Page 44

44

Don’t get too close to a dying animal. Prey is not helpless and every predator can bleed.

I don’t make Nick’s mistake. I’m certain he’s dead before I pull the knife free and push myself, legs trembling from the effort, to my feet. I look down at him, eyes bulging, tongue thrust half out of his mouth, blood a solid wash across his stubbled neck, and I feel not an ounce of regret.

He stood there. He watched me die. Waiting for the cold to do its work because he was too much of a coward to do it himself—or maybe it was only that he was smart enough to know that fewer questions would be asked about a girl dead from exposure than one with a necklace of bruises, a bullet in the back.

He watched Liam die, too.

More lies. More stories not lining up. There was no suicide. Horror and shame didn’t drive Liam to his death, a blow to the head did, and Alexis got fed a story that kept her cowed. Her guilt kept her silent. But now it’s over, I tell myself, and in the same instant I know it isn’t remotely true.

“Theo.” Connor staggers toward me. The side of his face is scraped to hell and he’s holding his arm tight against his body, the opposite hand clapped over the spot where blood blooms on his arm, but he’s breathing, he’s upright, he’s alive .

He stares at me, and I know what he sees. Blood on my clothes. On my hands. On my neck, where Nick grabbed it, on the knife still clutched in my hand. I brace myself for him to shy away from me.

But he only walks forward slowly. Eyes flicking to Nick, away. He reaches out, his own hand slick with crimson, and pulls me to him. He kisses me. Not rough, not tender; this kiss is needful, certain.

“You’re okay,” he says. And then, pulling away, looking into my eyes, “You’re okay?”

I nod, a tremor of a gesture. “Your arm—”

“It’s not great,” he says tightly. What he means is that it’s bleeding, though not so much that it seems like it hit something vital. He’s wearing his gray scarf; I take it from around his neck and tie it tight around the wound, making him hiss in pain. It’s makeshift, but it seems to slow the bleeding. “It went right through. I think—I think I’ll be all right.” He sounds queasy.

“We’ll get you help,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking and failing. I almost lost him. Almost lost everything.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says.

We should run. Take Nick’s ATV and get down the mountain and away from here.

And they will chase us. Chase me.

Rowan, hide.

I’m not her anymore. I am done hiding. It’s time to bare my teeth.

“We’re going back to the lodge,” I say. Connor looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. I touch the side of his hand. “Do you trust me?” I ask.

He thinks for a long time. I wait. I’m not offended. I want him to decide. To be sure. “I trust you,” he says.

“Then help me get the gun.”