I almost stepped into the light and gave him the answer. I’m you. If I came at him, he’d know who was taking away his world. Before he died, he’d look into my eyes and see the truth. I tightened my grip around the knife handle, feeling it slip in my sweaty fingers. My mouth was dry with desire for what this man had. My legs tensed, ready to move.

But I couldn’t do it. This wasn’t me.

I was trying to take things that belonged to someone else. I’d lost my Karly; he’d kept his. I’d waited to have a child with her; he’d said yes. I could take those things for myself, but in the end, they still wouldn’t be mine. I hadn’t earned them, and this man had. He deserved to keep them, not to have them ripped away by a stranger. I couldn’t steal his life.

I stayed in the tunnel, where I was invisible. The silence between us dragged out.

“It doesn’t matter who I am,” I told him finally. “Go home. Get out of here. Go home to Karly. Go home to your little girl.”

He backed away, unsure whether this was a trick. I stayed in the darkness without moving, watching my one chance at happiness leave me behind. When Dylan got to the top of the slope, he turned his back on me. I knew he would run now, disappearing into the park.

“Dylan,” I called after him sharply.

He stopped, although he was far enough away that I wasn’t a threat anymore. “What is it?”

“Not that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t go through the park. Stay on the street. If you never want to see me again, stay out of the park at night.”

There was something in the sound of my voice that convinced him. He went the other way. He clambered up the grass away from the trail, and when he was out of sight, he ran. I heard his footsteps pounding above me, as he joined the lights and traffic and people on the street.

He was safe. He’d make it home now.

My grief tasted bitter in my mouth. I felt hollowed out inside. I’d come a long way and ended up back where I started, with nothing to show for the journey. The guilt, the loss, the shame, all distracted me. I wasn’t thinking about where I was, or the darkness of the tunnel that had been lit up when I came this way before. I’d missed the clues I should have seen immediately. I’d forgotten why I was in this world.

I turned around and saw my own shadow.

He buried a knife in my stomach.

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 32