The mysterious window

"I run a clean place," Hangman went on. "Nothing going on here that shouldn't be."

"I think we should go now," Max said.

Miley started the car and shot away from the curb. Max craned his neck to look back at the motel, allowing his enhanced vision to take over—risky, he knew, with Miley right beside him. He couldn't let her see his glowing eyes. He counted off a row of windows, which were almost entirely hidden from his view by a row of dark green bushes. It would be simple for something to creep along those bushes and peek in. There might be footprints—strange human prints—beneath the window. He wanted to follow the ambulance to the hospital, but he wasn't sure he should do it around Miley. What if the guy said something incriminating?

"I saw a monster?" So what if he did? Miley would have no reason to believe him—or to connect that to Max. Miley's phone trilled, signaling a text. He hesitated, torn between reading the message and respecting her privacy.

"Is that Amelia?" she asked.

He looked. Call me ASAP, the text said. A.

"She wants you to call her," he affirmed.

"She's on speed dial," she said. "Press two."

Max wondered if he rated being on her speed dial. He didn't ask, just called Amelia, who answered on the first ring. He put her on speaker.

"What have you two been doing?" Amelia cried. "You were supposed to call me back right away!"

"This man had a heart attack," Miley said, her voice shrill. "He said he saw something in a window. They thought he was dead."

"A . . . window?" Amelia sounded odd.

"Yes," Miley said, trading looks with Max. He shrugged.

"But he wasn't dead?" Amelia said.

"No."

"Were you able to ask about Leo?"

"No one saw him," Miley said.

"Well, now he's in the Des Pontonniers Preserve," Amelia said. "I refreshed the search. That's why I asked you to contact me."

"The forest? What's he doing there?" Miley asked. "Did he call you?"

"No," Amelia said, her voice low and tense. "I should probably go with you this time."

Go with us? We are going? Max thought, alarmed. He gave a quick shake of his head. He didn't want Miley anywhere near the woods today. Not after his dream, and the window, and Leo still missing. "No, that's okay," Miley said, nodding at him to show that she understood what he was trying to say. "We're closer. If we have to double back to pick you up, we'll lose time. There's only so much daylight." That's not what I was going for, Max thought. She had completely misread his head shake.

"Miley, that's really sweet, but Leo's my boyfriend. My responsibility," Amelia said.

"But what if my parents call your house?" Miley said. "We're supposed to be showing up there soon, after 'the library.' You need to be there to intercept their calls."

"Wow, I'm impressed," Amelia drawled. "You definitely have a future as a party girl. God knows why your parents would bother mine, but we do still have a landline. It'll be no problem to patch you in as a conference call and tell them you're on an extension. But to do all that, I do need to be here."

"Right," Miley said. "It'll work as long as I have good cell phone reception."

Max stared at her, torn between being impressed, like Amelia, and worried that he was being a bad influence. He'd never figured Miley for a techie—or someone who would sneak around like that. Him and Levi, yeah, but they had good reason.

"Well, I'm her good reason," he thought, smiling faintly at Miley. "I'm e-mailing you the page with the Where's My Phone map," Amelia said. "That'll help you find him faster."

"Okay. Send the WMP map to Max's, too."

The two hung up, and Max turned to Miley. "Whoa," he said. "An A in butt covering."

She flushed. "I know what you're thinking, and no, I have never snuck around behind my parents' backs before. All that call-forwarding stuff actually came up in a class discussion back in San Francisco about government surveillance."

He held up his hands. "It's cool. But maybe you should go back to Amelia's," he said. "If your parents find out you're with me, they'll totally freak."

"They won't find out." But the look on her face revealed her concern.

"Look, we know where Leo is, and we're pretty close to the preserve.Let's just go check it out."

He frowned. "It's not a good idea."

She hesitated. "Max, what? Are you scared? My dad killed the Superhuman. Things are back to normal."

That sounded so odd, coming from her. Things had not been "normal"since she'd moved there. But as far as he could tell, she didn't know thather father was a hunter, and she for sure didn't know that she was datingone of the hunted.

"It'll be okay," she told him. "It's still light out. We'll only stay as long asthe sun's up."

He was mortified. She was trying to talk him into going because she thought he was a big chicken. He rolled down the window and mimicked dropping something out of the car.

"Did you just throw something out the window?" she asked him as shestopped at a red light.

"Yeah. My masculinity." He quirked a smile. "I just didn't want you to gointo the woods, Miley. I mean, what if you get hurt or something? Your parents will find out and—"

She brushed her lips against his. "I can take care of myself," she murmured.

No, you really can't, he thought, but he knew that was the last thing heshould say to her. Along with the rush of her kiss, a wave of protectiveness washed over him. Maybe it was habit. He looked out for his mom, who wasstruggling to keep everything going—pay the bills, keep the car going, stopthe roof from falling in. And now he looked out for Miley, too. The women he .

. . loved.

I just said I loved her. To myself, yeah, but still, I said it. He felt . . .different. Happy. Maybe a little scared. And like he'd just found outsomething very important that would change his life as much as becoming avampire had changed it.

He felt both as if he had more power and less.

Floating and falling.

"Okay," he said. "Let's go."