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Don’t resist.

Don’t cry.

Always smile.

I’d broken all three of my rules tonight, but I wasn’t terrified of the repercussions anymore. I was…furious. Wayne let out a low, amused hum, as if he could feel the silence shifting behind him.

“Too quiet back there,” he muttered without turning around. “That usually means someone’s thinking too hard,” he chuckled under his breath. “Don’t think, Angel. Thinking gets you hurt.” I sniffled and he turned just enough for me to see his profile, eyes flicking over me.

“And you know,” he added, voice softening in a way that made it worse, “all about why you should keep that pretty little mouth shut.”

The room blurred at the edges, like my vision couldn’t decide what mattered anymore. Wayne’s voice became something distant and warped, like it was coming through water. The smell, the blood, the chill in my hands. All of it started to thin, slipping away from me in patches.

And for a second, something in me changed.

I stood abruptly, and the chair scraped back loud enough to make Wayne turn. I was across the room before he could blink, grabbing the scalpel and repeatedly plunging it into his chest. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! You ruined my life!” I screamed as he choked, staring up at me with wide eyes. The icy blue glistened as I penetrated his heart. I tasted the metallic tang of his blood as it squirted onto my face, and coated the front of my⁠—

“Angel.”

My body jerked slightly in the chair, and I blinked.

“You still with me?” he called lightly. “Or have you gone quiet again?”

“I’m fine.”

My hands loosened slowly, carefully, like I was putting something dangerous back where it belonged. The version of me that had snapped didn’t exist here. It never had. I swallowed, forcing my face back into stillness. Back into survival. And I sat there quietly, while the part of me that had tried to fight stayed locked inside my mind, screaming where no one else could hear it.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

EVIE

The white tiles stained crimson beneath my feet, splatters of blood-infused droplets coating the shower curtain. I should’ve been scrubbing until my skin was red and raw, erasing all proof of what I’d just done, and yet, I stood perfectly still beneath the spray of the shower head, arms hanging useless at my sides like I didn’t know how to belong to my own body anymore.

I wasn’t numb—that would have been easier.

I felt everything at once, all of it colliding inside me with nowhere to go. I was so…sad, my ribs ached. And so incredibly angry, I didn’t know what to scream first. Christopher’s face kept flashing in fragments behind my eyes. The terror, the sorrow, the grief. I’d seen it so many times before, yet I had never been so close, had never…felt the moment the knife pierced their flesh.

But I did tonight.

I did.

I felt every single second of it, and I couldn't escape the feeling, no matter how cold the water ran. I just stood there, staring at nothing, trapped inside my own head. I didn’t hear him come in at first. I only felt it change when the water stopped. Wayne’s hands were on me next, wrapping me in a towel before I could even think to pull away. I should have resisted. I should have said something.

Anything.

But I didn’t.

The bedroom was dim when he set me down, and his shirt was already waiting, warm from the dryer. He pulled it over me, guiding my arms through. Then he tugged the covers back and tucked me in as if this was comfort, as if this was care, as if he wasn’t the one that inflicted the pain onto me, as if I wasn’t suffering because he’d forced me to kill someone who trusted me to help him. I stared at the wall until I just…broke. Wayne held me as I cried, his hand moving in slow circles like he had every right to calm what he had caused.

His voice dropped low, soft against my ear. “You did good,” he murmured. “You did exactly what you were supposed to.”

My throat tightened so hard it hurt, because that was the worst part. The way he could say it like I hadn’t just been destroyed. Like I hadn’t been forced into it. Like I wasn’t breaking right there in his hold.

I wanted to ask him why he made me do that.

Why now?

Why Christopher?