Page 24 of Deadly Knight

I stumble to a stop in front of the sign, feeling as though I got punched in the stomach. This means nothing until knowing more. Perhaps they got too good an offer to refuse for the building and opted to buy elsewhere in the city.

It doesn’t quell the anger rising at the sight of the realtor’s face on the sign, though—a middle-aged woman grinning way too widely. It states something’s changing. Something fucking big.

Accompanied by the same dread I felt in the forest on graduation night, when my instincts prickled with the sense there’smorehappening, I force myself up the three stone steps to the front door, my fist coming down heavy on the thin door. My lungs work double time with deep breaths while I remind myself to not kill whoever opens the door.

Seconds pass, and I bounce on my feet. Normally, her parents are quick to answer and tell me to go away, but now, when my insides are knotted so fucking tight I can’t breathe, they decide to take their damn time?

I’m lifting my hand to knock again when a scuffle from the other side comes. The door cracks open, and a flash of brown hair appears. Her mother, which is good. It’s easier to talk with her than Katya’s father.

When the door fully opens, it’s not her mother standing there.

It’s Katya.

For the first time in days, Ibreathe. I’m alive, brought back from the ashes of that night. While she’s staring at me, I’m devouring every single inch of her. Every little piece I’ve missed over the past few days.

She looks…good. The shadows have lifted from her expression, which remains tight and drawn. Her chocolate-coloured eyes have life in them once more. Not quite normal, but also not the ghost I carried out of the warehouse.

They help rid me of the last memories I’ve been clinging to: when I undid her binds on the mattress, carried her from the building, Polina’s vehicle, and handed her over at the hospital.

They don’t erase the memory ofthemon top of her. Her tear-streaked eyes finding me across the way, her cries muffled behind the cloth, and the knife the one?—

I break the thought, returning to what matters most in this moment: Katya.

She stares at me, blinking slowly as her mouth curls in the corners. Her hair is bound up in a messy bun, tendrils looping around her ear and down her neck, some low enough to brush the edge of her oversized shirt. She shuffles, the breeze catching on what I know to be her favourite lounge pants. Her feet are bare, chipped pink nail polish poking out from the bottom cuffs.

Peace resonates from her, but with her slow blinks, I’m also reminded of death. When, in that final moment of one’s life, the soon-to-be-deceased accepts what’s about to happen. Where their soul is about to go. Who they’re about to meet in the afterlife. While in agony, they accept moving on, and there’s a sense of peace.

It’s the same peace that causes barbed wire to wrap around my veins—I know Katya, and this isn’t her. She may look physically well, but mentally…she’s blank, staring at me without any indication of any other emotion.

“Katya,” I breathe, my hands landing on the brick framing the door, using the house to keep me upright. Upright, and to prevent from reaching for her. I itch to. More than anything, I want to hold her, feel her in my arms.

As though knowing where my head is, she shuffles back an inch, a flash of panic eviscerating anything good from moments ago. She crosses her arms, her shoulders bowing in, like she’s trying to shield herselffrom me.

It makes me murderous, even when I try not to allow it to hurt. Makes me want to turn away and go find the four soon-to-be-corpses so they can pay for doing this to her. Tous.

“You’re…okay?”

Katya nods and immediately erases half my anxiety.

“What’s going on? You’re moving?” I gesture at theFor Salesign.

My question is seemingly the key to the peace I witnessed when the door opened. The peace that immediately gets locked up and leaves only pain reflecting. Tears shed, destroying me, and her next words are a gasp of pain—both hers and mine.

“I-I’m sorry, Dimitri.”

Inside, I die.

“Moya dusha.” I reach for her again, stopped this time by her palm coming up, rendering me breathless. She’s never turned away from me. And I’ve never pushed. This is a first for us both. I hate it because right now, Ineedher.

“No,” she whispers, the simple statement sounding so loud for its effect. “I-I can’t.”

“You need time,” I state simply, praying it’s nothing further. Even when I know the truth. Her parents would never sell this house unless?—

Her hand comes up to wipe away her tears, my attention falling to the green ribbon tied around her wrist. At least there’s that still. “Dimitri…we’re moving to Canada.”

“Canada.” Repeating the name is all my brain allows me to do as I think about the country I’ve only heard about and never visited. It’s located on the other side of the world, a whole other continent away. For us, though, it may as well be another planet entirely. “You’re leaving.”

She’s leavingme.