Sam wrangles on his old Appaloosa during the day with Tippy, his black spotted mongrel, moving the herd into fresh grazing land. The cattle travel slow under the hot sun, lethargic and skinny.

He’s spent nights pressed between and pillowed on warm, sweet-smelling bodies, with Madison’s breast beneath his cheek and Jess’s thigh draped over his and Sam the only living thing in the bed.

There are stories that wind around arms, lazily, eagerly, feeding into each other, down corded tendons and thin torso, curving onto hips and thighs and naked sex.

They laugh loud, the two of them, here in the kitchen, half pissed, all loose faces and bright eyes, and your eyes roam over them; Sam and his brother. They’re so big, they seem to glow, expanding outwards, crowding out everything else in this space.

The first time Sam saw the ocean was a blinding, burning day in July, somewhere in California. Seven going on too damn old, but still naïve enough to be awed, enchanted.

She likes watching him like this, when he has no idea she's looking, and she lets her gaze linger on the triangle of his back, the way his big shoulders taper down to that narrow waist and slim hips.

Jess rolls low, all deep slow rhythm like an ocean swelling under the night sky, listens to him whimper, and it’s a good sound on her ears.

The first time you notice him—really notice him, that is—he’s in the library clicking away on one of the computers.

He'll never have to look at the back of Dad's head again. He's moving forward with his eyes open.

They fear his fire, the humans do, the fire that bursts out of every pore here, but the dead reach for him, desperate to touch him, to let the fire wash over them, cleanse them, send them on. Here it is a gift, this heat, and he gives it freely.