The smell of burnt plastic was a thin, acrid ribbon curling into my nostrils. It grounded me. It was the only thing in the noisy, chaotic cafeteria that felt real.
I stared at the scorch mark on the table. The symbol—the circle, the line, the triangle—wasn't drawn with ink or carved with a knife. It had been branded into the laminate surface by a finger that burned with a heat no human body should possess.
Tonight. The Old Gym. Bring the Alpaca.
"He wants Alpacacino," Liza whispered, her voice trembling. She stared at the message, her hand instinctively going to her chest, right over her heart. Right over the place where the Soul Bind anchored us together. "He knows."
"He knows everything," I murmured, my [Danger Sense] pulsing with a dull, throbbing headache behind my right eye. "He was inside your head, Liza. He saw the memories. He saw the weapon you made."
