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blood. All this violence was not her thing, but she had to somehow make herself okay with it because Harlen lived it every day. She wasn’t losing him again.
    Vince crouched and stopped her at her shoulders. “What happened to you, Sera?”
    She shrugged him off, hard. “I just gave a trespasser to a couple of nightmares. He’s dead now.”
    “A trespasser?”
    “Yeah. He was looking for you, actually. Didn’t say why.”
    “For me ?”
    Vince was really slow tonight. “He attacked me,” Sera said. “Was trying to subdue me, I think, so I would tell him how to navigate the city.”
    It wasn’t her fault he got eaten by nightmares…except it kind of was.
    She shook her head. She’d work it out with Harlen later. Standing, she said, “I’ve really got to get back to Marina. Stay here, will you? Tell Harlen.”
    Vince stood, too. “You can’t go out into the Scrape alone. I won’t allow it.”
    She finally met Vince’s gaze. “Last guy who tried to tell me what to do is dead.”
    “Sera. You can’t stop me from following you.”
    “I’ll be fine. I’ve crossed the Scrape before. I did it to get here tonight. Killed a trespasser looking for you. And there’s something bad going on.” Not to mention she didn’t want company right now.
    “Harlen would never let you—”
    “Harlen knows I can take care of myself,” she shot back. “You need to stay. Something’s gone wrong.” In case he thought to follow anyway, she repeated, “You need to stay.”

 
    CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    “And you just let her go?” Harlen couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Sera had been to Maze City. That part he didn’t doubt. He knew she’d wanted to help—not for any love of the world Darkside as she was anti-Rêve—but because she knew that the risks were multiplying and if something wasn’t done immediately, then not even the waking world would be safe.
    “She said you needed me. That it was urgent.” Vince relaxed in an oversized chair with a high back, a leg crossed ankle to knee.
    So—Harlen was still trying to figure this out—when she hadn’t gotten through to anyone on the phone, she’d come personally to Maze City. And then had bumped into the urgent business herself—Senator Fleight’s mercenary. Apparently, he’d shown up early.
    “There are nightmares out there,” Harlen ground out between clenched teeth. Of all people, Vince should know. He’d been lost in the Scrape once, hunted, and attacked by those monsters.
    “What if she were Rook?” Vince said. “Would you be this upset if he’d gone out into the Scrape?”
    Harlen snarled at him. “I’m not angry because Sera’s a woman.” He was angry because he loved her. If not for her, he didn’t know if he could do this thing that Director Bright had asked him. If not for Sera acting as his anchor, he didn’t think he’d survive. If not for Sera, he wouldn’t care.
    “Look, man, I’m sorry,” Vince said, sitting up and raising his bloodstained hands to concede all points. “If the trespasser was the merc you say Senator Fleight sent after me and Mirren, then your Sera is a born Darksider. She said she could take care of herself, and she did. Hell if I was going up against her.”
    Sera had killed the mercenary. Killed. She had to be upset. Traumatized. She shouldn’t be alone with it, let alone cross the Scrape right after.
    “Frankly, I can’t get over the fact that she wanted to go back to work,” Vince said. “Now that’s some crazy shit.”
    “Of course she went back to work.” Harlen knew her restaurant was where she felt strongest. If she had made it back across the Scrape, then she’d have gone to Marina de Sel because it was her place. She built it. She’d be there with a knife in hand.
    Instead of punching Vince in the face like he wanted to, Harlen took a deep breath. Vince didn’t know the whole story was all. “She had another near miss recently. Here, in fact…in Maze City,” Harlen told him.