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  The doctor’s foot tapped, too.

  The guy’s attention seemed to have slid off her toward the threats to his family. At the moment, he wasn’t watching her. Maybe she should run for it.

  But she remembered what that… Fate… said. He needs your help.

  She glanced at the doctor again. He really was huge. And strong. He didn’t look like he needed anyone’s help. But they were up against gods.

  She walked toward him. “My knee and hip feel fine. Whatever you did, worked.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her and blinked like he was forcing himself to concentrate to understand her words. And the forcing took more energy than what he’d used to fix her body. “Fates think they’re in charge, and nothing makes a person more dangerous than a grandiose sense of entitlement.”

  “Great.” At school, every day, Daisy dealt with her share of kids with entitlement issues. They weren’t, for the most part, physically dangerous, like that Burner. They didn’t get right up in her face and steal her lunch money. No, they did other things that made her life miserable. Turning classmates and teachers against her just because they were rich and she was not. Ridiculing her clothes. Flaunting their daddies’ big, expensive cars.

  So these Fates were a supernatural group of queen bees.

  “This shit’s supposed to be stories that make little kids hide under the blankets at night.” Daisy felt like hitting the wall, too. “But that Burner smelled like a battery about to explode and people are doing strange things and you said I should know.” The need to hit the wall was too strong and she slapped the vinyl wallpaper next to the door, much like the doctor. “So is there more I should know?”

  A shiver moved through his body. “My wife needs to tell our girl.” He breathed in deeply again before snorting through his nose. He slapped the wall again and the entire room vibrated.

  Anger hummed off the guy. Daisy didn’t need to sniff the air to know.

  He needed as much help as she did.

  “The Fate told me I’m supposed to help someone. A man with a family.” From the way this guy was acting, Daisy was pretty sure the woman on the phone meant him.

  “What else did she—” His nose twitched and his arm came up fast.

  He pressed them against the wall and Daisy suddenly had a very big bicep holding her away from the door. “Quiet.”

  She smelled his command, too. Thoughts of mice and tiny sounds floated into her head. She’d squeak if she opened her mouth.

  The homeless guy’s voice rolled down the hall from the lobby. He yelled something that sounded like “scrumptious” and demanded to know where “the tasty girl” was.

  Daisy flattened herself against the ugly wallpaper.

  “He got in.” The doctor looked her over. “We need to get out of here. There’s a door to the lot in the back. My car’s out there.” His fingers curled around her elbow and he yanked her into the hallway. “The staff knows they need to evacuate the patients. They know not to fight a Burner. He’ll be through any second.”

  The big doctor gave Daisy a shove toward the back of the clinic. She staggered but turned toward him, to ask for specifics about what to do. Which door? What did his car look like? How much time do we have?

  But the same door he’d carried her through burst open and slammed against the wall. The Burner walked through.

  The entire hallway filled with what smelled to Daisy like burning, rotting eggs. Like what she imagined the sulfur coming out of a volcanic vent would smell like.

  She gagged, her eyes watering. The Burner would kill her with his stink alone.

  “Damn it!” The doctor pulled her close and his mouth descended toward hers like he was about to kiss her right on the lips. Kiss her even though she was seventeen and he was some kid’s papa and even though it wasn’t right it would be freakin’ sweet to be kissed by a real, trustworthy man.

  He didn’t kiss her. His mouth covered her lips and her nose like he was giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and all of a sudden she wasn’t gagging anymore.

  The strange attraction thing vanished. The part of her mind that saw him as a doctor-teacher-protector got the word that its assessment was the correct one, and boom! he became mentor.

  Just like that.

  Deep inside, a little voice screamed not my choice! But it didn’t matter. It felt as if he’d breathed into her something that skipped over a whole bunch of steps they would have gone through anyway. ‘Trust me’ wafted from his throat because they didn’t have time to do all the necessary “learning to trust” stuff.

  ‘Trust me’ and a boost to help her see why he did what he did.

  Daisy felt more clearheaded than she ever had in her life. Supremely clearheaded, like she’d taken some head-clearing miracle drug. Her fear vanished. She still smelled the Burner but her brain assessed instead of screamed in terror. She took in the environment on a level she hadn’t when the doctor brought her in. And her mind sorted the importance of her questions and focused on what needed to be done right now: Get them out safely. The ‘trust me’ thing could wait.

  Like most clinics, the hallway in which they stood contained several vinyl-covered chairs. In this place, they were low and cushy, all olive green, and not good for throwing at the Burner. A ledge with a computer monitor and keyboard hung on one wall, also not good for throwing.

  Damn it, she needed something sharp. They were in a clinic. Where the hell were all the sharp things?

  A cart with a blood pressure cuff and a thermometer waited outside another room. The thermometer might do some damage, but Daisy didn’t think her arm was that good. And the Burner could probably take a good smack to the head, anyway.

  “Go!” Dr. Torres waved his hand behind his back as he stepped directly between Daisy and the Burner.

  “I smell Shifter.” The Burner sneered. “Lots and lots of tasty Shifter.” He smacked his lips.

  A wave of stench rolled down the hall. The doctor gritted his teeth. Daisy took off for the back hall, her gaze searching for something—anything—to use as a weapon.

  She turned the corner but spun too far, into the open door of another exam room. One with an instruments cart. Full of long things meant to poke and prod. Scissors. Something that looked like a razor blade, too.

  She scooped them all up.

  The doctor rounded the corner just as Daisy swung back out the door. He grabbed for her again, looking to push her toward the back of the clinic, but she ducked under his big arm and stepped into the hallway.

  The Burner blinked, obviously surprised. “You smell sooo gooood. Just like fried chicken.” He smirked at his joke.

  Behind her, the doctor exhaled. But he didn’t breathe out anything new. Nothing that smelled like the ‘trust me’ she’d breathed either. Or the ‘clearheaded.’

  Daisy raised her hand and pulled back her arm. She’d always been athletic. Always able to outrun everyone on all the other teams. Always able to ride the horses no one else could ride, and hit the targets no one else could hit. But since they’d moved to America her mom had been telling her not to be obvious, so she’d cooled it with practice.

  But Dr. Torres had breathed ‘clearheadedness’ at her and the Burner was about to get a taste of just exactly how well Daisy’s throwing arm worked.

  “Stop!” The doctor grabbed her elbow. “Nothing sharp. Never cut a Burner, understand? Don’t make them bleed.”

  “Why?” A cut would get him to back off.

  The Burner laughed, filling the hallway with a popping, snapping crackle. “Boom!” he roared, waving his arms around in big circles and cackling again.

  “They explode?” Daisy breathed.

  The doctor nodded. “There are people in the building.”

  Daisy switched the scissors for some random instrument with a blunt end that would hurt like hell but not break the skin.

  It flicked against the Burner’s cheek and his head snapped back.

  “Hey! That hurt!” He rubbed at his fac
e and his skin wadded up like he was rubbing wax off a mannequin.

  The next blunt thing bounced off his skull. He staggered back, roaring, and patted around his belt like he was looking for a gun.

  Dr. Torres hauled Daisy around the corner and all but tossed her toward a wide, gray painted door at the back of the clinic. A big “Alarm will sound” sign hung on it, but he swiped a card and opened it without a sound. “Go!”

  She ran through into the heat and glare, the doctor right behind her. He gripped the door, pulling hard against the hydraulics, and closed it behind them.

  “The dark blue sedan. Over there.” He fished his keys out of his pocket. “Where did you learn to throw like that?”

  She shrugged as she ran toward the car. “There’s lots of nasty crittehs in Australia ya don’t want close enough to ya ta bite. Learnin’ how to whip rocks is good, yeah?”

  The dark blue sedan beeped as he pressed the remote on his keychain and unlocked it. “Get in.”

  Daisy pointed at the clinic door as she climbed into the car. “Will he follow us?” Inside the car, she pulled her seatbelt across her shoulder and lap. It smelled like every car that had ever baked in the San Diego heat—deep-fried plastic with a side order of sizzle. She rolled down the window to let out at least some of the deathly high-temperature air.

  The doctor started the car. “Hopefully the staff got—”

  Three pops echoed from the front of the building, outside, probably on the street: Pop. Then pop, pop.

  Gunfire.

  Daisy gasped. Someone with guns just showed up.

  The building audibly groaned. The back wall, the one with the exit door they’d just come through, visibly bowed inward.

  “Pendejo!” The doctor’s hand gripped the shift and he looked like he didn’t know what to do. Like his doctor half was fighting with his protector half.

  But he slammed the car into reverse and backed them straight for the driveway. He didn’t turn the car around. He didn’t put it in drive. He backed it up, and he backed up fast.

  The building stopped bowing inward. For a very short moment, nothing seemed to happen other than the two of them moving quickly away from the clinic.

  Then the explosion took everything.

  Chapter Six

  Daisy’s phone buzzed again, but this time it sat in Dr. Torres’s shirt pocket, not her jeans, and it startled them both. He jerked like he was about to jump out the sedan’s sunroof.

  He’d turned the car around in the street behind the strip mall and driven away from the now-burning clinic like it was the only thing he could do.

  Which it probably was.

  He pulled the phone out of his pocket and accepted the call. “No, you can’t talk to her. You talk to me, you understand? I at least understand what you are.”

  A muffled voice grumbled from the phone.

  “That Burner took out my clinic!”

  More muffled grumbling.

  “At least tell me if anyone is hurt.”

  A pause, then what sounded like a number. The doctor frowned.

  “Well?” Daisy asked. If someone got hurt because of her, she didn’t know what she’d do.

  The doctor glanced over at her. “The staff got the patients out and managed to evac the coffee shop next door. But there are cases of smoke inhalation and several broken bones.”

  “But no one died?”

  The doctor frowned again. “No. But if I’d stayed, I could have helped.”

  Loud yelling popped through the phone. Daisy heard “You need to run.”

  “What is she talking about?”

  The doctor looked like he would have pinched the bridge of his nose if he hadn’t needed to keep his hand on the steering wheel. “She says the Burner caused a distraction and I need to take advantage of it. I’m supposed to leave town.”

  He turned onto another sleepy street. “I’m going home!” he yelled into the phone.

  More muffled words from the Fate.

  “Who the hell thought shooting at a Burner was a good idea?” The doctor pulled the phone away from his ear when he took a left too fast and needed both hands to steer.

  Daisy leaned into the turn and braced herself against the door.

  “Give me the phone!” She almost snatched it from his hand. “You drive. I’ll talk to her.”

  “No!” Dr. Torres snapped at her the way her mom did when she asked too many times if she could go to a party. “Fates are dangerous! Just as dangerous as that Burner back there. Maybe more!”

  How dangerous could someone on the phone be? “She’s not here.”

  He breathed and took another turn too fast. The car skidded.

  Muffled yells came from the phone.

  “Give it to me.” Daisy wagged her fingers again.

  The doctor handed over the device.

  “You tell him he is not to go home!” The woman on the other end of the call hissed like a snake. “The gunfire you heard? My kind. Fates live as a bonded triad of three persons: one sees the future, one the present, and one the past. The triad who popped the Burner aren’t from this area. Their present-seer is stitching and I am having difficulty reading them. But they feel… familiar.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Daisy yelled. “Does … familiar… make them more dangerous?”

  The doctor’s eyes grew big. “Ask her who they are. Names. It’s important.”

  The Fate answered before Daisy opened her mouth. “Tell him I don’t know who they are.”

  “She doesn’t know. Said something about… stitching?” She covered the phone. “What’s… stitching? Does it explode like that Burner?”

  The Fate and the doctor answered at the same time: “No!”

  Daisy pulled the phone away from her ear so fast her head bounced against the headrest. “Neither of you is helping here.”

  “It’s a Fate thing,” the doctor said.

  “Some of us can hide events in the what-was-is-will-be,” the Fate finished.

  Daisy didn’t ask about the what-was-is-will-be, mostly because it seemed like a useless endeavor.

  She was beginning to understand the doctor’s obvious annoyance concerning all things Fates. Talking to one was like talking to a baseball coach. Why the hell didn’t they just say what something was instead of making up jargon? But then again, sometimes the made-up shit did a better job of describing than plain speak.

  Daisy felt the need to pinch the bridge of her nose. “You told the doctor to run.”

  “Yes,” said the Fate. “He needs to leave the city now. As of this moment, the Fates in town don’t know about the doctor or his family. They’re focusing on a shiny object dangling in front of them and they’re distracted. But if he goes home, they will know.”

  “She says—”

  “I know!” The doctor took yet another corner too fast. He drove randomly, like he was lost, not like someone trying to get home.

  Daisy inhaled and slowly blew out her breath. The Fates who blew up the clinic were distracted. But by what?

  A tap sounded through the phone like the Fate smacked it against something hard. “They’re in town because they sniffed out an artifact. In San Diego. One that is important to my people. The doctor and his family are going to get caught in the crossfire unless he does exactly what I tell him to do.”

  Daisy covered the phone again. “She says they’re here because they’re looking for an artifact.”

  The doctor groaned. “I want to know who they are. Because it’s important I know which triad is here.”

  “He wants to—”

  “I see arrogance. Brazenness.” The woman paused. “Arrogant even for my kind. There’s a chance they’re going to figure out who he is.”

  None of this made any sense to Daisy, but she relayed what the woman said. Dr. Torres nodded. “Why is the young lady caught up in this, Fate?” he yelled, so the woman would hear.

  The woman addressed Daisy. “My people see. That artifact? Someone from Australi
a snuck it onto American shores a couple years ago, Daisy. We can’t see it directly, but the best of my kind can get whiffs of it, if we know where to look.”

  Oh no, flitted through Daisy’s mind. Oh no in a big “What the hell did my mom do?” kind of way. But a lot of people from Australia come in and out of the States. Hell, the plane they’d flown in on was entirely full of Australians.

  So it could be anyone.

  But if her mom had stolen something—which the Fate seemed to be insinuating—then the woman sure seemed to be pushing them into stupid behaviors. “Then why the hell did you send me toward the doctor and not running in the exact opposite direction?”

  “The closer to a lie the truth stands, the harder it is to identify.”

  The bitch was reading Daisy’s mind. Pulling Daisy’s thoughts right out of her skull.

  “Right now, all the Fates in San Diego are focused on getting the artifact. It’s like a fireball in the what-was-is-will-be. It’s all they see.”

  “So?” Daisy didn’t know anything about distractions. Or the what-was-what-the-fuck. She just wanted to not be shot at or eaten.

  “So, young lady? All those other triads? The ones who are in town because of the blindingly bright light your mother’s sticky fingers brought to America? What they see coming, when not distracted, is not what I see coming. They do not see correctly. I do. My fate is to protect the correct path and my fate has already caused me—and my triad—a level of agony you cannot understand. And if the doctor doesn’t get his ass out of San Diego right now, that path will be corrupted.” She paused. “I’m helping because I’m as bound to my fate as the doctor is to his.”

  Daisy exhaled. She’d been holding her breath while the woman lectured. She hadn’t realized. “My mom was a vet.”

  “Yes, she was.”

  Daisy used to go on house calls with her mom occasionally, when she was little, when her mom didn’t have a sitter. They’d visit dusty offices and big warehouses in a rundown part of Perth, checking people’s guard dogs and pet cats. And the occasional iguana.