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The climbing frame still trapped her on three sides – she had no choice but to fight. There was no escaping without getting past me. As I closed in, she lashed out with her bare heel and caught my left eye, snapping my neck sideways. Spots danced in my vision, but I kept going.

Backed into the corner, she kicked out. Her foot slammed into my abdomen, then my collarbone as I failed to block the blows. I twisted around her flying legs and caught her ankle again, my other hand still occupied with the knife.

Without thinking, I pulled her toward me and thrust my weapon up into her stomach in one quick jab. Blood flooded from the wound, soaking through her dress and drenching my hand and wrist. She coughed, red spurting from her lips and spattering my face. By now, she’d stopped struggling enough for me to pull her closer, and once again I wrapped my hand in her hair, bending her neck back to expose her throat.

Eyes half-lidded, pupils mere dots in the blue, she gaped at me. I turned my face away as I dragged the sticky blade acrossher throat, her blood pouring forth in a crimson waterfall I couldn’t bear to watch. She jerked once, and was still.

Time lost meaning as I sat there with the lifeless girl in my lap, hands trembling and teeth chattering. The rain fell harder, a curtain between us and the world, but I couldn’t move.

I was filthy. Mud and grime covered my skin and clothes. My hair was sodden and trailing in ropes in the girl’s blood. I gazed at the homeless man’s body, thinking about who might miss him, whoever he’d been. Looking down at the girl in my arms, her mouth smeared with someone else’s life, I couldn’t shake the feeling this was my fault – that I should have done more to save her.

Staring blindly into the rain, I didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until two boots appeared by the slide. Bending to see under the climbing frame, Nicholas took in the scene – me, still holding the dead girl and wearing her blood, the old man’s torn throat and my knife on the ground. Heedless of the rain that soaked through his jeans, he knelt, eased her from my lap and pulled me gently toward him.

He wrapped his arms around me as I wept into his already soaked shirt, my body shaking from the cold and the ache in my chest I didn’t know how to fix. I closed my eyes against the image of the girl burned in my mind, taking comfort in the earth and pine smell that was Nicholas, until my hiccupping sobs quietened and I could breathe normally again.

“What happened?” he asked finally, leaning back to look into my face, his green eyes dark with worry.

I had to look away. “I don’t know,” I hesitated. “I – Iknew her.”

Nicholas assessed the dead girl, rainwater dripping from the waves of his hair. “She was a friend?”

I sighed, the sound lost in the hammering rain above us. “No. She… I thought I’d saved her weeks ago. I thought she’d be okay, but she wasn’t.”

“She changed anyway,” he nodded, holding me closer again.

“How can this be happening?” I mumbled into his chest. “If I can’t help her, what’s the point? It’s really the way you said, isn’t it? Anyone can turn.”

“Aye, I’m afraid so. But it’s no so common as you’d think. We cannae give up because we dinnae always win, Erin,” he murmured, his accent deepening. The way he said my name sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold. “Come on. You’re soaked to the bone, and it’s dreich enough evenI’mfeeling it.” His mouth quirked up into a half-smile.

I took the hand he offered as he stood, pulling me upright.

“I have to check she’s—” I began.

“No need.” Nicholas took off his heavy woollen coat and draped it over my shoulders. It was almost as wet as I was, but I was grateful regardless. “Her spine’s damaged. I can see that much from here. It must have been quite the killin’ blow.”

“It wasn’t much of a fight.” I shook my head. “I could barely look at her.”

“You had to,” he said, cleaning my knife on the girl’s thin summer dress, smearing the floral pattern.

“That doesn’t make it any easier.”

“You winnae be the person you are if your job were easy,”he smiled sadly, straightening.

I didn’t answer, but pushed my hair back, turning my stinging face into the downpour. As I did so, Nicholas slid his hand into mine, gently squeezing it to draw my attention back down to earth. His skin almost felt warm on my freezing fingers.

“Are ye hurt?”

“No.” I swallowed. “Yes, but… I’ll let you know in the morning. I can’t really feel anything right now.”

“I’ll be sleepin’ then,” he apologised. “But I’d rest better if you’d let me send Adam to check on you?”

I nodded. Sometimes, it was dangerously easy to forget how different we were – the fundamental rhythms that would always keep us apart.

“It’ll be alright, love.” He squeezed my hand again. At his touch, the newly familiar heat pulsed through me, my nerve endings blazing as always when I was with him – but this was gentler than before. His thumb traced small circles against my palm: a question I wasn’t ready to answer.

I’d never thought of Nicholas as a comforting presence before, but he was. Endless paths of possibility opened up before me, teasing at what Nicholas and Icouldbe. Had I been less exhausted, the idea would have been overwhelming, but with his hand enveloping mine, I tried to enjoy the feeling.

Nicholas walked me home, the rain easing off to reveal the silver moon. Outside the house, he paused, then swept me up into his arms. My breath caught in my throat.