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“Nick,” I say. My voice comes out strained. My legs wobble. “I told you. I’ve never gone by Teddy. It’s just Theo.”

He takes a half step forward, still filling the doorway, still blocking my way out. I could shout, I think. How far would my voice carry? Would anyone who heard it come to help?

“It was such a cutesy nickname. Mallory’s little teddy bear. Rowan—your name is Rowan Cahill,” he says. He shakes his head. “I thought it was a coincidence. I thought it couldn’t possibly be you, and I told myself not to be paranoid. Rowan Cahill’s dead, I told myself. I can’t believe how long it took me to see.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, but it’s only a whisper. The walls feel close. The smell of the hanging meat is suddenly overpowering, and my stomach lurches.

“Why did you come here? Why go after Connor?” he asks, giving me a puzzled, inquiring look. “Did you just want to mess with us? Did you think you could get something from us?”

“I don’t want anything from you.” My hand drifts toward my pocket. My arm feels heavy. So does the rest of me. My mouth is cotton-ball dry, and my heartbeat is slow, very slow. My fear feels like a voice calling in the distance. I can’t quite make it out.

“You should never have come back here,” he tells me, and takes another step forward—or is it two? He’s right in front of me now, and it’s like I’ve lost the seconds in between.

Gave her a sedative, to help her calm down , I think. The tea. Stupid. Should have been more careful.

“Whoa there,” he says, under his breath, reaching out to grab my arm. I try to pull away but my knees half collapse instead, and I pitch forward, brace myself against his chest with one hand. He looks down at me. It’s too dark in the shed to read his expression.

“What did you do to my mother?” I whisper.

“I did what I had to,” Nick says, and there is not an ounce of regret in his voice.

I open my mouth to scream—but he claps a hand over my face, muffling the sound. My limbs are weak, the air like Jell-O. He shoves me to the ground. I don’t have the strength to resist. I finally make a sound, a bark of pain as my back hits the ground, and then his knee is digging into my stomach, his weight on my chest, and I can’t get a breath to scream as he grabs my arms. The wound he stitched up less than a day ago flares with pain, but even that feels muted.

It’s like I’m a doll, limp-limbed, his to manipulate. He grabs my wrist. I try to pull free, but it’s barely a tug, and then he has the other one and something thin and hard is tightening around them both—a zip tie. I shove upward, trying to buck him off me, but he doesn’t even seem to notice.

His weight lifts for an instant—I draw a breath to scream—and he crams a foul-tasting rag into my mouth. He seizes my hair at the root, right at my hairline, pulls my head back to look at him. “Enough,” he says, like he’s chastising a dog. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Not yet , he means. He uses a cord to tie the makeshift gag into place, and then he shoves up to his feet.

“That should do,” he says. It takes me a moment in my sluggish state to realize he isn’t speaking to me. Someone else. Right outside.

“Move her. You have a few minutes. Put her in Dragonfly, I’ll be by shortly.” It’s Magnus’s voice.

Nick’s shadow moves toward me again, blocking out the light, and as the darkness falls over me, whatever sedative they’ve given me pulls me under—not all the way, but enough that I can’t stop my eyes from drifting shut. Enough that moments become unglued from each other, and I’m reduced to sensations—

A shoulder digging into my chest. A hand rummaging in my pocket—not the one that holds the knife, not that, at least—and the shudder of a motor starting up. It takes me far too long to fit together the pieces of a coherent thought, I’m on the sledge on the back of the UTV , and then all I can think of is that Magnus uses this thing to drag the bodies of deer to where they’ll be butchered, and then time skips and I’m not outside anymore, I’m being carried up a set of stairs. Dumped out on a wooden floor.

I’m in the main bedroom of Dragonfly. I lie on my side, facing the vanity. Nick is framed in the mirror.

“You really shouldn’t have come back.” He says it like this is my fault. Something inevitable, a regrettable thing he will not in fact regret. He crouches down. I turn my head, every movement requiring careful, conscious thought, and squint up at him. “You were supposed to be dead. This shouldn’t have happened at all.”

I’m so tired. So unbearably tired. I try to keep my eyes open, but they drift shut, and my ears fill with a sound like buzzing—like the droning wings of an insect, and it’s the last thing I hear as I slip away from consciousness.

The girl lies on the floor, her cheek pressed against the wood. It’s cold in here, but not as cold as it was before. She can’t feel her fingers. It’s hard to open her eyes, but she does, and when they focus, her mother is lying across from her. Her neck is a dark red; the red is cracked like river mud. There’s a strange furrow in the skin at her throat, and more blood soaking her sweater, all that crimson blooming from the hole in the middle of her chest. Her eyes are open. She doesn’t see the girl.

The girl tries to speak, but her voice doesn’t come. She tries to reach out, but she’s still so cold, and her arms won’t lift, and the girl knows with deep certainty that this is what it feels like to be dead, because dead is when your body doesn’t work anymore and they bury you in a hole and cover you up with dirt and she doesn’t want to be buried, she doesn’t want to be covered in dirt, and she starts to cry, a thin little breathy sound—

“What the hell?” Footsteps. A new face appears in her vision. A man crouching down. “You alive, little one?”

A foot jostles my shoulder. I try to open my eyes, then curl inward instinctively against the onslaught of the light.

“Welcome back,” Nick says. He crouches down. “You dipped out for quite a stretch there. I was worried she gave you too much.”

I flex my hands. The zip ties bite into my skin. At least they’re in the front, not twisted around the back. He watches me, chewing on his lip.

“I want to ask you something,” he says. “I’m going to take off that gag. Don’t yell. No one would hear you, and it’ll just make things unpleasant for you. Got it?”

I nod. Anything to get this thing out of my mouth. He grunts and reaches around, fumbling with the cord. He gets it undone and pulls the rag out of my mouth. He sits back, leaning against the wall with one knee up.

“Why’d you come here?” he asks me.

“What do you mean?” My mouth is so dry the words come out broken.

He waves a hand. “Connor. This trip. What was the plan?”

My breath is ragged. I wish I could sit up, but my muscles feel like taffy. “No plan.”

“Seems reckless.”

“I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know any of it. There was no plan.”

“Then it’s what, it’s fate?” he says. He laughs, tips his head back against the wall. “Well, that’s a fucking head trip.”

“No kidding,” I rasp out.

He slams the side of his fist against the wall. “Bad fucking luck. That’s it?” he says, looking at me like I’ve got answers. “You really didn’t know.”

I shake my head, which sets it pounding.

“So if you and Connor don’t meet, if he doesn’t fall head over heels like an idiot, none of this happens,” he says. “I bet you wish you’d never laid eyes on him.”

I should. Olena is dead. I’m sure I’m about to follow. But I can’t wish Connor out of my life. It’s not because of Connor that I’m here, with my hands tied in front of me. It’s because of Nick.

“What are you going to do to me?” I ask.

He lets out a breath, looking off to the side with an expression of consideration. “That’s the question, isn’t it? We can’t exactly let you go.”

“You could.”

“No. We really can’t.” He has the gall to look regretful.

I try to draw enough spit to swallow, get rid of the taste of the rag, but the combination of the gag and the drugs have left my mouth feeling gummy. “You killed Olena, didn’t you.”

“That was an accident,” he says at once.

I scoff. “Meaning she fell? Or meaning it was supposed to be me?” I ask. I flex my wrists subtly, testing the restraints. They’re far too sturdy for me to snap. I hunch, pressing my elbow against my torso, and feel the hard lump of the knife in my pocket. Good. I’m not out of options yet.

His head cocks. “I convinced myself I was going crazy. I really did. Up until I was stitching you up, and you were still asking those questions. But it was impossible. I saw you die.”

“I remember.” The face in the glow of the cigarette as the cold closed in—it was Nick. Standing in the dark. Just waiting for me to die.

“He never told me, you know,” Nick goes on. “That you weren’t really dead. That he spirited you away. Thought he could handle the whole thing by himself and we wouldn’t find out what he’d done.”

“Your father, you mean,” I say.

He makes a noise in the back of his throat. “I get it. Save the cute little kid. Who wouldn’t want to? So he bundles you off and finds you a new home and that’s that. Problem solved, conscience clear. But then you came back.”

Did Magnus recognize me right away when Connor called, said he’d be bringing his fiancée, sent pictures? He must have known that if I came here, everything would come to light. What I saw. What he’d done, sparing me. So he tried to warn me off.

“Of course, you’re not a cute little kid anymore,” Nick is saying. “He did finally come to his senses. You’re lucky your fiancé is such a shit hunter, you know. He saved your life with that fuck-up.”

The flash of metal in the woods. Mr. Vance with his rifle. And Magnus, giving me one last chance to leave before he told me where to go. Where to wait. “Trouble with poachers,” I say.

“It would have been easy enough to pin the blame on some trespassing hunter. I’ll give him credit for the plan. But he should have fucking told me. He should have trusted me, but he was too worried about me finding out about his little moment of conscience. If I’d known, I could have kept Connor well away, but no. Instead my genius nephew blunders into the middle of it. It spooked you. You were going to leave, and it was obvious you weren’t just going to slink off quietly, whatever Dad had hoped. So yes, once I realized what was really going on, I decided to take care of things. She had the same coat. She was where you were supposed to be. It’s unfortunate. She was a sweet girl. Not too bright, but sweet.” He gives a flick of his hand, like What can you do?

“I can tell you feel just awful,” I say.

“Would me feeling guilty bring her back? No? Then why bother,” he says. “You learn being a doctor, when you make mistakes, sometimes someone dies. You can’t spend the rest of your life agonizing over it. You learn your lesson and you move on.”

“Murder isn’t a mistake,” I say.

Rage flashes in his eyes. I think suddenly of how furious he was when we found Sebastian out in the cold. I’d assumed it was on Sebastian’s behalf, born of concern. I took his reaction as a sign that he was a good man. But it turns out he’s just an angry one.

“Killing my mother. Was that just ‘unfortunate,’ too?” I ask. “Was that just an accident?”

He watches me, his fingers dangling idly. “She was infuriating, you know. She really knew how to push my buttons. But I’ll admit I went too far. I was young. In love.”

“That’s not love,” I spit out.

“And you think you know what love is?” he asks disdainfully. “I loved her. Would’ve done anything to hold on to her. What happened in the end—yes, it was unfortunate.” He pauses. “But I didn’t kill her.”

My breath speeds up. He’s lying. He has to be. He looks off into the distance. His hand reaches for his pocket, as if for a cigarette that isn’t there anymore. And then he begins to speak.

Funny, the way a secret fights to get free. You think you’ve got them locked up with threats and promises and careful planning, but they’ll find their way. His brother was so careful—and then a sick wife; a kid in the passenger seat; a call from the mountain that the water isn’t working; a promise extracted and quickly broken.

Don’t blame the boy. He doesn’t understand what he did, telling his mother about the woman living at Idlewood. But now the secret is free, and it flies swiftly from ear to ear. The boy tells his mother and she does what she has always promised herself she would do: she does not make excuses, does not dwell on denial. She will give him a chance to explain, but first she will make sure she’s prepared. She calls her lawyer, has papers drawn up. That day she sits waiting for him to come home. Waiting to confront him. She needs support, she needs a sympathetic ear, and so she calls her husband’s brother. She tells him everything.

He listens. And then he sets out for the mountain. Only to find he’s not the first one there.

The woman’s already shot when he gets there. Didn’t expect that, did you? Hand clapped feebly against the wound on her neck, but she’s struggling to her feet. Still got life in her. She always was stubborn.

She sees him and screams. She lunges forward to grab at something— a rifle, dropped in the snow. She has to take her hand off her neck to lift it, and as fresh blood gouts from the wound, she staggers. He crosses the distance to her in two quick strides and yanks the rifle from her grasp.

“Idiot,” he snarls at her. He grabs her by the throat. Only way to stop the bleeding. Shoves her into the back seat of the car. “Lie the fuck down. Who—”

“Get away from her!” It’s his brother. He’s sprinting across the lot. No chance to explain. They collide. His brother grabs at the rifle. They tussle, the man gets the upper hand, the rifle pulls free and then comes down hard, just once.

Just self-defense.

But his brother drops, and the woman’s staring at him with horror in her eyes.

“We’re getting out of here,” he says. “Where’s the girl?”

But she shakes her head. Always an unhelpful bitch, that one. Wildflower. They’ll be in Wildflower, surely. Girl’s probably there now. He starts off across the snow.

“I never shot her,” Nick says. Every word could be a lie. But why bother? “She made up stories, you know. Took every little thing and turned it into this grand operatic event. I’m not making excuses. I was a shit boyfriend. I drank too much and got too angry. But the way she made it sound, like I was this monster… I’m not a monster.”

“Could have fooled me,” I say. “I saw the photos. I saw what you did.”

He drags his thumb across his lips. “You were a sweet kid. I truly wish none of this had happened.”

“It didn’t just happen . You did it. You chose it,” I say.

“I didn’t do anything to you.”

“I remember.” There are tears in my eyes, and I can’t wipe them away. “You just stood there. You watched me die.”

“I didn’t kill you. The cold did,” he says. “It would’ve been better if it took. Saved everyone a whole lot of suffering. You, especially. But none of this was my fault. I never shot Mallory. And Liam, that was an accident.”

“If you didn’t kill her, who did?” I demand.

For a moment, he looks as though he’s about to answer. Then the stairs creak. Vance appears, Duchess at his heels, and my heart leaps, but of course he looks to Nick.

“Mr. Dalton?”

Nick sighs. Pushes himself to his feet. “Sorry about this,” he says. Then, to Vance, “Don’t talk to her. Just keep an eye on her until sunset. We’ll move her then.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nick mutters something under his breath; the stairs creak to mark his retreat.

He says he didn’t kill her.

I don’t want to believe him. But why lie about that at this point?

I remember. I remember him , I think stubbornly, and I do. But I never saw him shoot her.

Someone else was there.