The bartender slid the whiskey glass across the chipped formica. “Last one, Seth. You look like wasteland warmed over.”

Seth Morgan wiped dust from his beard with a trembling hand. He didn’t taste the bourbon—only the grave dirt under his nails. Four hours since he’d shoveled Arizona clay onto his father’s coffin. The old man’s last word still echoed: Disappointment.

Near the jukebox, Valentina Reyes traced the barbed thorns of her turquoise ring. Her rattlesnake coat hissed against the vinyl booth as she inhaled Seth’s grief; bitter and electric, like ozone before rain. Botanist by day, she cataloged such pheromones. Tonight, she’d harvest them. The ring pulsed against her knuckle, hungry.

She slid onto the stool beside him. Bourbon fumes mingled with her gardenia perfume. “Your father died owing me.” A blatant lie told in a tone of scraped velvet. Seth stiffened, knuckles whitening around his glass. Predictable, she thought. Grief made men brittle.

Her fingers closed around his wrist—cold despite the desert heat. The ring’s thorns bit deep, obsidian-sharp whispers. Seth gasped quietly, a choked sound, not at the pain but at the sudden flood of images: monsoon storms over Canyon de Chelly, his mother’s laugh buried decades ago. Val’s pupils dilated. Hastsehogan’s joke, she seemed to murmur softly. Make them crave the stab.

To be continued. Probably. Either here, or there.