“We?” I ask.

“Yeah, we,” she says. Her smile has a softness to its edges. Her hand moves closer, her fingers spread wide. “But we’d better start with you first.”

I slip my hand into hers and rise from the black road.

We leave Francis on the driveway and head to his house in silence. He lives alone, but we’re careful nonetheless. We split up and sweep through the home to meet once more in the living room when we’re sure it’s clear.

“Is this where you were tonight?” I ask as I cast a glance around the room. It’s decorated in much the same way as the hotel, with antiques and faded paintings, furniture with worn upholstery but shining wooden framework, the details polished. Sloane nods when my gaze lands on her. “Doesn’t really seem like his style.”

“Yeah, I thought the same. He talked a bit about his family. He said they’ve been here for generations. Sounds like he was trapped by the ghosts of someone else’s past,” she says as she stops at the mantle and leans toward an old railway switch lantern.

“It’s the right kind of house for ghosts, I guess.”

Sloane turns to me and flashes a quick, faint smile before she nods toward a hallway. “Come on. Let’s get you fixed up.”

I trail after her like a wraith at her heels. We stop at the bathroom where she motions for me to sit on the edge of the tub as she gathers supplies from the medicine cabinet. She unpacks a roll of gauze, readies bandages with antibiotic cream. When everything is laid out, she saturates a sterile pad with isopropyl alcohol and kneels in front of me to clean the split skin on my knuckles.

“You’re going to wind up with some scars,” she says as she dabs at the deepest wound, leaving an uncomfortable sting behind.

“Already got some.”

Sloane looks up from her work. Her gaze falls to my lip before it returns to my hand, her touch so gentle despite the suffering I know she could mete out, if she wanted to.

I watch in silence as she takes the first bandage from the counter and fits it over the torn flesh before she preps another gauze pad, starting the process over again with the next cut.

“My father gave it to me,” I say. Sloane’s gaze flicks up to mine with a question in her eyes. “The scar on my lip. The one you keep staring at because it’s so damn sexy.”

Sloane huffs a laugh. Her hair shields most of her face from view as she keeps her attention on my hand, but I can still see the blush through the spaces between her raven strands. “I thought I told you once not to let your prettiness get to your head,” she says.

“Just had to check that you still think I’m pretty.”

Sloane keeps her head down but gives me a flash of her eyes as they roll. I grin when they fix to me with a vicious glare. “I also told you that you’re the worst, and that still rings true.”

“So cruel, Blackbird. You wound me yet again,” I say as I press my free hand to my heart. This wins me a smile before she hides her face away. Sloane places the next bandage on my knuckles and I don’t have the heart to tell her they’ll probably fall off in the shower I intend to take tonight to soothe my sore shoulders. I resolve to steal the package of remaining bandages when we leave so she won’t know.

“Is he still around? Your dad?” she asks to break me away from thoughts of what else might be here worth taking, some little memento of our first game, perhaps.

“No.” I swallow. Secrets I never share beg to be released whenever she’s around, and it’s no different with this one. “Lachlan and I killed him. It was the same night he gave me this scar. Smashed my face with a broken plate.”

The motion of her hand slows as Sloane watches me. “And your mom?”

“Died giving birth to Fionn.”

Sloane’s shoulders rise and fall with a deep, heavy breath. Her bottom lip folds between her teeth as she holds my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Wouldn’t have wound up here if everything hadn’t happened the way it did,” I say. I fold a lock of her hair behind her ear so I can see her freckles. “I have no regrets about where I am.”

And there it is. That blush. A pink so addictive that it haunts me. I want to hoard these images of Sloane, her face flushed, her eyes dancing, her smile desperate to be freed.

“You’re the worst. You know that, right?”

“Technically, I’m the best. Because I just won.”

Sloane might groan, but she can’t help but huff a laugh too. “And I’m sure you’re going to remind me of this regularly.”

“Probably.”

“You know, even though I didn’t win, which totally sucks, by the way,” she says, pausing to narrow her eyes at me before her expression softens into a faint smile, “I had fun. I feel…good. Better. Like this is what I needed. So…thank you, Rowan.”

She smooths the adhesive of the last bandage over my skin with a slow pass of her thumb and then her touch falls away. Then she rises and backs away to stop at the threshold of the door, her hand curled around her arm.

“I’ll go start on the driveway,” Sloane says, and with a final flash of an unsure smile, she disappears.

I wait for a long moment. Her quiet footsteps lead to the front door and then all sound in the house dies away.

She could slip away into the night. Leave all this behind. Do whatever it takes to never be found.

But for the next three days, every time I think she might disappear, she proves me wrong.

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8

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UNDER GLASS

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SLOANE

You know what I did this morning?

*deep sigh*

I decorated my toaster strudel.

Fascinating. I’m riveted.

Also, toaster strudel? Isn’t that meant for hormonal teenagers who need significant quantities of processed sugar to function in the AM? I thought you were a grown-ass man.

A man who appreciates mass-produced flaky pastry and icing that can be used to spell “WINNER” in vanilla-ish frosting.

I’m 100% positive that I hate you.

And I’m 100% positive you’ll love me one day!

It’s been six months.

Six months since I last saw him. Six months of daily messages. Six months of Rowan telling me about how he’s celebrating his win. Six months of memes and jokes and texts and sometimes calls, just to say hello. And every day, I look forward to it. Every day, it warms me up, lighting places that have always been dark.

And every night when I close my eyes, I still picture him in that sliver of moonlight on the driveway in West Virginia, bent on one knee, like he was about to swear an oath. A knight cloaked in silver and shadow.

‘I think you were going to watch her and then your plan was to kill her,’ he’d said. Francis begged for mercy in the grip of Rowan’s hand. And whatever Rowan said next was just a whisper, but those words unleashed the demon at the heart of him. There was nothing between him and the rage that burned him from the inside. No mask left to hide behind.

“He really beat the shit out of him,” I say to Lark as I glance one final time at our latest text exchange before setting my phone aside. I place a bowl of popcorn between us and pick up Winston to plop the perpetually disgruntled feline on my lap. It’s been six months since I’ve seen Lark, too. In her typical fashion, she was offered a last-minute opportunity to tour with an indie band and seized it, and has been bouncing around from one small town and hipster city venue to the next. And she looks happy for it. Glowing.