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Scarlett’s hair is matted now, heavy with blood. Her face drained, lips gray, eyes wide and staring at nothing. They didn’t kill her to make a point, they killed her because she was in the way.

The air turns heavy, choking. It presses down until the whole world feels smothered, still.

Cass stumbles forward, slipping in the blood before dropping hard to her knees beside Scarlett. Her hands shake as she gathers her up, words tumbling out too fast, too frantic. I can’t make them out. Everything is muffled, distant, like my head’s been shoved underwater.

Then movement cuts through the haze.

I turn.

Against the wall, another man slumps, his bulk sagging under its own weight. A knife juts from his stomach, buried to the hilt, blood bubbling thick around the wound. His breaths come shallow, wet, each ragged wheeze shaking the folds of his face in grotesque rhythm. He’s alive—but only barely. Death already has its teeth in him.

In a daze, I stumble forward, knees nearly buckling as I reach him. My hands shake when I curl them around the knife’s handle, the hilt slick with blood. I yank it free, and the gush that follows paints my fingers, hot and wet.

If mercy made me hesitate, then this—this is what came after. This isn’t who I am. It is who the world carved out of me the second it took her.

Before I can think, I drive it back into him. Again. And again. The blade sinks with a sick, steady rhythm, blood spraying, slicking my skin and the floor. My mind goes blank—numb, fogged—no space left for the sound that should be coming from his mouth.

No screams. They don’t shout scripture. Don’t preach. Don’t linger. This isn’t a sermon. It’s a test. The sense of being measured rather than attacked.

Maybe that’s the truth Cass has known all along—if the world keeps taking, eventually you stop choosing. Eventually you become what’s left.

My vision tunnels, blurring at the edges, the world shrinking down to the rise and fall of my arm, the crunch of bone, the endless, suffocating red. I don’t stop.

I can’t stop.

I don’t recognize the hands pulling me away.

I don’t recognize mine either.

The pressure in the room shifts.

Something heavier than grief steps in behind me.

A hand closes around my wrist. Firm. Unshaking.

“Enough, little crow.”

Six years gone, and still my body knows him before my fear does.

Cass’s sobs pull me forward, one broken sound at a time. They scrape against my ribs, drag me into the kitchen like I don’t have a choice. She’s on the floor, knees sliding in blood that keeps spreading, seeping under the table legs, pooling like it knows where to go.

Scarlett is clutched in her arms.

Her body hangs wrong, all weight and looseness, her head tipped back against Cass’s shoulder. Cass has one hand jammed hard against Scarlett’s throat, fingers shaking, pressing like if she pushes hard enough she can force life back into her.

“It’s just a scrape,” Cass gasps. She rocks Scarlett, sharp and frantic, like motion might wake her. “It’s nothing. We’ve had worse. We’ll patch you up.” Her voice splinters. “You’ll be fine. You’re fine. You hear me?”

The blood keeps coming.

“Cass…” My voice barely survives the word. It feels thin. Paper-fragile. Already tearing.

Her eyes snap to me—wild, feral, burning with something between fury and terror. “No!” she screams. “She’s fucking fine, Selah!”

Some moments don’t give you truth.

They give you lies and dare you to choke them down just to keep breathing.

“Cassidy.” Her name slips out of me like a prayer I don’t believe in anymore.