It was me."

"What?"

"Can you trust me for a while?"

"Of course."

"I'll tell you everything very soon." He laughed out loud. "Though I'll not promise it makes any more sense than aliens." Turning to Annabelle, he asked, "Will you trust me, Annabelle?"

In spite of her determination to treat him like the skunk he was, as she looked into his black, sparkling eyes, Annabelle found herself wanting to say the words, "I believe."

Still, her silent thoughts denied it. "You haven't told me anything I can believe," she replied.

Lucas squinted at her, as though studying a bug under a microscope. His eyes fluttered shut, and he leaned against the bed.

"Lucas!" Erin was on her knees in the middle of the bed, her small hands on either side of Lucas's head. "Lucas," she whispered, her voice small and afraid. "What's wrong?"

A small laugh puffed from his mouth. "Nothing. I'm just tired, is all." He opened his eyes and pinned Annabelle. "You do know, don't you, lack of faith is fatal?"

His words, though they made little sense, sent a shaft of guilt spearing through her heart.

He gasped a deep breath and sat heavily in the chair by Erin's bed.

"Oh, Bridget, I'm tired." Lucas leaned back, his long frame draped on the chair like a piece of clothing. His breathing evened and Annabelle thought he must be asleep. She eased off the bed and toward the door.

"No! You heard him." Erin still knelt in the middle of the bed.

"Honey, please be reasonable," Annabelle whispered, not anxious to lose this chance to have this rat snagged once and for all. "He's not supposed to be up here."

"He's hurt, Annabelle."

"I don't see any wounds on him. You're the one in the hospital."

Erin glared. "That's only because everyone thinks I'm crazy."

Well, aren't you? Annabelle wanted to scream at her. Not only was she ignoring the obvious--Lucas only wanted to keep her quiet about his unreliability--but now she was trying to protect him.

"I'm going to get the guards." Annabelle got off the bed, determined to do the right thing, even if Erin hated her for the rest of her life.

But she didn't get to the door.

Lucas bolted upright in the chair, his eyes wide.

"Saints in Heaven! Not him!"

Erin grabbed his hand as he stood up.

"Don't leave me again, Lucas. If you'll just tell them what happened, they'll let me out."

Lucas knelt by the bed and took Erin's hands between his own.

"I promise you, Erin, my love, I'll be back. But I need to regain my strength. If he tracks me here, he'll find you." He turned and once more he fixed Annabelle with a stare. "You have to help us, Annabelle."

"No way, José." Annabelle crossed her arms and returned Lucas's stare full measure.

He rose and came to her, towering over her.

"Listen to me, now," he whispered harshly, his exotic accent becoming more pronounced with his heavy breaths. "He's coming for me."

Was he as nutty as Erin was? Maybe there was something in the water. Maybe they'd participated in a psych experiment gone awry.

"Who's coming for you?" Annabelle asked, her anger melting into concern.

"My brother. And if they sent him, they'll be wantin' Erin, too."

"For what?"

Lucas closed his eyes tight, as though warding off some horror. Annabelle felt her own skin pucker with goose flesh at the dread marring his face.

"For lovin' me."

"What in the world?"

"I don't have time to explain, Annabelle. But my kind aren't supposed to mingle with your kind." He rested his forearm on the rolling table at the foot of the bed. "It's my fault, I own, but I couldn't help myself. I love her. I don't want anything to happen to her. Please, help us."

His eyes, already bright before, burned now. She didn't know why, but she believed he believed. And whatever he believed frightened him enough to spill over onto her, too.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

* * * *

The trail was clear until Gaelen arrived back in Chapel Hill, then it faded as he neared an older, well-established neighborhood on the east side of town. Gaelen knew the area well. Several of his colleagues lived here in the comfortable seventies-style homes nestled among towering pines.

He followed the last remnants of the trail into the neighborhood, back to the last street in the development. The trail disappeared as it led him around to the back of sprawling, one-story house sitting on a lawn manicured to the consistency of a putting green.

Gaelen unsquooshed by an open window at the back of the house.

"Ach, Lucas," he whispered, recognizing in his marrow the traces of his brother's blood on the windowsill.

Raising his leg over the sill, Gaelen climbed in. He stood quietly, letting his eyes adjust to the dark and listening for the sound of another person.

A gentle snore echoed through the hallway. He followed the sound to a bedroom at the back corner of the house and peeked around the door. A woman lay alone in a king-sized bed, one slender arm resting across her forehead.