Chapter Thirty: Feed To Live

The news broke before dawn—sirens, headlines, whispers of more bodies discovered in the alleys. I didn’t need to read the details. I knew. I felt it in the hollow of my chest, in the phantom press of his mouth still bruising me. He had kept his word in the narrowest sense—Marianne was alive, Jamie too—but strangers had bled for my silence.

I couldn’t stay curled under blankets. Fear gnawed, but guilt burned hotter. I brushed my teeth until my gums stung, tied my hair back with shaking hands, and stood at the bottom of the attic ladder listening to the house breathe. The air up there always smelled like dust and rain. Tonight it smelled like decision. My knees wanted to fold. I climbed anyway.

Each rung creaked under my weight. My palms were slick. By the time I slid the hatch back, my pulse was a drum in my ears and the edges of my vision were going dark and bright, dark and bright. Roof, wind, stars. And him—already turned toward me like he had been carved there to wait.

“Theron,” I