Page 45 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth

I stare at her in horror. “You think Tate and Tristan tried to kill you? And, what, teamed up to kill Cassie fourteen years later? That’s absurd. Tristan was nine when you were stabbed.”

“I know that, and I don’t think Tristan was involved in my stabbing.”

“But?” I demand, my voice shaking with anger.

“But,” she says, “generational trauma is real. It has an impact. Isn’t it possible—just possible—that if Tate and his dad stabbed me, years later, Tate stepped into Tom’s role, brought Tristan in, and they stabbed your roommate? The echoes of the past and all.”

I can’t breathe. She’s kidding, right? “You’re not serious. Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds?”

She places her glass on the coffee table and spreads her hands wide in a gesture of appeasement. “It’s a theory. Or it was. But you say Tristan isn’t in contact with Tate, and Tristan wasn’t even living in Ohio when your roommate was murdered. So I guess the theory falls apart.”

My skin heats and my heart hammers. I narrow my eyes at her sudden change of tune. “You don’t believe that. You don’t think this is a coincidence.”

To be honest, neither do I. Two stabbings and Tristan’s on the periphery of both of them.

She gives a self-deprecating laugh. “Honestly, Emily? What I think is I must listen to too much true crime.”

I look at her. “Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you listen to true crime podcasts? Do you watch documentaries about murders?”

Her eyes flick involuntarily toward the book at the arm of the couch and I follow her gaze to read the title: The Bloody Harpe Brothers: The True Terrifying Tale of America’s First Serial Killers.

“I guess I have my answer.”

“Why do you ask?” she says, leveling me with a look.

“Because Tristan does. Incessantly.”

“I’ve heard it’s common for crime victims, survivors, and family members to be drawn to true crime in an effort to make sense of the unfathomable,” she says.

I hold her gaze, unblinking.

She tilts her head, appraising me. “But not you.”

“Not me,” I agree.

“That’s interesting.”

I eye her, weighing whether to tell her.

“What?” She asks.

“What, what?”

“You’ve got something on your mind. What is it?”

There’s no reason to hold back at this point, so I say it. “I don’t need to make sense of it. I know why it happened. Cassie wasn’t supposed to die that night. I was.”

To her credit, she doesn’t spout off the standard, ‘It’s common for survivors to blame themselves,’ line. Instead, Alex Liu, survivor of a murder attempt, takes my statement at face value and asks, “How do you know?”

I tell her what I’ve never told anyone. “I know because he told me.”

“He told you,” she repeats.

As I’m explaining the note I found after Cassie’s murder, an even worse thought hits me and bile rises in my throat. I clasp my hand over my mouth and jump to my feet.