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Whatever that means.

I haven’t been alone with her since the night in the crypt. She’d spent Saturday prepping for the wedding while Hunter and I slept off the effects of the party. Fuck, it had been amazing. Pure gluttony and excess. Sex and drugs. Orgasms and victory.Overwhelming lust and the ability to claim it–her–as mine in front of the whole goddamn frat and crypt chasers.

Being confined in the small space of the vehicle is almost like having her in my lap again, pussy bared, wet and slick for me. It’d be so easy to drag her across the seat, to push up that dress, and do it again.

But that’s not why we’re here.

She hums low under her breath, fingers twitching in her lap like she’s a cat playing with an invisible string. I don’t ask about it. I’ve learned not to ask her much unless I want a riddle for an answer. She does seem to notice I’ve stopped the car. “Are we here?”

“You tell me,” I prompt, killing the engine. “Look familiar?”

She peers out the window and shakes her head. The leaves are turning, changing from green to yellow and orange. She’d been found in the late summer. It would’ve looked different.

“I don’t remember anything.” This is something she insists, but there’s a faraway look in those brown eyes that makes me think that isn’t true. The King obviously doesn’t believe her either.

“Well, let’s see what happens if we go out there.”

I climb out, sling my pack over one shoulder, and grab my compound bow out of the back seat. When I open her door, she moves slowly, different from the other times I’ve been around her, like she’s unsure her bones will hold. There’s no sign of the dancer. Of the killer I met in those woods. I offer my hand, but she doesn’t take it, hopping out on her own.

It's colder than I expected for early fall, the damp kind that clings to the back of my neck. I lift my collar up, shielding my skin, and step into the woods. We move in silence, Arianette sticking close enough that her shoulder brushes my arm with every step. The forest smells like rot and water. The river isn’t far, I can hear it rushing ahead, aggressive and alive.

She stops suddenly, her head cocked like she’s listening to something I can’t hear.

“What? Do you remember something?”

I glance around. Broken branches. A patch of disturbed soil. Maybe a boot print half-swallowed by time. It’s old, too old to tell much, but it’s something. I crouch and run my hand through the dirt.

“There were others,” she whispers behind me. “Crying. Screaming, sometimes. I think... I think one of them had a necklace. I could hear it clink when she moved.”

“Here?” I ask, having a hard time thinking there was a crowd in here.

“Not here.” She shakes her head like she’s trying to remove cobwebs. “There.”

There. I try to sort through the riddle. Maybe Hunter would have been the better one to come on this little journey of futility.

“You mean the other girls–the ones missing?”

She says nothing, just tilts her head toward the sky and stares up.

“Do you remember anything about who took you?” I ask, still crouched.

Her voice drops to a murmur. “A mask. Like a beast. I thought it was him at first. I thought it washim.”

I look up. “The King?”

She doesn’t answer. Just turns in a slow circle, then takes the trek toward the river, her movements dreamlike, disconnected. I stand slowly and watch her as she stands at the edge of the riverbank, arms folded tight around herself.

“I’ve been here,” she says, frowning. “Right?”

I unfold the map in my pocket, the one Graves gave me before we left. There’s a spot circled, coordinates at the bottom, a photo paperclipped to the top.

“This is where they found you.” I clear my throat. “The two kids that were fishing.”

One had given her CPR while the other ran out to the street to flag down help. She was covered in bruises and had ties still bound around her wrist. I lift her hand now and push back the sleeve, rubbing my thumb over the ridge of scar tissue wrapped around her wrist like a bracelet.

“They said I was gone for at least three minutes.” She looks at my hand. Her wrist. “Do you know what three minutes feels like when you’re not in your body?”

“Yes.” I’m still able to feel the heat of the blood spilling in my hands. Her eyes flick to the scar. To the story I’d told her in the locker room. I can’t tell if the feeling in my chest is because I’m pissed that I’d let that slip in a moment of vulnerability or glad that it’s out of the way and I don’t have to tell it again.