Hector’s apartment was the polar opposite of Vin’s; there was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. Admittedly, there wasn’t much of anything in it—a futon sofa, a desk, and a microscopic television made up the entirety of furniture. A few milk crates were stacked up as makeshift bookshelves. Beau gravitated toward these, reading spines as Hector fussed around, talking a mile a minute. Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men, and surprisingly enough, The Lovely Bones. Another crate contained a folded throw blanket and a pair of slitted eyes belonging to a black cat that blended seamlessly into the blanket.
“Hello, cat,” Beau said. He scratched at ears that seemed to beg for it and was rewarded with a rusty chainsaw of a purr.
“Oh, now you’ve done it,
