She works methodically. Pressing the cloth flat. Lifting it. Moving to the next smear. The knife is already gone—she must have dealt with that first. The floor near the counter is dark where the blood pooled, and she goes at it carefully, thoroughly, the way she does things when she cares about the outcome.
She wrings the cloth out over the sink without looking up.
There’s something in the set of her shoulders—not distress or anger. Something quieter than both. Deliberate. Like the cleaning is something she decided to do rather than something that needed doing, and the distinction matters to her even if no one else would notice it.
I watch her longer than is tactically necessary. Then I wrap the cloth tighter around my palm, tighten it until the ache sharpens into something I can use, still watching her.
I think about Dean—about how he walked right past what was going to destroy him—and I understand, for the first time, that I am doing the same thing.
Shewill come.
We’re now locked in a game both of us excel at. And I just made the first move…by killing Dean.
11
SOPHIA
The smell reaches me before I’m fully awake.
Cinnamon. Apple. The particular warmth of something in an oven that has no business being there at this hour, made by hands that aren’t mine.
For a moment, I don’t move. Eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Listening. The sounds are domestic, the soft drag of a bowl, the quiet click of the oven rack. I know this kitchen by sound now. I know which drawer sticks, which cupboard needs two hands.
I push myself up slowly, hair falling forward, then find another pink heart-shaped lollipop on the floor next to me. I pick it up and glance in his direction. Buff in place with no hood. Moving through the space with the quiet economy of someone who has done this before. Not often. But before.
I watch him for a moment before he knows I’m awake. I don’t know why I wait. Only that something about seeing him like this makes me want one more second before I have to decide how to feel about it.
He doesn’t turn around when he speaks. “You’re awake.”
Not a question. A statement that he knows I’ve been awake long before I made myself known.
I pull the blanket off and stand, running a hand through my hair, not really caring what it looks like. “What’s with the lollipops?”
He doesn’t turn to face me. Doesn’t answer either. So I drop it on the couch and step over pillows as I make my way to the kitchen.
“First you kidnap me, lock me in this house, leave me alone for fuck knows how long—” I gesture at the counter, at him, at all of it. “And now you’re taking the one thing that’s been keeping me sane?”
He turns then. Looks at me. “The kitchen?”
“The kitchen. The cooking. The baking. Whatever the hell it is you’re doing in my space.”
“I’m baking.”
The smell hits me properly for the first time. Cinnamon. Apple. Warm and specific and so familiar it makes something tighten in my chest before I can stop it.
“Apple cinnamon muffins.” I cross my arms. “Is that all you know how to make?”
“When it comes to baking, yeah.”
I stand there for a moment, thrown in a way I don’t want to show. He knows how to make one thing. And it’s the one thing I’d have asked for.
“Who says I’m going to eat it this time?”
He turns back to the counter. “No one.” A beat. “I’m just hoping.”
I don’t know what to do with that, so I say nothing.
“How’s your hand?”
