I jump when the novel lands in my lap that night. Owen has a way of sneaking up on me.

"You said you'd read it to me." He stands with his back to the fire, so he's colored in wild orange light that tries, tries to flicker around to his face, but can't manage it. But his eyes still glow.

I pick the book up. Dracula. He wanted me to read it to him the day Carl punched him, the day Tyreese . . .

"I don't think I ever actually agreed."

"I don't think I asked. I think I demanded."

"Well, then, I'm definitely saying no."

"Well, wait, it wasn't a mean kind of demand. It was the kind of demand you get to make when your nose is broken because you're, frankly, a gallant fellow."

"Did you just use the word 'gallant'?"

No one could be more surprised than me that it's Carl asking the question. He kneels next to me and hands me a bottle of water.

Owen shrugs. "Seemed appropriate."

Carl settles in next to me, I look between the two of them a few times, and I understand. They've made a truce. Carl's apology to Owen the night Tyreese was killed was a way to put in the past what had happened, but what they're doing now is actually allowing for a relationship between them . . . sort of. For my sake.

I turn to Carl. "You want me to read the book?"

He just nods, face unusually soft. I feel his hand trace down my back. I turn to Owen. "Thought you were mad at me?"

"Oh, most of us are mad at you. Eugene! Are you mad at Sydney?"

"Not particularly," Eugene replies from his place closer to the fire.

"Shut up, Eugene. I'm mad at you, Sydney, and Carl's mad at you, no matter how tender and sweet he wants to be, but that's the thing. Treating you like we're mad at you isn't going to do shit in this particular case. Because I know you . . . and everything going on in your head right now is torment enough."

I sit up straighter. "Then why did you walk away when Dad brought me back to camp?"

He crouches so we're eye-level. "Because I would have gone total hothead on you. Ask Glenn. He kind of got to be my punching bag." His eyes slide to Carl. "Metaphorically speaking."

"That's because you don't understand," I say bitterly. "None of you do." And I would have thought if anyone would have, it would have been you . . .

"I understand, Syd. Carl understands." He calls over his shoulder, "Eugene, you understand?"

"I do not know what the topic of this conversation is."

"Eugene understands. We just understand somethin' you don't."

"What's that?" I snap.

"Your worth isn't tied up in whether or not you can shoot that damn thing." He points to my bow. "I've known you all your life. That bow is a tool. You're what makes it work, you're what makes it something to be feared, because you are something to be feared no matter what. You come out on top no matter what. You always have, because that is who you are. You're a fighter. A victor. A –"

"Don't call me a survivor," I say quietly. "I'm tired of that word."

"Screw survival. Get your head on right, and you thrive, baby." He looks at Carl again. "I just called your girlfriend 'baby,' but I promise, it was purely for effect. Anything you want to add to this, by the way?"

Carl's head is tilted towards mine but not touching it. "When you showed up in Atlanta, you scared me. But I figured out really fast that I needed to be like you." He pauses. "You made me become what I am."

He means that kindly. I should take it as a compliment. But a chill passes through me while Carl stares at my shoulder with a frown that I know means all the same stuff: It was supposed to be kind, it was supposed to be a compliment, but when it came out it wasn't . . .

You made me become what I am.

I want to ask him exactly what he thinks he is.

Owen clears his throat. "Okay, personally, I'm through with this intervention." He pushes the book my way and makes a flashlight appear on top of it. "Sydney. I can't sleep. Please read me a bedtime story."

I read it to him – to them. I know some of the others listen, too, but I try not to pay them any attention because it makes me feel weird. Carl lies down right after I start. When I realize he's asleep, I check the page number – thirty-seven. I have to laugh. Owen asks what's funny. I tell him, and he actually chuckles a little, too, shaking his head up at the sky. He's on his back, with his jacket as a pillow. "God, Sydney," he says as he rubs his face, "You can be such an idiot."

"Careful, hothead. You wanted to avoid this."

"This isn't me being a hothead, this is me telling you that I'm done if anything happens to you."

I go extremely still, don't even breathe . . . except, I let my eyes move to make sure Carl's really asleep. To make sure any of the others who might have been listening to me read seem to have let their minds drift off. "What're you talking about?" I'm suddenly struck by how tired Owen looks.

"I mean that you're the lifeline, Sydney. My lifeline. You're what pulled me out of that dark, dark place that Joe's group got me into. You're the reason that group's gone now, and you're the reason I'm with this group and not dead or alone."

"Exactly."

"Exactly what?"

"You're with this group. You're with. This. Group." I put the book aside and lean forward, lean over him. Give him a look I'd use to try and cut stone. Owen's harder than that. Owen doesn't blink. "I cannot be your lifeline, Owen. Maybe I was, maybe I have been, but I can't be anymore. I'm not enough, but this group? It is. This group is your lifeline. And if you haven't figured that out by now, get on it. Open your eyes. You're one of us. So if anything happens to me, Owen Wells, you are not done. They won't let you be done. You cannot let you be done, because they'll need you. That's how it works. That's how a family works."

He studies me for a long time. I cock my head and let him. I've got all night.

"I had a family once," he says tightly. "You wanna hear what happened to them?"

"Owen . . ."

"Half the time I don't even think I should be here." He's only breathing these words, but I hear them cracking, and his dark eyes are starting to shine. "I don't deserve protection. I don't deserve to have people care about me. And damn it, I don't deserve to get angry at you, I don't, because I don't deserve to have you in my life, let alone tell you how to live yours."

"No, none of that's true."

"Who are you to say that?" He clears his throat, grins that grin that terrifies me, the one inspired by horrible ironies instead of things that are actually joyful. "I'm a murderer, you know that."

"I'm a murderer, too."

"The people you killed you killed because you had to."

"It's the same with you."

"My brother –" He gasps and covers his face. When his hands lower, he glances at Carl, surveys the area all around him like he's just woken, and pushes himself up. I put a hand on his shoulder. He goes still and stares at my hand.

"You didn't kill your brother," I whisper.

"You weren't there."

"You didn't slit his wrists and drain his blood," I force myself to say. He flinches, that grin tries to come back, but it can't survive this time. "I believed I drove my uncle to kill himself for the longest time, I thought I had as good as killed him, but I was wrong, and I wasted so much time in misery, and hate, and anger because of that, and I spent my free time sitting in dark rooms slitting my wrists when I could have been with Carl, or my dad, or – or people I loved who are dead now." I swallow. I don't want to go back to that place, my dark, dark place, not even in my head. I push the hair back from Owen's eyes and insanely think that the most important men in my life all seem to need haircuts. "I don't want that for you," I whisper. "I don't want you to feel like that. You're a good person. You are." I take a deep breath. "I've known you as long as you've known me. Saw you grow up. Grew up with you. And you were a bully. You could be really mean, yeah. But one time you ran to my house in a thunderstorm because Tyler was having an allergic reaction, your mom was at work, you couldn't find an EpiPen at your place, you knew he kept one at mine . . . You'd called 911 and were yelling at someone when my mom answered the door. You couldn't have been more than ten. Sometime before that, you brought home an eight-year-old mutt with arthritis after your mom told you and Tyler you could get a dog, and I know that was all you, because Tyler may have loved Sierra eventually but originally he wanted a German Shepherd puppy like mine. You spent the best part of a scorching-hot Saturday getting Mr. Colbert's evil cat down from his roof. You shoveled snow out of my mom's driveway any time there was a snowstorm and never took money for it."

"Good God," he says. "I am a saint."

"And you wanna know a secret, Owen?" I continue. "As pissed off as I could get at you, I wanted you to like me. I wanted to impress you."

"Why?"

Dear Lord. I'm slow with my next words, thinking them all through and still not sure they're good ideas as I let them loose. "I think because . . . I think because you had – you have – the same . . . hardness in you that . . . that my dad does. That my uncle did."

A stretch of silence. "That you do?" he prods, or finishes, I don't know. His voice isn't cracking anymore. I've talked him away from that edge. Talked myself right up to one, though.

"Yeah," I whisper. "I guess so."

He sighs. "We've always been screwed up, haven't we?"

"Oh, yeah. Total messes."

"Dysfunctional families . . ."

"Yours more than mine."

"Wow. That was a low blow."

"No, it's a good thing. You can get away with more."

"Damn, I got away with a lot." He's staring at the stars again. Then he's staring at me. "I'll tell you all about it one day."

"I wasn't going to ask."

"But you should know. This isn't the time or the place, but you should know."

"Not because I'm your lifeline. Don't call me that anymore. Don't think of me like that anymore."

"Not because you're my lifeline, fine . . . God, you overreact. Because you're my friend." He rubs his neck. "Because Ty was your friend. Because I can't hold onto my secrets forever."

"Yeah. Those have a way of killing you slowly."

"They can kill you fast, too."

"You get a kick out of being cryptic, don't you?"

"A little. Yeah."

"You're smiling. A real smile."

"It was an accident, I swear."

"It's freakin' awesome when you do that."

"You're smiling, too."

"Do you like it when I smile?"

"I do."

"Then be happy more often."

"Oh, good. Miss Positivity is back."

I start singing softly, choking back laughter. "The sun'll come out, tomorrow . . . Bet your bottom dollar, that, tomorrow -"

"I'm going to go to sleep now," he interrupts, dry as the desert. The rest of his stuff isn't here with Carl and me, so this means he's going to leave.

I don't want him to.

He gets his feet under him, but hesitates before actually standing. He gives me one more look and then kisses my forehead. "I'll see you in the mornin', Miss Dixon."

He rises and leaves me and Carl.

Carl. I look at him, my boy. Apparently I helped him become what he is. It scares me so much that I'm not certain that's a good thing. I lie down beside him. I rub my forehead first, but don't realize I'm doing it until after it's done. I don't let myself wonder about that. I don't let myself wonder about anything. I focus on Carl's breaths and match them to my own until sleep comes.

. . . . .

When I wake the next morning, my three previously missing arrows are tucked back into my quiver. Only one person knows exactly where I was shooting yesterday, so I survey camp until I find Dad and find him looking at me. I don't really know what to do. I end up just giving him a nod. His head jerks a little. Then we both look away.

My hand burns.