The drive back to the hills was a different thing entirely. Val watched the city lights begin to prick through the late afternoon haze, each one was a tiny beacon against the deepening blue of the sky. She felt strangely light, as if someone put a vacuum in her mouth and sucked out everything she's eaten, and strangely, she didn't feel hungry. She had a secret now, a trapdoor to a simpler existence, and the knowledge of it was like a cool cloth on a fevered brow.

Lucas kept her hand ...