As was their tradition, my parents always visited their alma mater on their anniversary. And that day, I came with them. I was having doubts about marrying Jackson. We’d had another argument. Always about my job. He hated what I did, had confessed that it frightened him, but I knew I couldn’t not work the cases.

And as I spun my engagement ring around my finger, my fears cresting, my desire to escape mounting, I looked over and right into the strikingly beautiful blue-and-green embers of Kallum’s eyes.

It was only an instant—one suspended moment in time—but something in the universe, in me, altered.

I would later forget about those fleeting seconds when my world fell apart the very next day at the news of my parents’ death. But somewhere in my unconscious, that memory was imprinted.

Kallum uses his index finger to spin the silver ring around his thumb. “It was your laugh that first captured my attention,” he says. “I was spellbound. Then when I saw you, I fucking swear, you upended everything I ever thought I knew or believed. He whom love touches not walks in darkness. It might be arrogant of me”—he flicks his gaze up—“but I would amend Plato’s Symposium to, he whom love touches not walks in darkness alone.”

The ache in the center of my chest becomes almost unbearable. “Kallum, please…”

“Because there will always be darkness,” he continues, undeterred, “there will always be pain, and suffering. But it’s not bearing it alone that makes life endurable. Because of you, I now understand that.”

He rests his forearm on his drawn knee, a vein tics in his neck. “I was addicted from the first sweet, melancholic hit of you. I wanted to keep breathing for the first fucking time in my life. I wanted to walk right up to you, to talk to you⁠—”

“Why didn’t you?” I demand.

“Your ring.” The slight pull of his mouth is almost bitter. “Trust me, I’ve been punished endlessly for my weakness in that moment. I know I failed you, and I’ve been trying to make amends ever since.” The dejection in his tone tightens my chest. “But right then, I thought we had all the time.”

I nod knowingly. “Keep going.”

“When you returned to the campus the next day, as you walked the grounds, retracing your parents’ steps, trying in vain to find the culprit of the hit-and-run, I watched you and your fucking pain choked the goddamn air from my lungs and I knew. Because I could feel you—” He breaks off with a sigh. “The only lie I’ve ever told you is that I never thought of taking a life before you. I have. My own. That’s how I recognized it in you, that same destructive desire. Yours tore through me with such violent force, I had little choice in what I did next.” He tilts his chin up, his eyes darkening. “Out of my fear, the Harbinger was created.”

Unable to hold his eyes, I bow my head, hearing Kallum in the night-cloaked marsh all over again, seeing him look right into my depths, flaying the darkest part of me wide open, as he confessed his fear.

“You want me to believe that, because of your fear that I’d take my own life, you started a killing spree.”

“Not a spree. Three murders. My gift to you,” he says, and my stomach dips. “Performing the ritualistic killings to stave off a future doomsday. An event to wipe out humanity.” His eyes bore into mine. “Your humanity, your life, Halen.”

The truth unfolds like a gruesome crime scene layered with blood, and violence, and twisted shadows.

Unable to stare directly into that vile truth, I turn toward the wet bar, desperate for a drink, an escape.

“More than any light, you needed that darkness to chase.” His voice halts my steps. I keep my back to him as he continues. “You needed a reason to wake up, to keep going, to keep breathing. You needed the hunt. The obsession. And it had to be special, a case worthy of you.” I spin around to meet his eyes. “You needed a villain to punish.”

I shake my head slowly, as if I can make him stop.

But he doesn’t. “To keep you alive, I didn’t just sell my soul, Halen. I became the goddamn devil himself for you.”

Fury gathers my muscles tight. “And in making me an accomplice, I became just as wicked as you.”

His smile is sinful. “What do you think the muse of the devil looks like, sweetness?”

A tremor of fear lifts the fine hairs away from my skin. I will my erratic pulse to calm. “Where is the cufflink?” I demand, more adamant this time. I need this proof—this tangible piece of evidence to know that I haven’t lost my fucking mind. “Tell me, Kallum.”

With deliberate, slow movements, keeping his gaze fused to mine, Kallum brings his left hand to his right. Then he removes the silver ring from his thumb.

I watch, my heart punching through the cage of my chest, as he places the ring on the stone hearth.

The crackling fire is muted beneath the roar in my ears as I carefully hedge toward the gleaming object. I pick up the ring and turn it over in my fingers. The inside of the band is worn, the silver plating dull and faded to reveal the gold hidden beneath.

I’m pulled into my memories, thinking back to my first conversation with Kallum. Standing together on the campus grounds, the setting sun falling behind him, the crisp smell of fall and his woodsy cologne imbuing the air. And I recall, with a startling realization, that he wasn’t wearing the ring.

“I had it melted down before the trial,” he says, answering my unspoken question.

Shaken out of my reverie, I lift my gaze—and my blood runs cold.

Kallum stands before the fire, the handcuffs discarded on the rug. A dangerous current charges the air as he drops a piece of metal to the floor.

“You seem to always forget that I can feel you,” he says, his expression void of emotion. “I felt you outside the institute and the whole way up here. That vortex of conflicting emotions. Thought I might need a few things in my pocket just in case.”

Chest heaving, air escaping too quickly to catch a breath, I take a step backward.

He moves in sync, one daring step toward me. “You know the rule about running⁠—”

“Run fast.” The words have barely left my mouth before I dart in the opposite direction.

The house is dark. The moonlight reflecting off the snow casts the interior in an eerie glow, yet not bright enough to light my path through the hallways. I use the wall as my guide and dash into a room, immediately slamming the door shut behind me.

Kallum catches the corner of the panel. I retreat as he throws the door wide. He advances on me, his steps eating the small span of distance in three long strides.

We’ve been here before.

Only this time, there’s no monitor wrapping his ankle. No agents to burst into the room.

No one to stop him.

My back flattens to the wall, and Kallum pushes into my space until he’s towering over me. He secures my wrists and pins my hands above my head. His nostrils flare as he traps me in his heated, predatory gaze.

His mouth descends on mine, kissing me with bruising demand, before he breaks away. “You want the truth so badly, yet you’re always running from it, little Halen. That sweet, sweet fear so goddamn tantalizing.” His claim is delivered in a low, deadly tone to rattle my heart.

Pulse crashing against my veins, I breathe heavily through my nose. “You let Emmons attack me,” I accuse around a ragged breath. “Just like Landry, when you watched him strangle me.”

He presses his ring into my palm. The scar flares hot at the feel of him closing my fingers around the cool object. “Every time, you get a little closer to unlocking that truth.”

“Just tell me the truth—” I shout. The threat of angry tears stings behind my eyes. There’s still one piece missing—the final connection that needs to be made—and Kallum is the only one who can give me that. “Why don’t I regret killing Wellington?” I hold his lethal stare. “Even now? Why? Am I a fucking monster?”