Fury ignites in my chest. “Maybe you even believe that,” I say, shouldering past him. “I need to call this in—”

As I take off in search of my phone, he grabs my wrist. “You asked me to charge a sigil on your body, Halen.” The conviction in his voice draws my gaze to his. “I put it right here.” He grazes the pad of his finger along the curve of my shoulder and neck. Right over the bite mark.

My chest rises and falls in frantic rhythm to the fierce drumming of my heart. “Your delusions have escalated.” But even as the accusation hits the air, the images are taking shape in the dark hollow of my mind.

I shake my head, trying to force the imagery out. “You drugged me,” I accuse, pointing to the discarded wine bottle. “You…somehow planted this absurd false memory in my head. You’ve done something to me.”

Only the sharply filed pieces of the puzzle won’t stop snapping together. They form so quickly, coming together to create a terrifying and morbid picture I can never unsee.

Kallum keeps hold of my wrist, his fingers pressed to my pulse point. “This happened to you, Halen. I was there.”

My mind tunnels as the vision overlays the dark world around me. From a grainy black-and-white film, to a crisp, full-color motion picture with surround sound, it plays back in cruel clarity.

I swallow the acid burning my throat. “There’s something missing,” I say, my voice quivering.

“But you remember enough.”

Glancing at my hand, I envision the tool from Wellington’s car. The lug wrench from the backseat.

As the world tilts, I find Kallum’s clashing eyes. This isn’t real.

He lifts his chin, the contours of his face cut in serious edges. “I’d never seen a more beautiful creature. All fury and frenzy and passion.”

“But how?” I demand. “How could you see me?”

“I’m the one who helped you stage the scene.”

The flash of memory attacks. The blood on Kallum’s hands. I blink it back, and the images flicker between the cuts he administered tonight and the red staining his palms in the dark…after he severed the head.

“Oh, god.” I touch my forehead. My head is splitting in two.

Stomach roiling, I squeeze my eyes closed and wrap an arm around my waist, as if I can stave off the sickness.

“No. No. ” I repeat the word, not believing my own mind. Everything is off. This is a dream. A goddamn nightmare . I bled tonight. I was bleeding , even though a doctor told me I never would again. “This isn’t happening.”

“What happened that day, Halen? The day you left the crime scene?”

His question reaches beyond the bounds of my anxiety and plucks the memory from the furrow of my psyche.

“What happened on that day in particular,” Kallum continues, “to make you get in your car and drive twenty minutes away from your case and attack a stranger?”

The calming cadence of his voice centers me, and it feels like he’s waited a long time to ask me this.

Despite my reflexive impulse to deny the allegation, I think back to that moment in time.

I was buried in the Harbinger case. I was breathing it. Delving deep. Because the alternative was to suffer the debilitating guilt of not visiting my parents’ gravesite on the anniversary of their death.

But it had only been four months since I lost Jackson. And I was more alone on that day…more heartsick than at his funeral. I was raw. Bitter. Angry. And I couldn’t escape. Everything was a reminder of what had been stolen.

Their alma mater was only a short drive away. I remember I had thought… I could visit their college, at least. That would be less painful than seeing their graves. They had met at a concert—a Van Halen show—and then discovered they’d been attending the same school for three years. That was their story. Their meet cute. The reason for my name.

I had thought of driving to the university—but I never went. I remember the gnawing guilt because I was relieved to be buried in the high-profile case.

Then the next day, I got the call about the Cambridge murder. A scene that would forever taint my memories of my parents and embolden me to take the stand against the murderer.

The memory is faded and fuzzy around the edges. I blink it away, finding Kallum’s eyes. I shake my head, refusing to play into his psychosis.

“I didn’t drive anywhere,” I tell him, controlling the tremble of my voice.

A wisp of something dark and violent fumes in his eyes. “You lie so pretty, sweetness.”

A chill coasts my skin, but then he draws me close to him. Despite the panic still flaring within me, I don’t fight. His body heat is real, and it shields me from the frigid early morning, where I fear the daybreak more than the darkness.

He touches my face, gently stroking his thumb along my jaw. “You killed a man,” he says, his terrifying words clashing with the comfort of his touch. “And then we staged the scene to look like the Harbinger murders. It was your idea. Out of fear or guilt or desperation, you pleaded to forget. I knew how to help you forget.” He releases a heavy breath, his gaze absorbing me, his hands clasping my face. “Come back to me, Halen.”

A collage of memories assault my mind, dragging me back down to the abyss…and I break out of his hold.

“I can’t…” I swallow down the bile coating my throat. “This is…no.”

I look at the dead suspect as a fresh wave of panic rises. “I have to call this in. I have to contact Alister.” I lift my gaze to Kallum, my next words dredged from my soul. “And I don’t know what the hell is happening to me, but I have to report this, too.”

“No.” Kallum issues the command with flashing eyes. “I didn’t serve six months in a goddamn insane asylum for you to do that now.”

I pull the robe tighter around me. My skin flames and pulses with every scrape, bruise, cut, and bite. I’m a walking map of evidence—evidence of Kallum and I together.

“Why would you?” I ask him, incredulous. Confusion draws my brows together. “God, if you believe this, why wouldn’t you tell anyone? That, right there, raises every doubt, Kallum.”

He lifts his chin defiantly. “I wanted to protect you,” he says, then he gingerly touches the sigil inked on his chest. “I had to trust that, if my will brought you to me the first time, it would bring you back. I had to have faith in the course. No matter where it led.”

A startled laugh falls from my mouth. “That is insane. You’re insane.”

A snap of anger tightens his jaw. “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” He stalks right up to me and clasps my face. “You brought me the music, little Halen, my beautiful muse. And now you hear it, too.”

I latch on to his wrists. “No Nietzscheism is going to explain away this madness.”

He refuses to release me, and panic wells in my chest. Heart slamming my rib cage, I push against his shoulders until he finally relents.

Crossing his arms over his bare chest, he says, “I did what you asked of me. Against my own greedy, selfish nature that wanted to keep you for myself, because—for the first time in my goddamn life—I felt pain. Your pain.” He eats the distance between us; I can’t escape him. “I cut my finger and drew the sigil right here.” He traces a design over the delicate junction of my neck. “Blood is a very personal charging method. But it was your will to forget.”

I rake my dirty nails through my hair. “This is insanity,” I whisper to myself. “What you’re describing is a psychotic break.”

“Call it what you want, Halen. The terminology doesn’t change the facts.”

I look down at the dead body, then stare at the fire pit, where only the pulsing embers remain. The marsh is growing darker.

Darkest before the light.

Reaching for some rational thought, I march to the wine bottle and grab it off the ground, then pick up any evidence I see as I head toward the table. I snatch my bag and push everything inside.