I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can onlyrememberwithout remembering.
Hands once grabbed after that sound. Hands once punished after that sound. Hands once dragged me inside after that sound.
I choke on air.
Rafe tries to reach me—I feel the shift of his body—but my mind has already snapped into escape. A tiny, strangled noise tears out of my chest as I rip my hands free from him, stumbling backward.
He speaks, but I don’t hear it. I don’t hear anything except the ringing in my skull.
With my mouth hanging agape in horror, I turn on my heel and run.
My feet pound the ground as the clearing blurs behind me. Branches scrape my arms. Leaves whip my skin. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel cold. I feel nothing but the need to get away before the dark swallows me again.
Even as my legs ache, and my vision swims, I don’t stop.
I sprint through the trees until the shapes of cabins disappear. I don’t know the path, but my body remembers the way home anyway—back to the warmth, the quiet, the single space where the world hasn’t hurt me.
I slam into Rafe’s cabin door with shaking hands, shove it open, and fall inside. The floor hits my knees. I curl into the corner before the door swings shut. Arms over my head. The reality of what happened spirals over my skin.
My fingers scrabble across the floor until they find the paper and pencil. I grip the pencil too hard—it breaks. I grab another. My hands shake. My tears blur the page.
I write:SORRY SORRY SORRY
The words smear as I drag the pencil again:BROKEN BAD GIRL
My ribcage hurts. My throat burns with the scream I can’t make. I lower my forehead to the floorboards and rock, trying to make my body disappear. Then I crawl under Rafe’s bed and shake.
I don’t hear the footsteps until the door bursts open.
I flinch so hard my forehead cracks against the floor. Pain blooms. My hands shoot up over my head. My breath stuttersinto broken gasps. I try to stop crying but the tears keep spilling, wetting the wood beneath me.
Heavy footsteps cross the room. Fast. Then stop.
“Briar.” Rafe’s voice is rough and shaken—not with anger but something deeper. My chest tightens. He kneels beside me, close but not touching. The warmth of his body pulls around my shaking bones. He lowers himself until he’s almost level with me on the floor.
“Sweet girl,” he whispers. “You can come out. I’ve got you.”
I shake my head, curling tighter, gripping the paper against my chest. The pencil smears across my fingers. The words I wrote blur beneath tears.
Rafe sees them.
The lines of his forehead deepen—sharp, pained. Not at me. For me.
“Hey… no.” His hand moves toward me, then stops an inch away. “Briar, look at me.”
I can’t. I can’t show him what I am. What he took from the woods. What isn’t worth protecting. Pressing my forehead to the floor again, I rock faster, straining around a silent scream. My ribs ache with it.
He shifts, lowering himself fully to the ground, stretching out beside me. His voice drops even softer. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Not one thing.”
My shaking won’t stop. A sob fights its way up—silent but so sharp it feels like breaking. My hands claw at the air, searching for proof he isn’t a ghost who disappears when I close my eyes.
He takes that as his permission.
Slowly… slowly… he touches my back. Barely a palm. Barely weight. Just warmth.
I freeze, waiting for the strike.
It never comes.
