She must be thinking the same thing, because from the other side of the shower curtain I hear her say, “Okay if I chill in here? You seem pretty rattled.”

“I had the same idea.”

“Jinx, then.”

I rinse my hair out and start on conditioner, proud that I know the next step without having to think about it.

There’s another step I need to take tonight too.

“Hey, Alice?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry. About the Quarry. On some level, I knew you’d go if I wanted to go and I guess I just decided that was okay. I know the dean called your parents, and I can’t imagine what they said. I’m just… sorry for my part in it and sorry that I yelled at you and”—tears well up in my eyes, and my hands are too sudsy to wipe them, damnit—“said those things. That was unfair and wrong.”

Alice sighs. “I’m sorry too. It was my decision to go to the Quarry, not yours. I shouldn’t have jumped on you about your classes and about being here. I was just angry and worried.” A pause. “Which is what I am right now, by the way. Worried on the way to terrified.”

I dunk my head under the faucet. Pull water through my clumpy curls with shaking fingers. Section again, apply shampoo.

“You gonna tell me what happened tonight?”

I knew she’d ask, but the question still rocks me. I have to press both hands against the shower tile to stop the tremors. I’m clean, in the physical sense. But I still feel dirty.

“Bree?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, but the images I’d tried to bury flash by too quickly: the sharp rise of Nick’s chest when William pushed aether into his body; Sel, in a dark, bitter rage, ripping the arms and legs off the dead uchel and throwing them into the woods; the way the hounds’ bodies just… dissolved after a while. The memories threaten to suffocate me, just like the ones from the night my mother died.

“I can’t.”

Another pause. The shampoo runs into my eyes. Stings.

“Trust me. Please?” I ask, so quietly I’m not sure she can hear it over the water. It gets harder to breathe. The hot tears of After-Bree burn behind my eyes.

“Fine.” She doesn’t sound angry, but she leaves without saying goodbye or good night.

The door clicks shut, and that something inside me breaks again. A rush of air leaves my lungs, like I’ve been holding my breath for hours and hours.

Then, my skin bursts into flames.