“I promise,” Lee said easily, tucking the note into his bedside drawer, his expression gray as his gaze drifted to the closet door.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” she said.
Lee shifted uneasily, his arms prickling with goose bumps. “There would be no point,” he said, staring at the floor. “We can’t search for my mother anymore. You’ve done all you can for me, as you promised. You don’t have a debt to me anymore. Please know that.”
Sen swallowed hard, tears burning at the back of her throat. Lee was releasing her, even though he didn’t have to. He would have been well within his rights to demand they keep trying until he found his mother.
“I will come back tomorrow,” Sen said again, firmer this time. “I want to.”
Lee looked up, his green eyes bright with surprise. “I’d like that,” he said quietly.
Sen turned to leave, but the floorboards creaked as Lee followed after her.
“Sen.”
Sen looked over her shoulder. Lee had drawn closer, his hand reaching for her sleeve but not quite touching.
“Do you want to know how you die?” he said.
He had asked her that question the first time they met, but this time, his tone was colder. His eyes blazed like he was begging her to say yes.
“I know how I die,” Sen said.
Lee pressed his lips together into a tight line, looking away. “What if there was a way to prevent it?”
Sen turned fully around. “What are you talking about?”
“You need to leave the house,” Lee said. “Tomorrow, you need to leave and never return.”
He reached for her, but Sen drew back against the closet door. “I already told you. I won’t leave my father to fight alone,” she said.
“Sen, he won’t fight alone,” Lee said. He moved forward and cupped her face again, but this time his fingertips stung like fresh ice against her jaw. “You should leave tonight.”
“I told you,” she said, “I...”
The words fell away from her as Lee’s last sentence played back in her mind.
He won’t fight alone.
He’d said it with certainty. As if he already knew exactly what would happen.
Sen shoved Lee’s hands away from her face. “What do you know?” she said. When he wouldn’t meet her gaze, she took another step forward. “Do you know how to save my father?”
Lee swallowed, taking a faltering step back. “Your father can’t be saved,” he said, “butyoucan.”
“If my father dies, then so do I!” Sen said. A forest fire blazed beneath her skin, her pulse hammering in her ears. “How can you not understand that?”
“Sen, I want you to live!” Lee said. He reached for her again, but she shoved him back against the wall, her hand clamping down on his throat. Even now, he couldn’t hear her.
“You want me to live foryou!” Sen said. “So thatyou’renot alone. But what about whatIwant? Do you care about that at all?”
She loosened her grip against his throat, but he didn’t try todeny her words, his eyes bright with fear. Perhaps she saw Lee Turner, but he clearly couldn’t seeher.
She released him, stepping back. “I would rather die for my father than live for you,” she said, the words as cold and heavy as stones plummeting to the bottom of a dark river. “Goodbye, Lee Turner.”
“Sen, wait!” he said.
But she hurried through the door and slammed it behind her. He knocked on the door, but she shoved her dresser in front of it. Eventually, the knocking quieted, and she could pretend there was nothing there but an empty closet.
