Anna kept wanting to tell me about what she’d learned, but there was only so much I could focus on. For some reason, I was having trouble focusing on, well, anything. I insisted on silence. I had to. Both Anna and I, and probably Jared, too, were accustomed to listening out in the wild. I kept my ears cocked for any sound other than the nature surrounding us. Someone following, perhaps. Or something following us. Why that thought occurred to me, I didn’t know, but I shuddered despite the fact that my skin still felt hot. No, not hot. It felt...burned, as if I’d spent the day at Santa Monica Beach. We continued on. I fought a sense of fatigue. I didn’t get fatigued. I could generally hike these trails all day long—and often did just that, on my various patrols. Anyway, I figured we were lucky so far to have refuge in the Los Feliz house. The place was undisturbed when we entered through the back door. I said a silent prayer of thanks to anyone listening. We were all starved. We had spaghetti anyway, leftover spaghetti, which we feasted on upstairs in my office so as not to disturb our guests in the cellar.
