If Liz, Cade, or even Iris start to think I’m capable of… No, I just can’t allow that possibility to happen. Too much has already happened. I won’t add this to the list.
You’re being ridiculous,Wolf chides, but even she sounds less sure than she means to.
Am I, though?I glare at the corpse, my heart pounding like it’s trying to break out of my chest.Cade and the others already know the prophecy. They already think I’m some walking curse waiting to happen. If I tell them, if they see what I’ve done, I’ll be handing them proof of what hasn’t really been said out loud.
I see where you’re coming from, but you’re not giving them enough credit, Wolf offers, but it feels like a weak argument.
I don’t care. They won’t know I’m a murderer. Not if I can help it.My inner voice is barely a whisper.
I know how this looks, I know how irrational it is, but the panic pumping through my veins isn’t just fear—it’s ice and fire, terror and shame all tangled together, burning up the oxygen until I can’t breathe. I’ve spent this past year alone. I’ve only just begun to believe I could have a real family again.
Can I risk losing that over one night—over an accident I can’t even explain? Is hoping they’ll believe me enough? Will they even see the difference between self-defense and the prophecy coming true?
I can’t answer that last one with a definitive yes, which tells me all I need to know.
Whatever just happened—this power, this surge, thisthing—it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t even what happened at the creek. It was darker. It felt likesomething inside me uncoiling, like a shadow stretching to fill a room.
And until I can understand it, until I can be sure I won’t become exactly what they all fear, I can’t tell them. I can’t risk it.
Not when I’ve fought so hard to belong these last few days. Not when I’ve finally found people who want to keep me safe.
Not when one mistake could take it all away.
I glance toward the balcony—its rail, the thicket below, the shadow of trees that’ll hide more than a body and a rug if I’m quick—and a stupid, dangerous plan stitches itself together. It’s the only thing my adrenaline can make sense of right now.
Bending down, I start to roll up the thick material. At least he died conveniently. Most of the mess will be gone just as soon as I toss this runner and his body over the railing.
You don’t need to do this.Wolf sighs, the sound heavy with something that might be shame, or maybe resignation, but I don’t pause to dissect it. I keep rolling.
I killed this guy on my own, and I can clean up the mess on my own.
Well, maybe my magical room can help, too, but I’ll figure that out once I get the dead guy out of here.
Thankful for my newly formed muscles, I wrestle the evidence across the room like I’m dragging a very uncooperative suitcase. He’s heavier than he looks. Either he ate an entire bakery, or he’s secretly dense as a boulder. Still, I get him to the balcony door without dropping him. Small victories.
Before I shove him over the edge, I go back inside because if someone wanders in and finds me gone, I’d like to be able to tell a semi-believable story that doesn’t include a murder scene.
The chair, however, is a problem. It glares at me with splinters and a missing leg like passive-aggressive furniture. But that’s for me to sort out later. The crimson streaks are a bigger issue.
I grab as many hand towels from the bathroom as I can find since there aren’t any full-size ones, and proceed to mop like an amateur crime-scene janitor. They disintegrate into something that resembles a damp napkin by the time I’m done, but they do the job. I wad the ruined cotton into the runner, rolled up like an ugly, bloodstained burrito.
If anyone asks, it was a crafting accident. Very messy crafting. Iris would believe that.
I request new scents in the room, lemon and lavender, and that takes care of the death smell. Once the room is as clean as it’s going to get without calling in a professional, it’s time for the next lovely task: dropping a body three stories and praying the bushes are soundproof.
I heave the rolled rug and the weight over the railing, bracing my feet and cursing the laws of gravity when I lose control. He tips, slides, and then the bushes take him in with a muffled sound that, to my ears, is the sweetest thud I’ve ever heard. The foliage may be ruined, but at least they softened the landing. Nature: 1, My body disposal plan: 0, but an acceptable compromise.
Okay, next.
I eyeball the balcony and know I need to clean the railing. Oh, and a change of clothes to throw over, so I don’t walk back into the manor looking like I lost a fight with a tomato patch. With a frown, I register actual grief for the ruined outfit. It was one hell of a not-a-date night.
You wouldn’t have that problem if you just told the others that you did what you had to do in order to stay alive.
How is she not understanding that the risk is too great to tell anyone? The chance that even one of them will think worse of me is too strong.
More so,Idon’t want to think worse of myself.
I want this part of the night to be a memory I let my brain suppress, never to be thought of again.
