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Here was the dream Vivienne had been having:

The house at night.

The moon leering in at her, its round, round face pressed against the window.

The walls veering oddly, as though nudged by some behemoth hand.

She hadn’t been alone. The boy had been there, too.

He’s not happy with you , he’d said. They’d been sitting one across from the other, Vivienne all in ribbons and the boy as white as a corpse, his dark curls matted to his brow. He’d been dressed as if he was heading to play hockey, knee pads lashed to his legs. You’ve made a mess of everything.

I’m fixing everything, actually , she’d told him. She’d been so confident. She’d been so sure. Any moment now, I’ll wake up and I’ll be perfectly human.

He’d looked startled to hear her speak. They’d been sitting so long in silence. Are you sure about that? You don’t need to do this. If you lay yourself at His feet, He’ll set you free Himself. You don’t even have to cut yourself open. He is generous. He’ll give you whatever you need.

Do you have whatever you need?

At that, the boy had smiled over at her. Water seeped out from the gaps in his teeth. I , he’d said, have never been happier.

···

He was standing in front of her. The boy from her dream.

Or not him, exactly, but his startling likeness. Several years older. Significantly more alive. He had the same dark curls, the same straight nose, the same sharp mouth—though his was scarred at one end, a raised pink line extending nearly to his ear.

“She doesn’t say much,” he said, “does she?”

Next to him, a white-haired girl in combat boots looked aghast. “Colton.”

“It’s just an observation.”

“She’s mute,” said a second boy. He was Black and broad-shouldered, his hair cropped short. He stood propped against a narrow bookshelf, idly inspecting the spines. “We’ve covered this.”

“We should be grateful she’s not speaking,” said a girl Vivienne recognized as one of the pledges. What had her name been? Lilah? Lydia? She stood as far from Vivienne as she could manage, her nose bloodied and her eyes swollen. “None of us would make it out of here alive if she did.”

“All right,” said Thomas. “That’s enough. Vivienne?”

She dragged her eyes to his.

“Just let me see it.”

They’d gathered in a narrow wailing room, the peeling varnish revealing walls gone yellow with rot. The space was overly warm, light blistering in the gap of a battered side door, and the dogs lay sprawled on the floor, panting heavily. Vivienne perched on the edge of a shallow built-in, dressed in a white crewneck and crumpled gym shorts Thomas had fished out from his truck. A spot of wrong-colored blood had already begun to darken the shirt just over her abdomen.

“You’re ruining my shirt,” Thomas added gently, when she didn’t budge.

Swallowing her pride, she lifted up the hem. Lydia gasped, the sound muffled behind her hand. To his credit, Thomas didn’t flinch.

“Hayes,” he called, “toss me the tape?”

“You got it,” said the boy by the bookshelf. A roll of adhesive tape sailed toward them and Thomas snatched it out of the air, kneeling down to examine the incision.

“Ouch,” was all he said.

She reisisted the urge to tug the shirt back into place as he tore a bit of medical tape with his teeth. She couldn’t bear to look at it—that horrible growth, stacked across her stomach like scales. It was an awful, unbearable reminder.

She’d failed.

She’d failed, and now was right back where she started, with nothing to show for her troubles except a trail of carnage, a shallow laceration that stung when she stretched. She’d never felt more like a nightmare. Her skin was stiff with rust, her hair suctioned to her throat in dark, wet whorls. She could feel everyone in the room staring at her. Studying her, as though she were a circus oddity. A freak.

A monster.

And she was.

She shut her eyes.

“Vivienne,” urged Thomas, tugging her shirt back into place, “it’s okay.”

But it wasn’t. None of this was okay. The end was meant to justify the means. What was the point of so much cruelty, so much carnage, if she was still shuttered away within herself, at the mercy of the creature and its whims? She’d made her decision and it had turned out to be the wrong one. Thomas was being too gentle with her. She couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stomach his pity.

“Mikhail Popov says he used to call you Sparrow,” said a voice, soft enough to be a whisper.

At the unexpected mention of Mikhail, Vivienne’s breath snared in her throat. Her eyes snapped open and she found the white-haired girl peering over at her, her hands wrung tight.

“He says you always walked on your toes,” she added. “You’d flit everywhere like a bird.”

Vivienne’s hands shook. How do you know all of that?

She expected Thomas to translate for her, but instead the girl smiled.

“I can hear him,” she explained. “The dead speak to me sometimes, in the silence.”

“It’s a talent of Lane’s,” said the boy called Colton. “You get used to it.”

You can hear him right now? Vivienne asked. He’s here?

“He is,” said Lane. “Usually, it’s not so pronounced. Just shadows or shifts in the light. But right now, it’s like he’s standing in the room.”

Vivienne bit back a sob.

“He wants you to know that he’s not in pain,” said Lane. “He’s not suffering. He knows it eats at you—the wondering. He doesn’t want you to carry your guilt anymore. He says—” She paused, listening. The wailing room was pillowed in a downy silence. There was no discernible sound at all. “He says you’re not responsible for the sins of your father.”

Vivienne’s cry came out broken. She didn’t mean for it to happen, but she couldn’t hold it back. She thought of Mikhail in her dreams, his face ruined, his flesh rotted through. All this time, that’s how she’d thought of him—suffering in perpetuity, and suffering because of her.

It was a strange sort of catharsis, to know the vision in her head had been a lie.

Not Mikhail at all, but a manipulation.

In the door, the white blister of light seemed to pulse with living energy. She imagined she could see him standing there—Misha, tall and proud.

She touched her fingers to her chin. Thank you.

Lane’s smile was warm. Warm, and undeserved. “You don’t need to thank me,” she said softly, and Vivienne wanted to flinch back from the kindness in her voice. Here was more grace she didn’t deserve. Here was more pity she couldn’t abide.

These were Thomas’s people—Thomas’s friends —and she’d nearly killed them.

When Thomas held out a hand to her, she accepted it with reluctance, letting him guide her off the shelf. Her hand in his was bloody. Her fingers shook. Beneath her bones, her heart felt like it might break. She wished she’d never kissed him, that day in his room. She wished she’d never let herself hope.

Because now, hope was gone, and it would have been better not to have had him at all than to have had him and let him go.

And that’s what she’d have to do.

Let him go.

He had a whole life ahead of him. And all she had was death.

She moved across the room on unsteady legs, as though she was a newborn calf learning to walk for the very first time. On the floor, Molly and Judd sprang to their feet.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” said Thomas.

“Agreed,” said Hayes, setting a book back onto its shelf.

“If I never see the inside of a church again,” grumbled Colton, “it’ll be too soon.”

They didn’t make it far. Out in the cathedral’s weed-riven lot, they found Philip waiting for them.

He stood just outside the family SUV, dressed in pale blue seersucker and oxfords. And he wasn’t alone. A towering stranger accompanied him, dressed for business in a tailored three-piece suit.

“Colton,” whispered Lane, “is that your—”

“Dad?”

The man’s eyes were coffee dark, his close-cropped curls shot through with silver. He stared disapprovingly down his nose at his son.

“I have no idea how it is you came to be tangled up in this nonsense,” he said coldly, “but I want you back home immediately.”

“Home,” said Colton flatly. “That’s a good one. What are you doing here?”

“I’m in town handling a bit of personal business.”

“You have business in an abandoned churchyard in New Haven?”

“This matter does not concern you, C. J.” His father spat out each word like venom. “You start digging where you shouldn’t, and things will go very badly for you.”

“A threat,” noted Colton. “How fatherly of you.”

Beside him, Philip looked seconds from going apoplectic. Vivienne knew him well enough to know that whatever his relationship was to the stranger, it wasn’t amicable.

“I think you and I are just about done here, anyway,” Philip said.

“Hardly,” bit out Colton’s father. “But I agree, there’s a time and place. We can continue this conversation in front of my lawyer.”

Philip bristled visibly. His eyes darted to Vivienne. “My papers are all in order, Christian. Your claims won’t hold in court.”

“Won’t they?” The man’s smile was thin. “We’ll see.”

He followed Philip’s gaze toward Vivienne. The chilly disdain in his eyes struck her like an arrow. Without meaning to, she inched back a step. The asphalt sizzled beneath her bare feet.

“All this time,” said the man. “And here you’ve been. The world is a funny place.”

Vivienne didn’t have time to parse out what he possibly could have meant. Without a word of goodbye to his son, he whirled on his heel and headed for his car, parked at the far side of the lot. The moment he’d gone, Philip turned his focus on the disheveled bunch. His brow was sheened in sweat, his cheeks red from the heat. In spite of this, he was smiling broadly.

“ Spectacular work,” he said to Thomas. “I knew you’d track her down.”

Thomas’s hand tightened around Vivienne’s. “I didn’t do this for you.”

“Of course not, of course not,” said Philip, flapping his hand dismissively. “You did it for Vivienne. Everything we do is for Vivienne. She’s a treasure, isn’t she?”

Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but Vivienne silenced him with a squeeze of her hand.

Leave it , she signed.

“Vivienne, my dear,” boomed Philip. “You have no idea what you’ve put your mother through. She’s been sick with worry ever since the party. It’s such a relief to see you intact.”

The way he said it— intact —like she was an investment, turned her stomach. She stared at him without a word. What could she sign to him that he’d understand? What could she say to him that he’d care to interpret? She wasn’t a person to him. She was an accessory.

A weapon.

“Well,” he said, tugging the back door wide. “No reason to stand around sweating in this heat. Let’s get you home. I’ve already phoned the family physician. He’ll be by this afternoon to check on you.”

Indecision warred within her. The loudest parts of her screamed at her to tell him off—to assure him that she’d never go anywhere with him again. Another, smaller, voice told her that this was where she belonged. This was what she deserved.

Not kindness. Not pity. But a cage. She may not have been directly responsible for Mikhail’s death, but hers was the voice that killed him. That was all she did. She killed and she killed.

She withdrew her hand from Thomas’s.

“Vivienne.” A hard edge crept into his voice. “You don’t have to do this. You have options.”

“Don’t make a spectacle, Walsh,” called Philip. “You’ll only embarrass yourself.”

Thomas ignored him. “Do you want to go with him?”

T-o-m-m-y , she signed. Don’t.

“Answer my question,” said Thomas vehemently. “Do you want to go with him?”

I could have killed you.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Please don’t do this. Don’t make it harder than it is.

His gaze shuttered. His jaw locked. She knew he was biting back the thousand cruel things he wanted to say. She hoped, for her sake, he wouldn’t say them. She may have deserved it, but she didn’t think she could bear it. Nearby stood his friends, clustered together in the shade of an elm. A silent audience, bearing witness to her final humiliation.

You’ve been so kind to me , she signed.

His expression contorted. “Kind?”

Let me do this, as one last kindness to you.

“Kind?” he repeated, spitting it out like a profanity.

She turned quickly, before doubt could creep in. Gesturing for the dogs, she headed across the scalding lot, her toes burning. She was halfway to the car before Thomas found his voice.

“That’s bullshit. This isn’t kindness. You’re scared, and you think this is the easy way out.”

“That’s quite enough, son,” said Philip. But Thomas wasn’t through.

“I made you a promise, remember?” She could hear him fighting to keep his voice controlled. “What’d I tell you? I’ll always come for you.”

His echo rebounded off the faraway trees. It split her open.

“Go ahead and run back to Greenwich,” he called. “I’ll be there.”

“You will do no such thing,” said Philip. “I’ve already made it clear that we have no further need of your services. If you come within a mile of my home, I’ll have you shot.”

It was a bluff. A poor one. It knocked the air from Vivienne’s lungs all the same. She ignored everything in her that told her to turn back, loading the dogs into the car and climbing in after them. The door slammed shut. The car’s interior was refrigerator cold and stung with cigar smoke. Through the tinted glass, she could just see the dark wall of Thomas, unyielding as ever.

Philip climbed into the front seat, pulling his door closed with a slam that spoke volumes. The engine turned over. The car pulled out of the lot. She rose up onto her knees and watched out the rear window as Thomas shrank slowly out of sight.

It felt like she was leaving her heart behind.

And maybe that was the key. Maybe that was what it would take to survive this.

Maybe, from this day forward, she’d be heartless.