“It’s what you love most about me, isn’t it?”

She barked a soft laugh, then grew silent for some time.

At length, he said, “That night.”

“What night?”

“The night you struck me. The night of the severing.”

“Is that how you think of it—a severing?”

“I do now.”

“Whit, when I hit you … It was pure instinct.”

“That’s what made it so terrible.”

She watched him out of the corner of her eye, as if she were unsure whether to face him fully. “Everything we did then was driven by instinct.”

“We were children—at least with each other.”

She took her time digesting this idea. “We didn’t know any better.” Now she turned to him. “Do we now?”

“I think you know the answer to that question.”

“It would be refreshing to hear you say it.”

A small silence settled over them, like a blanket.

*   *   *

After a time, she stirred. She might have shrugged or the tiny movement might have been something else altogether. Either way, she drew infinitesimally closer to him. “I’m tired, Whit,” she said quietly. “I’m tired of hiding, of running. Most especially, I’m tired of … The hate I’ve held on to has curdled my heart.”

He searched her face. “It was as if you were afraid to let go, afraid you’d lose the hatred.”

“That’s because…” she swallowed hard. “Because, you know, I think it came to define me. Because after I was … without you, it’s all I had left of you and me.”

He reached out. “I’m sorry … about everything.” His hand covered hers. “Especially roping you into Red Rover.”

Her dark laugh was infused with infinite sadness. “Red Rover’s been the least of it.” She looked down at their hands, one atop the other. “Whit, there’s something I want … something I need to tell you. It’s about what happened to me a long time ago.”

“You don’t have to, Charlie.”

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t keep protecting me. Just let me talk.”

Afterward, she counted the silence in heartbeats rather than seconds. She had not told the story of her Time Out Of Mind since she had confessed it to the Elf Lord. That was years ago, when she was right out of juvie prison and the wounds were still raw and bleeding. But now she went a step further.

“I learned to fight in juvie,” she said now, almost in a whisper. “‘Fight or die’ was the watch-phrase in that place. It was supposed to be humane in there because we were, you know, kids, but actually it was a hellhole. The population was divided into tribes. That’s SOP in prison, but the two most powerful leaders were sworn enemies. They would’ve torn each other apart if the guards had let them, but that wouldn’t have been any fun. So we had endless running battles, full-scale guerrilla warfare.”