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“There she is,” he whispers. “My little doll with a blade. Do you remember how many times you tried to cut me? How many times you failed?”

My throat closes and I can feel the bindings.

Not there. I am not there, but my wrists ache as though rope has returned.

“Olive,” Edward says quietly.

Stay with me.

He does not say the rest, he does not need to. The Collector leans forward as far as the restraints allow.

“Do they know?” he asks.

My blood chills as the knife grows slick in my palm.

“Do they know what sounds you made when you stopped fighting?”

The room turns black at the edges. Lazarus makes a sound behind me, low and lethal, while Alcott whispers something I cannot hear. The Collector’s smile widens. “Do they know how quickly even The Widow learns obedience when enough is taken from her?”

I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe. I. Cannot. Breathe.

The knife falls from my hand as it hits the stone floor, and the sound is final as I turn and run. No dignity. No command. No Widow, only terror. I run up the corridor, past the stairs, through the side door, and into the cold night air.

The garden outside Lazarus’s manor is dark and wet with recent rain. Fog clings low along the hedges and I make it halfway across the stone path before my knees give out. Then I wail, the sound rips from somewhere beneath my ribs, beneath my stomach, beneath every place he touched, cut, named, and stole. I’m not crying, it is unfiltered grief with claws. I fold over myself, hands pressed to the earth, and scream until my throat burns. I hear footsteps behind me, they cease several paces away.

Do not touch me.

Please touch me.

No. Yes.

I cannot decide. I hate that I cannot decide.

Edward’s voice comes first. “Olive.”

I shake my head. “I cannot.”

No one argues.

“I cannot do it.” My hands dig into the wet earth. “I thought I could. I thought if I saw him bound, if I held the knife, if he was the one helpless, I would come back. I thought I would feel her. The Widow, I thought she would be there.” My voice breaks. “She was not there.”

Lazarus kneels in the grass several feet away. “She may be tired.”

I let out a broken laugh, but it becomes another sob.

Alcott’s voice is quieter than I have ever heard it. “Or she may be waiting until it is safe to return.”

I look up. The three of them stand beneath the fog and moonlight. Edward with his hands open at his sides, trying not to reach for me. Laz's on one knee in the wet grass, not caring that the mud stains his trousers with Alcott behind him, eyes too bright. All of them waiting.

“I hate him,” I whisper.

Edward’s jaw tightens. “I know.”

“I hate that he can still do this to me.”

Lazarus’s eyes glisten. “We understand.”

“I hate that I ran.”