Page 93 of Our Darkest Summer

My breath hitched.

She was on the ground, her blonde hair spread out around her like a broken halo. Still. Too still.

“Cora!”

I closed the distance, dropping to my knees beside her, my pulse hammering. Her face was pale, her lashes dark against her cheeks. I hovered a hand over her mouth. Shallow, but steady breaths. She was unconscious, but alive.

My chest squeezed with relief, but it was short-lived.

I stood, my hands shaking as I typed a text to Thomas, my fingers unsteady.

A rustle.

My stomach lurched.

Before I could turn, before I could even breathe, a hand clamped over my mouth, and another locked like a vice around my throat, yanking me backward. My phone hit the ground, the screen flashing up at me like a silent, useless warning.

“Wrong place, wrong time, Kinsley,” a breath rasped against my ear.

A man’s voice. One I didn’t recognize.

No, no, no?—

I thrashed, kicked, and dug my nails into his arm, but his grip only tightened. My pulse slammed against his fingers, panic surging hot and blinding as I gasped for air that wouldn’t come.

“You and your little friends had your chance to leave,” he murmured, his voice dipped in mockery. “But you just had to keep digging, didn’t you?”

My lungs seized. I clawed at his arm, my fingers scraping against thick fabric—a jacket? A hoodie? Something rough, something unrelenting.

He exhaled slowly. Like he was savoring this.

“I don’t mind it, though,” he continued, his breath hot against my skin. “Little Cora here was perfectly cooperative. It’s funny how easy it is to make someone dance the way you want them to. A little push here, a little pull there… and they break. Like an overused marionette.”

A shudder ripped through me. It was Cora.A team of two.She was our Brutus all along.

“She was weak, too. Cheated on her college application.” He leaned in, lips brushing my ear. My stomach turned in disgust. “She needed help with her paintings... but she wasn’t so eager to repay my kindness.”

He bit the rim of my ear, and I shrieked, trying to pull away, only to be yanked back. Bile surged in my throat as his teeth dug into my skin.

“Where’s Joshua, Kinsley?”

My pulse spiked so hard I felt it in my skull.Joshua.I’d almost forgotten about him. But it didn’t matter. He was a ruse, and I was alone. The low-hanging mist licked against my tights as I kicked at him, shoved him, but he barely budged. Like I was nothing.

“You think you know what happened toher?”

His grip flexed, tighter, harder. Crushing me. My lungs burned. My vision blurred.

Thomas. Thomas. Thomas.

His fingers dug into my throat. “You have no idea what it was like, standing there, watching the life drain out of her.”

Her.My mind reeled. Lizzie? Was he talking about Lizzie? He had to.

A choked sound clawed at my throat. I tried to scream, but it came out as nothing.

No air. No sound.

Just his grip, squeezing me.