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“It’s okay,” said Lynnette. “Go. I’ll explain everything to him.”

And he left the two of them there. His cellphone was in the rear pocket on his motorcycle. He made the call.

<“Talk to me,”> said Gina.

He started changing clothes in the middle of the garage. “Gina, I need you to get Lynn’s family out of Sescoria. Can you do that?”

<“Uh. What?”>

“They could be in danger. Please? I don’t think I’d be able to.”

<“Er. Okay. When?”>

“Right now.”

<“Are you serious? How am I supposed to do that?”>

“Uh. I don’t know. It’s an emergency, though, so.”

<“Ugh.”>

“You’re really smart. I’m, uh--I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

<“You can’t just say that and expect me to--”>

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t talk right now.”

<“What? Why not?”>

He frowned at Garovel as he mounted the motorcycle again. “My mother will be in danger, too.”

<“Agh. Dammit, why do you have to have such a good excuse to ditch me, huh?”>

“Sorry.”

<“We’ll talk later.”>

“Right.” He gave her the address before hanging up and heading back out again, this time with a fresh pair of pants, riding jacket, and helmet. It would have been nice to catch up with Gina during the journey to Brighton, but he wouldn’t be able to hear her over the road noise. If he could’ve driven a car instead, that might be different, but it was a bit late to be fretting over such things. At least he would have plenty of time to talk to Garovel. ‘How certain are you that they’ll go after our families?’

‘I’m not certain at all,’ the reaper admitted. ‘We’re just taking precautions. Taking hostages is a common tactic for them to employ. Up to now, we didn’t really pose much threat to them, so they wouldn’t have wanted to expend very many resources trying to find and eliminate us. But now, considering we just took a metaphorical dump on their dinner table, I’d say all bets are off. No telling what they might do in order to get to us.’

‘Hmm.’

‘By the way, I have a confession to make.’

‘Confession?’

‘This past week, whenever you were sleeping, I went to Brighton by myself in order to keep tabs on your mother.’

His hands twitched, and he nearly swerved off the road. ‘What?!’