"IALWAYS THOUGHT IT WAS ME."

With the house quiet, and night deep, Cal lay on Quinn's bed with her body curled warm to his. "Just you?"

"They helped trigger it maybe, but yes, me. Because it was my blood-not just that night, but my heritage, you could say. I was the Hawkins. They weren't from here, not the same way I was. Not forever, like I was. Generations back. But if this is true...I still don't know how to feel about it."

"You could give yourself a tiny break." She stroked her hand over his heart. "I wish you would."

"Why did he let it happen? Dent? If he'd found a way to stop it, why did he let it come to this?"

"Another question." She pushed herself up until they were eye-to-eye. "We'll figure it out, Cal. We're supposed to. I believe that."

"I'm closer to believing it, with you." He touched her cheek. "Quinn, I can't stay again tonight. Lump may be lazy, but he depends on me."

"Got another hour to spare?"

"Yeah." He smiled as she lowered to him. "I think he'll hold out another hour."

LATER, WHEN HE WALKED OUT TO HIS CAR, THEair shivered so that the trees rattled their empty branches. Cal searched the street for any sign, anything he needed to defend against. But there was nothing but empty road.

Something's in the wind, he thought again, and got in his car to drive home.

IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN THE LOW-GRADEurge for a cigarette buzzed through Gage's brain. He'd given them up two years, three months, and one week before, a fact that could still piss him off.

He turned up the radio to take his mind off it, but the urge was working its way up to craving. He could ignore that, too; he did so all the time. To do otherwise was to believe there was solid truth in the old adage: like father, like son.

He was nothing like his father.

He drank when he wanted a drink, but he never got drunk. Or hadn't since he'd been seventeen, and then the drunkenness had been with absolute purpose. He didn't blame others for his shortcomings, or lash out with his fists on something smaller and weaker so he could feel bigger and stronger.

He didn't even blame the old man, not particularly. You played the cards you were dealt, to Gage's mind. Or you folded and walked away with your pockets empty.

Luck of the draw.

So he was fully prepared to ignore this sudden, and surprisingly intense desire for a cigarette. But when he considered he was within miles of Hawkins Hollow, a place where he was very likely to die an ugly and painful death, the surgeon general's warnings seemed pretty goddamn puny, and his own self-denial absolutely useless.

When he saw the sign for the Sheetz, he decided what the hell. He didn't want to live forever. He swung into the twenty-four-hour mart, picked up coffee, black, and a pack of Marlboros.

He strode back to the car he'd bought that very evening in D.C. after his plane had landed, and before he'd paid off a small debt. The wind whipped through his hair. The hair was dark as the night, a little longer than he usually wore it, a little shaggy, as he hadn't trusted the barbers in Prague.

There was stubble on his face since he hadn't bothered to shave. It added to the dark, dangerous look that had had the young female clerk who rung up the coffee and cigarettes shivering inwardly with lust.

He'd topped off at six feet, and the skinny build of his youth had filled out. Since his profession was usually sedentary, he kept his muscles toned and his build rangy with regular, often punishing workouts.

He didn't pick fights, but he rarely walked away from one. And he liked to win. His body, his face, his mind, were all tools of his trade. As were his eyes, his voice, and the control he rarely let off the leash.

He was a gambler, and a smart gambler kept all of his tools well honed.

Swinging back onto the road, Gage let the Ferrari rip. Maybe it had been foolish to toss so much of his winnings into a car, but Jesus, itmoved . And fucking A, he'd ridden his thumb out of the Hollow all those years ago. It felt damn good to ride back in in style.

Funny, now that he'd bought the damn cigarettes, the urge for one had passed. He didn't even want the coffee, the speed was kick enough.

He flew down the last miles of the interstate, whipped onto the exit that would take him to the Hollow. The dark rural road was empty-no surprise to him, not this time of night. There were shadows and shapes-houses, hills, fields, trees. There was a twisting in his gut that he was heading back instead of away, and yet that pull-it never quite left him-that pull toward home was strong.

He reached toward his coffee more out of habit than desire, then was forced to whip the wheel, slam the brakes as headlights cut across the road directly into his path. He blasted the horn, saw the other car swerve.

He thought: Fuck, fuck,fuck! I just bought this sucker.

When he caught his breath, and the Ferrari sat sideways in the middle of the road, he thought it was a miracle the crash hadn't come. Inches, he realized. Less than inches.

His lucky goddamn day.

He reversed, pulled to the shoulder, then got out to check on the other driver he assumed was stinking drunk.

She wasn't. What she was, was hopping mad.

"Where the hell did you come from?" she demanded. She slammed out of her car, currently tipped into the shallow ditch along the shoulder, in a blur of motion. He saw a mass of dark gypsy curls wild around a face pale with shock.

Great face, he decided in one corner of his brain. Huge eyes that looked black against her white skin, a sharp nose, a wide mouth, sexily full that may have owned its sensuality to collagen injections.

She wasn't shaking, and he didn't sense any fear along with the fury as she stood on a dark road facing down a complete stranger.

"Lady," he said with what he felt was admirable calm, "where the hell didyou come from?"

"From that stupid road that looks like all the other stupid roads around here. I looked both damn ways, and you weren't there. Then. How did you...Oh never mind. We didn't die."

"Yay."

With her hands on her hips she turned around to study her car. "I can get out of there, right?"

"Yeah. Then there's the flat tire."

"What flat...Oh for God's sake! You have to change it." She gave the flat tire on the rear of her car an annoyed kick. "It's the least you can do."

Actually, it wasn't. The least he could do was stroll back to his car and wave good-bye. But he appreciated her bitchiness, and preferred it over quivering. "Pop the trunk. I need the spare and the jack."

When she had, and he'd lifted a suitcase out, set it on the ground, he took one look at her spare. And shook his head. "Not your day. Your spare's toast."

"It can't be. What the hell are you talking about?" She shoved him aside, peered in herself by the glow of the trunk light. "Damn her, damn her, damn her. My sister." She whirled away, paced down the shoulder a few feet, then back. "I loaned her my car for a couple of weeks. This is so typical. She ruins a tire, but does she get it fixed, does she even bother to mention it? No."

She pushed her hair back from her face. "I'm not calling a tow truck at this time of night, then sitting in the middle of nowhere. You're just going to have to give me a ride."

"Am I?"