Page 70

“He was nine,” Malek says. “Too small to survive what they planned. So I didn’t let him.”

The barn falls away. The walls, the chains, the dust—gone. There’s only his voice, threading through me whether I want it to or not.

“We ran early,” he continues. “Before the Gospel lost control of its monsters. He believed I could stop anything.”

His hand presses into the wall beside my head. Not touching me. Close enough that I feel the vibration of it.

I feel it before he says anything else.

That tightening. That wrongness.

Like my body knows something’s coming and doesn’t get out of the way in time.

“And then—” His breath stutters. “All because you weren’t where you said you’d be.”

My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

“Malek—”

“No.” The word cracks. “You listen.”

I nod without realizing I’m doing it.

“You were a town over. No signal.” A laugh scrapes out of him—sharp, ugly. “Your phone was dead.”

My hands curl into fists. I don’t remember telling them to.

“My brother went looking for you.”

“I didn’t—” My voice breaks. I stop.

“You didn’t know,” he says. Flat. Final. “But he did.”

The memory hits like a body check—porch boards groaning, the bitten man staggering into the doorway, the sound Carter made when his throat opened. Red everywhere. On my hands. On the walls. On my face. I remember thinking this can’t be happening and meaning any of it.

“It tore out his throat before I reached him,” Malek says softly. “My brother.” His fist tightens. “And you know what he said with his last breath?”

I can’t get air in. Or out.

“He didn’t say my name,” Malek whispers. “He said, Take care of her.”

The words drop between us and stay there.

Heavy.

Solid.

I try to breathe around them and can’t.

“And I blamed you,” he says. “Because I had to put it somewhere.”

Then he steps back.

The space he leaves rushes in too fast—cold, hollow, wrong. Worse than his heat. Worse than his anger.

I don’t reach for him.

I don’t apologize.