Page 9

His gaze flicks past me—to the fence. “You’re standing where you shouldn’t be.”

“Stay inside the fence.” Cass’s words blare like an alarm in my head.

If Malek’s here, something is already wrong. Something is already coming. He doesn’t arrive before trouble. He arrives after the world has picked who bleeds.

I don’t think I just run.

Branches whip my arms as I tear through the grove, Shadow darting at my side. The trees crowd close, bare limbs knitting overhead like they’re trying to seal me in.

The air thickens—heavy and sour—humming with the kind of silence that waits with bared teeth. My chest burns, every breath a scrape of ash and fear, but I don’t stop. Not when the world drops into that predator’s quiet. Not when instinct screams that something is wrong.

I skid through the last line of trees just as the sun breaks low across the clearing—an orange bruise spreading over the property. The back gate stands open behind me, one hinge groaning in the wind, swaying like someone slipped through only moments before. Whatever passed through hadn’t been looking for Shadow.

I slow. Just enough to feel it.

That wrongness.

The kind that crawls under your skin and whispers turn back.

I push the gate wide, step onto the garden path. The air here should’ve smelled like earth and green things.

But tonight, it smells like endings.

Like blood gone dry and something sour underneath.

I should’ve turned back.

Cass’s voice stays lodged in my skull—stay inside the fence—not shouted, not dramatic, just worn thin by repetition. The kind of rule you only learn the weight of after it’s broken.

Shadow slips through the gap without hesitation, tail high, trusting a world that hasn’t earned it. I follow before I can stop myself, boots crunching into ground that feels subtly wrong beneath my feet—too soft, too quiet, like it remembers blood.

The fence doesn’t creak.

Doesn’t warn.

Doesn’t stop me.

That’s the lie, I realize too late. The fence was never meant to keep things out.

It was meant to show them where I lived.

V

The Price Was Paid Indoors

The garden should’ve calmed me—tomatoes fat on the vine, beans twisting skyward, blossoms still trying to live where life doesn’t belong. But tonight every leaf feels like it’s waiting to see who I’ll be when the world finally takes my last safe place.

Cass’s voice whispers in my head. “Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay alive.”

I move along the siding, soft on the balls of my feet. My fingers slick on the hatchet handle.

I reach the kitchen window and look in.

Scarlett’s tied to a chair, rope biting into her arms, shirt torn open, bruises already blooming across her skin. Through the glass, her eyes find me—wide, wild, the kind that know there’s no way out. No scream. No plea. Just one hard shake of her head.

Don’t.

My heart slams against my ribs. My pulse hammers in my throat. I didn’t choose this—any of this. But loss doesn’t wait for permission.