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My attention dropped to a dandelion, and I plucked it from the grass. My favorite flower. When dandelions lost their vibrancy, they became something even more beautiful, scattering their seeds like weeds.
Infectious and resilient. Like us.
“I think we’ve both been a little bit right and a little bit wrong about that,” I said.
“Yes,” she murmured. “I don’t want any more girls to die, and I’m just so human, and you’re…”
“Dead?”
Neeve shrugged. “I have no idea. Who really knows what you are?”
I chuckled. “Yeah.”
Neeve swallowed. “I was so hard on you because I’m triggered and afraid.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“When I was kidnapped, a man used to visit me and tell me he was going to kill me. That I would become part of his collection.”
“A serial killer?”
Grass prickled against my palms, grounding me.
“Yes. I feel like I could have been one of the Embroiderer’s victims.” Neeve rubbed the same spot on her thigh over and over. “And I’m afraid my killer is still out there, watching and waiting for his chance to finish what he started.”
“I will never let that happen,” I seethed.
She swallowed and kept rubbing her thigh. “I know. I’m just scared.”
My chest tightened. The pain on my best friend’s—no, my sister’s—face was unbearable.
It broke me.
I pulled her into another fierce hug, a silent promise that I would never let anything happen to her.
I would burn the world down first.
“Speaking of our biggest fears,” she said into my hair, “are you ever going to hunt yours?”
I pulled away to face her. “What do you mean?”
“The one man you’ve been intentionally avoiding?”
“Which one?” I asked, because I’d really avoided two.
The Man in Black.
Blackwood.
For very different reasons.
“Are you ever going to hunt down Blackwood?” she asked, her voice soft as a breeze but gently probing.
I looked away. “I’m not sure I haven’t already found him.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Xeniya Morozova
