I told Thea about the guy later that night. She only nodded with pursed lips and went back to cleaning her guns.

I figured it was a good opportunity to check mine and make sure it was loaded. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. There wasn’t the rightness that flowed through me when I picked up a sword. Guns I had to think about.

I put the thought to one side. “I really wish the one thing I was good at wasn’t hurting people.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” I turned towards her. “I almost got Barry killed. I might get Kanesha killed. And I seriously considered putting a bullet in that guy today and I’m not sure I’d have regretted it. What am I?”

“The fact that you didn’t says a lot. You’ve got control over yourself and your own tendencies…but you come from…” Her lips quirk. “Aggressive stock.”

I scowled at her. “Whoever my parents were, I don’t have to be like them.”

“Good.” She turned back to her gun.

I was starting to want out in much more serious terms, but I suspected I was going to have to hurt a lot more people before they backed down. And wasn’t that proving them right about me? Wouldn’t they be more likely to think I was the anti-Christ if I was beating them up? I thought working with the guy who was trying to get a leash on them might be more effective.

Which was part of why I hadn’t shot him. That and I really didn’t want to turn into that. I’d fight if I had to. I’d kill if I had to. But I wasn’t going to be a murderer. That firm thought in my mind, I finished cleaning the gun and wandered into the other room, such as it was. I sure as heck couldn’t give this address for school. Dropping out seemed inevitable at this point.

Unless I could find some way to rapidly catch up, but that would be suspicious. Just enough to make people realize I was smart. Or I could get my GED later.

Pheh. Maybe I didn’t need one. If I was supposed to either save the world or destroy it.

The sense of a monstrous presence was abruptly stronger. That thing was searching. It might even be searching for me. And this time it wasn’t sleeping through the night.

This time it was on the wing and on the hunt.