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Her eyebrows shoot up. “Bad? Locke, this may be your best feature.”

I stare at her.

She laughs. “Okay, not your best, but one of them. But no pregnancy risk, no wet spot, and nothing leaking out of me tomorrow? Women have been asking for this upgrade for centuries.”

“Upgrade.”

“Definitely an upgrade.” She leans to kiss the tip of my nose.

Some of the tightness in me eases.

Rachel settles against my chest again. “Trust me. Nobody is filing a complaint.”

For a while, speaking feels impossible and unnecessary. Rachel is soft and relaxed against me, and the resonance is still humming through my weave.

I move one hand slowly along her back, mostly to prove to myself that I can still move. Pleasure has left an echo in every strand of me.

Rachel lifts her head enough to look at me. “You okay?”

I consider the question. I’m not sure I have a word big enough for the answer.

“More than okay.”

She relaxes against me again, her cheek returning to my chest. I lie here holding her and trying to understand how something could happen to my body once and leave every part of me still feeling it.

The porch smells the same as it did the first night: wood, metal screens, the faint green scent of my own body. But this time it is different… more. This time there is also Rachel.

I remember lying on this chaise the first night, listening for her through the cottage wall because knowing where she was made the world feel less frightening. Everything was smaller then: my language, the places I understood, even the things I knew how to want.

Tonight she is lying against me because she chose to be here, and I no longer need the sound of her footsteps through a wall to know that she will return. I have places I want to go, things I want to make, people I want to know, and choices that belong entirely to me.

Rachel shifts against my chest, and my hand moves slowly along her back.

She is one of them.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Rachel

Thursday afternoon finds all seven of us in the Hollis Springs town square, trying to wrestle the wicker bear onto the low display platform where it will spend the entirety of the Harvest Festival. Three days ago, Locke and I stopped pretending the thing between us was going to stay at kissing. Since then, every time I look at him, some highly inappropriate part of my brain remembers exactly what happened on the porch.

This is inconvenient when we’re surrounded by six other people and several hundred pounds of wicker.

The interview went live Tuesday morning. By noon, Mara had Jose on camera for a follow-up, calmly reminding the world that Locke is sentient, autonomous, and represented by counsel, and that any attempt to detain him, examine him, or take samples without consent would be challenged immediately. Jose’s follow-up nearly matched the reach of Locke’s “I am not a thing” clip from the original interview. It hasn’t stopped people from being curious, but nobody has shown up with a van and a specimen jar, which I’m counting as a win.

Tom’s truck and trailer are parked at the curb behind us. The bear has made it safely to the ground, which appears to have exhausted our collective competence. By the time we get it halfway onto the platform, Tom has changed his plan twice, Shannon has rejected both versions, and the rest of us have stopped pretending there’s a coherent strategy.

“I feel like we should have developed a plan before moving the six-hundred-pound woodland creature,” Laura says.

Blair braces one hand against the bear. “And I feel like you lack imagination.”

“It’s not six hundred pounds,” Tom says from somewhere behind the bear.

“Then why are you grunting?” Shannon asks.

“I’m lifting.”

“That’s your lifting noise?”