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“What's going on?” Poppy's voice diverted my thoughts.

“We need to go. It's not safe,” I said as I turned and walked to her. She rubbed her eyes and tried to look around me. “Don't look. You don't need to see that.” I quickly stamped out the fire and helped her to her feet.

We had no time to waste. If this guy and the man I shot were here, there were more not far behind them. I had to get Poppy out of there. I was the only thing protecting her. I was the only thing keeping her alive.

I took Poppy's hand. She tried to pull away and head toward the man on the ground. “What is that over there? Do you see it?”

The fire barely had a glow, and it was hard to make out the lump on the ground. “Yeah, I see it. And we need to go. Now.”

“But—”

“No. We're leaving.” I yanked her along into the blackness, away from the fire and away from the second killer.

“How are we going to see where we're going? It's too dark out.”

“Just hold my hand. You'll be fine.”

I dragged her around trees and through thick brush. My ears were always aware of the sounds around us. I was on alert like prey. I didn't like it. I was never the one being hunted. I felt a twinge of anger in that situation.

Why am I doing this? Why would I go from being the hunter to being the hunted?

Poppy sniffled behind me. She was crying. I stopped and pulled her around to face me. She wasn't just crying—she was sobbing. Her shoulders were shaking, and her breathing was labored.

“I. . . I can't. . . I can't do this.”

“Yes, you can,” I said. “You have to. You don't have a choice.”

My heart broke instantly. Never in my life had I felt so strongly about the pain she was suffering. I had always been indifferent to emotions. I learned early on how to push away emotions. Any emotion that might make me weak or vulnerable or hinder the objective in front of me.

With Poppy, I felt all of that. Her confusion and fear attached to my body like a parasite looking for food, feeding off me, and sucking me dry. I felt her anger and sadness and mirrored it with anger and sadness of my own. Like a still lake's reflection mirrored the world around it.

But I didn't just feel the negative emotions. I felt emotions I never had the chance to understand. I felt pride for doing the right thing for once. I felt happiness for keeping her alive. And I felt greed to make her mine.

“If we stop, you'll die. It's that simple. We keep moving, and you stay alive. So let's get the hell out of here.”

“It doesn't matter,” she said. Her swollen eyes glazed over as she peered at me. “I remember now. I know why this is happening to me and who is doing it.”

I cocked my head. “You do? What did you remember?” I asked.

“I didn't just remember it. I dreamed it. I lived it. I can see it all. My stepfather wants me dead, doesn't he?”

“Yes,” I said flatly.

“And you. . .” Her voice trailed off as if she couldn't say the words out loud.

“I was hired to kill you.”

“By him?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She ran her hands through her hair and looked up at the sky. “He's been trying to kill me for years, hasn't he?”

“That I don't know.”

“The pills he gave me, they weren't to help me stay sane; they were to keep me from remembering. That's why you wouldn't give them to me.”

“Yes. They clouded your mind. I knew taking them away would bring you some clarity.”