I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders. It’s colder here, the wind seeping through the glass. I need to get back to the fire. I need to?—
Something moves in the white-out.
I freeze, staring out at the blizzard. Nothing.
It must have been my imagination. Or maybe the lake, surging through the snow.
But then I see it again: another faint flicker of movement. A dark shadow, like a bird flapping its way through the storm.
There can’t possibly be any birds out here.
I squeeze my blanket tight. Fear prickles in my belly.
The shadow shambles closer. And I realize, no, it’s not a bird at all.
It’s a man.
It’shim.
I jerk back from the window, my heart pounding furiously. But I don’t close the curtain, and I can still see him, standing there on the edge of my yard, the wind whipping his frost-coated hair into his eyes. He’s wearing the same shirt he wore the night I killed him, although it’s turned to rags now, revealing the smooth, unbroken skin of his chest. There’s no sign of the terrible, gaping hole where his heart should be.
He lifts his face, and I think he sees me.
I shriek again and stumble back toward the fire, never taking my eyes off the window. Outside, he moves closer, each step slow and heavy. My breath comes out in short, frantic breaths. My phone. Where’s my phone?
And what am I going to do with it? What does it matter if I call someone in the middle of a blizzard? Theo Shorn is here now.
He steps up onto my porch, his footsteps heavy and loud even over the wailing wind. He moves like a zombie, slow and shambling, and it occurs to me that’s what he is. Because I killed him.
I knew he would come back eventually. Maybe I’ve even been waiting for him, a truth Penelope saw that I didn’t want to admit. But now, seeing him?—
Confusion wars in my thoughts. Anger, fear.
Relief.
He steps up to the door and peers through the glass. I don’t know if he sees me. All he does is stare inside, his snow-covered hair hanging in his eyes.
I watch him, my whole body shaking. From fear or cold, I don’t know.
He put his hand on the window, his body heat melting the ice crawling across the glass. And something inside me snaps. Thelast string of my willpower. All I can think about is how warm he was when he had his big arms wrapped around me.
The cold has made me stupid. Or desperate. Or both.
I let the blanket fall to the floor. The adrenaline has warmed me up enough that it almost feels uncomfortable, and there’s a thin layer of clammy sweat on my skin that I know, distantly, is dangerous.
Just like he is.
I cross the room again, aware of Theo’s eyes following my movement. When I get to the door, I stop, staring at him through the glass. He doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t say anything. His eyes just bore into me, as bright as stars.
I turn the deadbolt with shaking hands. He pushes the door open.
The gust of wind that slams inside is shocking. It blows my hair back and brings a swirl of glittering white snow that scatters across the floor like spilled sugar. When Theo steps inside, it melts beneath his boots.
He slams the door shut and stares at me. I don’t know what to say to him. All the speeches I planned over the past six months—excoriating him for what he did to Oliver, for what he did to me—fly out of my thoughts. There’s only cold and dark and silence.
Theo lifts his hand, the skin red and chapped from the cold. “Are you real?” he signs.
“Of course I’m real.” The words fly out of my mouth, harsher than I intend. “Are you?”
