In the distance, I could hear the giants’ shouts as they searched for us. I just hoped they would focus on this side of the island and not the front, where Bria and Xavier would be coming in any minute now. I pulled my cell phone off my belt, intending to text my sister about the new danger, but the moonlight filtering down through the trees revealed a bullet hole in the middle of the device. I bit back a curse and clipped the phone to my belt once more, even though it was useless now. Bria and Xavier were on their own—just like Owen and me.

A minute passed. Then two. Then five.

All the while, the giants swarmed through the gardens, yelling back and forth to one another.

“Where are they?”

“Do you see them?”

“Where did they go?”

Every once in a while, the bright beam of a flashlight would cut across the foliage above our heads, making Owen and me duck down further in the shadows. But the briars made the giants keep their distance, and they didn’t find us.

Eventually, the sounds of their shouts died away altogether, along with the beams of light, and I relaxed. The danger had passed us by—for now.

Finally, Owen spoke, his voice a hard, flat note against the cheery chirp of the crickets in the underbrush. “Jillian’s dead.”

“Yes,” I said. “She is.”

Still keeping watch for the giants, I told him about Clementine sidling up to me first in the rotunda and then later on in the bathroom. I also told him how she had left and Jillian had come in, although I didn’t mention that we’d talked about him.

“Jillian never had a chance,” I said. “Dixon was waiting for her as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom. I don’t know if I would have had a chance to react either.”

Owen’s gaze dropped to my dress. The designer gown was a tattered, ruined, ragged mess, stained with blood, soaked with sweat, and scorched with black bullet holes. His mouth tightened, and he rubbed his forehead. No doubt he was thinking about Jillian and the fact that she was dead because of me.

I wondered if he was still thinking about Salina and how she was also dead because of me—by my own hand, no less.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a quiet voice. “About Jillian. She didn’t deserve to die like that.”

Owen looked away from me. “Me too. She was a friend.”

I wanted to ask if that was all she had been, but I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. I dropped my gaze from Owen, and both of us concentrated on the thorns around us instead of staring at each other. We were both silent until he finally cleared his throat.