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But he doesn’t move. He stands there, as if waiting, and she runs toward him and …

And it is not Henry. This man is broad but not tall, and he’s dressed in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up.

A white dress shirt.

Raymond.

Noemi veers, but her sneaker slides on the damp earth. She still thinks she’ll be fine, that she can recover in time, but then he’s there, kicking the back of her knee. She goes down, and he yanks her foot, landing her on her back. Before she can blink, he’s over her, and everything inside her goes wild, and she flails, but his hand is ramming down toward her chest.

At the last second, she sees the knife.

There is a knife in his hand, and before her mind even fully comprehends what she’s seeing, she feels it. The knife slams in, pain blinding her as the blade sinks between her ribs and she gasps, and all she can think is “Knife? Where the hell did he get a knife? That’s not fair.”

He got a weapon, and the rest of them didn’t even get each other, and that’s not fair. But that’s how it always works, doesn’t it? People like her and Caleb, Ellie and Henry, they’re cast out into the world to fend for themselves while assholes like Raymond get all the knives.

She glares up at him even as agony rocks through her and foam bubbles between her lips. She won’t ask why. She won’t cry. She won’t scream. She will look him in the eye, and when she does, the coward pulls back, turns, starts to stand, to walk away without a backward glance.

Then the brush erupts, something dark and terrible bursting through, and she sees ears and fangs and thinks it’s the dog—that damn dog everyone talked about. Then she sees the deformed muzzle, and she realizes it’s the thing that consumed Caleb.

It’s come for her, and that’s fitting, isn’t it?

She got Caleb killed, and the creature that he became is coming for her now.

Too late, she wants to whisper to him. I’m sorry, but it’s too late.

Too late for any revenge Caleb might want to take.

The world is already fading, and she braces for the creature to leap on her. But it doesn’t. It’s a few feet away and it’s …

Bearing down on Raymond, who yanks the knife from her chest and then is falling back, his eyes wide, hands raised.

She catches a glimpse of Caleb’s face in the creature’s side, that face contorted with fury, as if some part of him has willed the monster to attack Raymond, to protect her, to save her.

“Too late,” she whispers. “But thank … thank…”

There’s a moment when she feels as if she’s falling, and then, instead, she’s rising, pushing to her feet. She looks down and sees a body. Her body, lying on her back, eyes open, blood staining her shirt where the knife had slid between her ribs.

She looks toward Raymond, because that’s what she wants to see. Watch the bastard die. Watch Caleb kill him.

But Raymond is running, and the monster lies on the ground, and something rises from it, a form, Caleb, getting up and shaking himself off. Then he turns to her, and it’s like outside the bar, when he saw her, that wide grin of waking from a nightmare to see her there.

Only this time, he really is waking. Freed from the creature that his body had become. He reaches for Noemi, and she braces for his fingers to pass through hers. They don’t, because whatever she is, he’s the same, and she grips his hand and collapses into his arms, sobbing with relief. And yes, she knows that’s her own body lying on the forest floor, but she doesn’t care. She thought earlier that their fates were entwined, and if she lived, she might bring him back. That was a pretty lie. This is the truth—that her death set him free.

If she had to die—and apparently she did, one way or another—then let it be like this. Her fate delayed, four stolen years to get to know him, to fall in love with him, and then …

And then whatever comes next. For both of them.

She grips his hand, and they start to walk. Out of this place, into whatever follows.

THIRTY-FOURELLIE

The shooter fires his rifle, the barrel aimed straight at my face, point-blank range, and I know I am dead. Dead before I draw my next breath. But the bullet somehow skims across the side of my head, the pain white-hot, and I open my eyes—not even registering that I closed them—and he’s standing there, smirking at me, gun raised, finger on the trigger.

I twist to the side and run, and I am so certain the next shot will be fatal that when I hear the crack, I’m almost relieved. This is it. Finally it.

Only the bullet hits my hip instead, and I spin, knocked off course. My hand slaps to my hip, and there’s a bloodied furrow there, like the one I’m sure is on my scalp, blood dripping into my ear.

The gunman just stands there, still smirking.