think any more shots will be taken,” Pivane says, “but just in case, you should keep your rifle at the ready.”

“That goes without saying.”

“It’s good that I gave it to you,” Pivane says, “for if it’s used in their protection, it will be used well.”

Pivane gets up to go. “I’ll be back to check on them tomorrow with supplies, food, anything they might need. If Chal is successful with the Hopi and it draws the Juvenile Authority off track, they’ll be able to leave the reservation soon and continue their journey.”

Una notices that Lev shifts his shoulders uncomfortably at the suggestion.

“I believe,” says Pivane, giving her once again the all-encompassing full focus of his eyes, “that this is the safest place for them. Do you agree?”

Una holds his gaze. “Maybe you’re right.”

Satisfied, Pivane leaves, the bell on the shop door jingling behind him as he goes out. Una makes sure the door is locked, then escorts her guests upstairs.

Her steak is burning, filling the kitchen with smoke. Cursing, she turns off the burner, turns on the fan, and drops the skillet into the sink, dousing it with water. The steak is about as ruined as her appetite.

“Cajun Blackened Steak, my brother calls that,” says Grace.

The small apartment has two bedrooms. She offers Grace her room, but Grace insists on the sofa. “The less space I have to bump around, the better I sleep,” she says. She lies down and seems to be snoring instantly. Una covers her with a blanket and scares up blankets for the boys. “The spare bedroom has one bed and a bedroll on the floor.”

“I’ll take the bedroll,” says Connor quickly. “Lev can have the bed.”

“No argument,” says Lev.

Una now notices that Connor is wearing one of Wil’s shirts. The fact that he wears it so obliviously makes it all the more infuriating. He should apologize to every thread of the garment. He should apologize to her. But Una won’t tell him this. All she says is, “You don’t quite fill out that shirt, do you?”

Connor offers a smile that is apologetic, but not apologetic enough. “It’s not like I had much of a choice, considering.”

“Yes, considering,” she echoes. She expects him to try to charm her, maybe sidle closer to her, because she assumes this is the kind of boy he is. When he doesn’t, she is almost disappointed. She wonders when it was that she started looking for reasons to dislike people. But she knows the answer to that. It started the day she put Wil’s guitar on the funeral pyre and watched as the guitar burned in his place.

She hands the two their bedding and fetches her rifle, leaning it against the wall near the stairs. “You’ll be safe as long as you’re here.”

“Thank you, Una,” says Lev.

“My pleasure, little brother.”

She catches Conner smirking when she calls Lev that. Una doesn’t care. Let him smirk. Outsiders always do.

35 • Lev

The bedroom has more pictures of Wil than in the Tashi’ne home, all from long before the brief time that Lev knew him. In fact, the room has the uneasy sense of being a shrine.

“Ya think she’s got issues with her lost love?” says Connor blithely.

“Her fiancé,” Lev corrects. “They knew each other all their lives—so try to be a little more sensitive.”

Connor puts up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.”

“If you want to win her over, wash that shirt and leave it here when we go.”

“Winning her over isn’t high on my list of priorities.”

Lev shrugs. “Guess you won’t be getting any discounts on guitars.”

After he’s settled in his bed, Lev closes his eyes. It’s getting late, but he can’t sleep. He can hear Una in the kitchen, cleaning up her burned dinner, tidying up so that she can pretend the messy apartment they saw tonight was just their imagination come morning.

Although Connor isn’t moving on his bedroll, it seems his head is far from sleep as well.

“Tonight at dinner was the first time I’ve said that word in almost two years,” Connor confesses.

It takes Lev a few seconds to recall the moment, which was much more traumatic for Connor than for him. He notes that Connor won’t even repeat the M word. “I’m sure Elina knows that and understands.”

Connor rolls over to face Lev, looking up at him from the floor in the dim light. “Why is it that it’s easier for me to deal with a sniper shot than to deal with what I said at the table tonight?”

“Because,” offers Lev, “you’re good in a crisis and you suck at normal.”

It makes Connor laugh. “ ‘Good in Crisis; Sucks at Normal.’ That about sums up my whole life, doesn’t it?” He’s silent for a moment, but Lev knows there’s more coming, and he knows exactly what it will be.

“Lev, do you ever—”

“No,” Lev says, shutting him down. “And neither should you. Not now, anyway.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“It’s the parent question, right?”

Connor stews a bit, then says, “You were annoying as a tithe, and you’re still annoying.”

Lev snickers and flips his hair back. It’s become a habit. Anytime someone reminds him of his days as a tithe, he takes comfort in that shock of long, unruly blond hair.

“I’m sure my parents know I’m alive now,” Connor says. “My brother must know too.”

That catches Lev’s attention. “I never even knew you had a brother.”

“His name is Lucas. He got the trophies, and I got detention slips. We used to fight all the time—but you must know all about that. You’ve got a whole busload of siblings, right?”

Lev shakes his head. “Not anymore. As far as I’m concerned, I’m now a family of one.”

“I think Una might see that differently, ‘little brother.’ ”

Lev has to admit there’s comfort in that, but not comfort enough. He decides to tell Connor something he’s yet to tell anyone—not even Miracolina during the many desperate days they spent together.

“When the clappers blew up my brother’s house, my father—who I hadn’t seen for over a year—disowned me.”

“That’s harsh,” says Connor. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. He basically said I should have blown myself up that day at Happy Jack.”