Wrong answer. I saw it in the flare of his nostrils, the tightening of his jaw.
Pivot. Now.
“I made you unhappy,” I whispered. Bait on a hook.
Silas cocked his head. Studied me like a scientist examining a specimen.
Good. Keep him talking. Keep him monologuing like the villain he is.
“We were passionate,” he said slowly. “Passionate couples fight.”
“I thought I made you unhappy.” I kept my voice soft. Controlled. The tone he’d trained me to use, now weaponized against him. “I thought you would be happier without me. If I was wrong …”
“Yes, you were fucking wrong!” His calm facade cracked. Just a little. Just enough to show the monster underneath. “You were my everything. You were my entire world. We were supposed to get married and spend the rest of our lives together, and then one day, you just fucking left.”
He leaned closer. I could see the broken blood vessels in his eyes.
“And you didn’t just leave me, did you? No. You drove hundreds of miles to an entirely different state. Changed your phone number. Didn’t even tell me where you were going.” His jaw tightened. “Do you have any idea how humiliating that was? After everything I did for you?”
Keep him ranting. Every word out of his mouth is another second police could be coming. A neighbor surely had called them by now, after seeing the flames.
“I thought we could both use a fresh start,” I said.
“The bed wasn’t even cold before you brought another man into it. And not just ANY man … a lowlife convict … a murderer.” He spat the words like venom. “What a fucking slut.”
“Silas …”
He wrapped his hands around my throat.
My own hands flew up instinctively, gripping his wrists, but the smoke inhalation had stolen my strength. My grip was pathetic. Useless.
No. Not like this. Not after everything.
“Did you seriously think I would let you humiliate me like that?” His fingers tightened.
“Silas. Please.”
The words weren’t a plea. They were a stall. One more second. One more breath. One more chance for those distant voices to get closer.
It was the last word I spoke.
Staring into the eyes of the man I had once loved, I watched his features reassemble into something demonic. The color in his irises, pale blue in the glow of the firelight, darkened to something bottomless.
I could hear voices in the distance. Neighbors. Sirens maybe.
They were too far away.
I didn’t want Silas to be the last thing I saw on this earth.
So, I tried to find Knox. Tried to angle my gaze toward where I thought he’d fallen. But Silas’s body blocked my view.
I hoped Knox knew. I hoped somehow, even unconscious, he understood that I had fought. That I hadn’t given up. That every word out of my mouth had been a battle, not a surrender.
The last thing I saw as my vision began to fade was the little bungalow I had escaped to. My sanctuary. Burning to the ground. Orange flames reaching up into the ebony sky like desperate fingers grasping for something they could never hold.
Then the edges of my vision darkened.
And there was nothing.
