She blinked, slow, like she had to process it.
“It makes sense,” she said, quiet. “I think. You’re angry.”
“Yeah. I am.” My voice scraped against my teeth. “He touched you. He hurt you. I wanted him dead. I wanted to be the one who did it.” The confession was raw. My own words almost made me flinch.
Amelia didn’t flinch. She just pulled her knees to her chest and stared at the river, its relentless motion chewing at the edges of the bank.
“It doesn’t go away,” she said after a while. “The sick feeling. I thought if I ever got free, it would stop. But it’s still there. Like the air’s thinner now.”
I nodded. Couldn’t stand the idea of touching her, not right now, not with these hands.
“Do you think we’ll forget?” she asked.
“No.” I let the syllable drop into the water, let it get carried away. “We don’t get to forget.”
She shivered. The wind cut sideways, yanking at her hair. The urge to reach out again, to warm her up, hit so hard I had to clench my fists just to keep from moving.
I dunked my hands in the river, let the cold bite into my bones. Rubbed at my skin until it stung. It didn’t take the blood away, didn’t clean me up. Just made me remember. This was who I was, now. The cage, the kill, the girl beside me looking for a reason not to be afraid.
She drifted closer, almost leaning into my side, but not quite. The tension between us, as sharp as that knife in the dark.
“If you could go back,” she asked, “would you do it different?”
I thought about it. About letting him live, about walking away, about the look on Amelia’s face every time he touched her. Maybe there was a better version of me somewhere, but I’d never met him.
“No,” I said, meaning it. “I’d just do it faster.”
She let out a breath, shaky but edged with relief, and her hand brushed my arm. Light, careful, as if she needed to make sure I was real.
For a moment, all the violence and horror and guilt dissolved into something else. Something raw, dazzling, a cracked mercy.
I looked down at my hands again, the blood trapped under the nails, and wondered if it would ever come out.
“I don’t know what I feel,” she said, voice shaky. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. I hate you. I hated you. Then you saved me. Then you…” Her throat worked. “Then you killed him.”
I swallowed hard.
Saved her.
Like I’d earned that word.
The truth was uglier. I hadn’t saved her because I’m good. I’d saved her because I couldn’t stand the idea of her breaking under someone else’s hands. Because something protective had snapped awake in me like a guard dog unchained.
Because craving wasn’t just lust. It was need. It was possession. It was fear.
Amelia stood too, wobbling slightly. She steadied herself on a rock, jaw clenched.
“We need to keep moving,” I said, afraid of what might come out if I said anything else.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
We moved deeper into the wilderness, away from the cabin, away from the road we still hadn’t found, away from everything that felt like safety. The forest was damp and shadowed.
As we walked, Amelia slowed more than once. She stumbled on a root, caught herself, then kept going like nothing happened.
I noticed. Of course I noticed.
I stayed close enough to catch her if she went down. I told myself it was practical. She was smaller. Weaker right now. Dehydrated. Running on fumes. I told myself it wasn’t because the thought of her falling made my chest constrict.
