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"But you won't?" Noah asks.

"I don't want to hurt you," I tell her. "You said not to touch you, so I'm not touching you."

"Yeah, okay, Tate," she says, rolling her eyes as she brushes past me.

Like I'm lying.

But I'm not lying. I'm not touching her, just like she asked. And it's hard…because I really want to touch her. I want to hold her and kiss her, I want to run my fingers through her hair and comfort her.

I can make it better. If she'll let me. She always lets me.

"You can't bring your phone," I say as she grabs her purse. "Or any of your old cards or anything."

"Fine," she says, and tosses it onto the ground. "Let's just go then."

"I wouldn't have killed you, Noah," I tell her as she puts on her jacket and walks out the door.

"What are you talking about?"

"Last year. I wasn't going to kill you. I mean, I wanted to, but I couldn't. I don't want to live in a world where you don't exist."

"But you don't really wantthiseither, do you?" she asks as we descend the staircase. "You want me to go to prison for the rest of my life."

I bite my lip, attempting again to pull nonexistent lip rings through my teeth.

"It's complicated." And I think I did okay explaining it to her when I thought she was just sleeping, but I'm not sure how to do that now. "But I do love you."

Forgetting I'd told her I wouldn't touch her, I reach for her hand, but she quickly jerks it away.

"That's not love, Tate," she says. "It's obsession, maybe, but it's not love. You told me yourself last night. When you love someone, you don't want them to hurt."

I consider arguing. Sometimes, you love someone so much, it makes you question who you are, and you need to hurt them—it's self-preservation. At least, that's what I thought before. That's what I thought both times Noah left, but I never really had to see with my own eyes how she hurt either time. I never saw Noah sad.

I saw her sad last night.

We reach the bottom of the staircase just as the older lady who owns the place comes out the back door and around the corner of the main house. I pull my hood up over my head before she reaches us.

"Is everything okay here?" she asks, looking the two of us over. Her hand hovers above her hip, and I get the distinct feeling that we must have missed at least one of her guns in our sweep.

"Yeah, we're fine," Noah says. "We're just going to get something to eat."

"Are you sure?" the woman asks. What was her name? Jodie, right? "You don't look fine."

"Yeah, I just partied a little too hard last night," she says. "I need some hangover food. We should talk tomorrow, though, I um…I've been meaning to call you and ask when we can get back to work."

"Well, I was hoping we'd be open tomorrow," Jodie says. "But I got a call from the police station, and it turns out that finger is a DNA match for a man who's gone missing not too far from here. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Noah?"

Oh,fuck.

She called her Noah. Sheknows.How the fuck does she know?

But Noah is too sick and tired to notice. And she's been hearing her name—her real name—for days now from mine and Silas's lips. "Why would I know anything about that?" she asks.

Just as quickly as Jodie pulls her handgun, I push Noah behind me and step in front of her with my hands up.

"Jodie, what are you doing?!" Noah cries out, still unaware of her mistake.

"Both of you…" Jodie starts. "Don't move. I'm calling the police."