* You're not supposed to be here. *

He held his breath and moved with a st.i.tch, like his leg had fallen asleep. Standing, he looked fragile.

"Are you okay?" she asked. He nodded and squeezed her shoulder.

"It . . ." He stalled.

". . . happens sometimes," Consuela finished for him.

"Knock knock!" called a familiar voice from around the corner. V dropped his hand. Consuela stepped out of the closet, V trailing close behind. Tender leaned half into the room, hanging off the doork.n.o.b. His wide smile faded when he saw her tears.

"Hey. Are you all right?" he asked, stepping in. He flashed a stern glance at V.

"I'm fine," Consuela said, which no one believed.

"I was just stopping by, but I see you already have a visitor," Tender said. "h.e.l.lo, V."

"Tender."

V spat the word, flat and robotic. Tender's eyebrows quirked.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Tender asked.

V glared.

"No," Consuela said quickly. "V's just . . . I'm just freaking out."

"I know," Tender said. "You're sad. I can smell it. Like vanilla." He took a long, gentle sniff to prove it. "Anything I can do?"

V spoke first. "No." He glanced at Consuela and added, "Thank you."

Tender chuckled and leaned with one hand against the wall. "Oh, come on, V. I help you all the time. There's more than enough of me to go around." His eyes flicked to Consuela. "It's what I'm here for. Like Sissy."

"The Watcher," V corrected.

Tender rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he said. "It's a sincere offer."

Consuela frowned at the familiar, edged banter. "Do you two work together or something?"

"No," snapped V.

"Cleanup crew." Tender pointed to himself. "When V can't handle it." V turned still as stone, eyes burning. Tender ignored him and grinned magnanimously at Consuela. "Don't mind us. We're old friends," he a.s.sured her. "We actually have a lot in common, but we approach things differently, that's all. Don't worry, you're in good hands-he's one of the good guys. Best intentions and all." V said nothing, but melted back a step. Tender raised his thick eyebrows, a dare on his lips. "Need any help today, V?"

"No, thank you," V said. Forced politeness was hardly politeness at all.

Tender gave Consuela another long, appraising look like he had when she'd been all Bones.

"Are you sure about that?" Tender asked quietly.

"I said, 'No. Thank you.'" V overenunciated to make his point.

"I heard what you said." Tender mocked him like a child. "Fine, then." He pushed off the wall with a shrug. Taking one long step toward Consuela, he effectively cut V out of her sight. "But remember," he said singsong, "devils may dance where angels fear to tread." He winked and touched her arm lightly. "I'll see you around." He nodded once to V and let himself out. V shut the door and pressed his back against it.

Consuela set her hands on her hips. "What was that all about?"

V drummed the flat of his fists lightly against the wood. He didn't look her in the eyes.

"Let me tell you something about Tender," V muttered. "He's a constant reminder that without him, we drown. And he's not above flaunting it. Or rubbing it in." His deep voice dipped lower. "And we all know he can make things 'unpleasant' if he doesn't get his way."

Consuela frowned. "How?"

"You know what Tender does here in the Flow?"

Consuela nodded. "He cleans it," she said. "He eats pain."

V rested his head against the door with a loud thunk, and looked at Consuela through low-lidded eyes. "Yes, well, I don't like pain," he said. "And some of us carry around a lot more pain than others."

His violin-voice added something unspoken: * Not everyone is as strong as you. *

She glanced away, feeling the uncomfortable weight of his words. He thought too much of her. She thought too much about him. He stepped toward her, a slight stumble with the st.i.tch in his hip, his boot heels soft in the carpet. She tipped her eyes to meet his.

"You don't need him," V said. "And you don't need me. You don't need anyone, really, but I'm going to help you all I can."

They stared at one another, the echo of their kiss in their eyes and on their lips. His eyes-dark, chocolate brown, like hers-searched for something she wasn't sure she had or knew how to give. Consuela hung on the edge of him, wondering, waiting. It was a moment when anything could happen.

The phone rang.

chapter nine.

"Time is no longer succession, and becomes what it originally was and is: the present, in which past and future are reconciled."

-OCTAVIO PAZ.

SISSY'S cell phone buzzed on the bookshelf near the door. Consuela had forgotten all about it. Hurrying over, she flipped it on.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Bones!" Sissy snapped with something like relief. "You still have my phone."

"Sorry," she said, and meant it. V frowned a question. Consuela shook her head.

"It doesn't matter. I'm glad you're there. Bring it and come over." Each command sounded like a gunshot in the dark.

Consuela gripped the phone. "You okay?"

"No," Sissy said. "But I'm glad you're okay. Just come over now. Please?"

"I'm on my way," Consuela said, and hung up.

"What is it?" V asked.

"I don't know. Sissy's scared. She sounded scared," Consuela said while walking to her closet, turning and stopping V from following her in.

"What are you doing?" he said anxiously.

Consuela sighed. "She asked for Bones."

Closing the door and smoothing the goose b.u.mps over her arms, she pulled her skin free from her skeleton in one tug. She hung it up, trading it for her skin of air, feeling less vulnerable: cool, clean, and untouchable.

She opened the door and shimmered in the light. V moved awkwardly, trying to catch a glimpse of her. He held Sissy's phone in both hands.

"You don't have to come with," she said.

"I'm going."

"You're hurt."

V frowned. "It's nothing," he said. "Really. It happens all the time."

Neither wanted to push it and panic trumped the unsaid.

"Come on, then," she said quickly. "Let's go."

Something in Sissy's voice plucked at her nerves. Consuela couldn't shake the feeling as she and V strode through the Flow.

Her knucklebones, hard puffs of air, rapped against Sissy's door.

"Bones? Is that you?"

"I'm here," she said. "So's V."

Consuela heard the lock click open, not realizing until that moment that Sissy's door could be locked.

"Thank G.o.d. I called V, too." Sissy waved a small pocket mirror by way of explanation. There were words written across its surface in neat script. "I didn't know if you'd see it in time. I had to talk to you now. I can't reach the others as quickly." She spoke in rapid, official patter.

"What is it?" Consuela asked her.

"It's Nikki," Sissy said. "He's dead."

"Dead?" Consuela didn't know who said it first, her or V.

"It's why he never showed up," Sissy said. "I went to find him and . . ." She shook her head, swallowing.

"He's gone?" Consuela asked softly, suddenly sorry she never met him.

"People go all the time," V said. "When it's time."

Sissy's eyes blazed. "No! He's not gone-he's dead. Not disappeared or 'moved on.' Dead-dead. And death in the Flow is the same as death back home." She shook her head, loath to say it. "He cut off his head."

V fell into the chair.

"WHAT?" Consuela shouted. "That's not possible, that's . . ."

* Tender! *

Dumbfounded, she stared at V. His head was down, held in clenched fists.

"Tender?" Consuela whispered.

"Tender?" Sissy repeated. "No. Tender's creepy and arrogant as h.e.l.l, but there's a big difference between being a jerk and being a murderer." She scratched her own arm, leaving red tracks. "You can't just say things like that, Bones," she whispered harshly. "You're new. You don't know . . ." She shook her head. "All I know is what I saw. I'm not jumping to conclusions. No one should. But I still want to make sure that everyone's safe."

"But . . ." Consuela struggled to understand all the disparate facts. "How can someone behead themselves?" Suicide was a sin. She felt it more now than she had with Rodriguez. "That's . . ." She couldn't say "impossible" either. Not here in the Flow. Her helplessness spiraled as language failed.

"You've never been to Nikki's end of the Flow," Sissy said. "He crossed over watching anime and it flowed over with him. Anything ridiculously cinematic was possible there." She kicked the leg of her chair methodically. "And Nikki was . . . melodramatic. Over-the-top and very, very sad. He cried all the time-that was his power, after all. But I didn't know he had a sword."

Her words barely registered. Consuela concentrated on V; only one word reverberated in his brain: * TenderTenderTender *

"Can you help me tell the others? You can send them to me, but I can't do it all by myself. New arrivals could appear at any moment," Sissy said, heedless of the violin shriek. "Bones, can you tell Abacus? And V, tell Wish. I'll tell Yehudah and Tender."

* Tender/No!/Tender! *

V still hadn't said anything-anything aloud. Anger, fear, pain, rose off him in waves. Consuela could almost feel it buffeting against her. Consuela wished he'd say something because she didn't dare say it for him; too embarra.s.sed or too frightened about what it might reveal.

"Bones?" Sissy repeated. "Is that okay?"

Consuela snapped back to the moment, mute with indecision.

"What about Maddy?" V muttered.

Sissy sighed. "Maddy's hibernating. I'll have to tell her when she wakes up."

That snagged Consuela's attention.

"I think she's already up," Consuela said. "I think I saw her in the Flow."

The others stared and she wondered what she'd said wrong.

"No," Sissy said dully. "That can't be right. She can't be awake. Not yet." She squinted at Consuela as if making her out from a distance. "Are you sure?"

"Big girl, dark hair, kinda Asian, wide nose?" Consuela said. "She was standing somewhere in the mist, surrounded by woods. Sniffing."

V and Sissy said nothing. Their long pause confirmed it.