Edmund couldn’t believe what she was saying. “You’re mad. Both of you. You and Tim. Someone just died. I killed them. And you were there too. You saw it. You felt it. You felt our hearts break. There’s no way back from this. There’s no way back from what we did.”

“But what if there was?” Rachel said. “Would you take it?”

“I already said,” Edmund replied. “No! We need to call the police.”

“Ed, think about your life. Think about our lives. Think of all we could attain, think of all the good we could do. We can be assets to society. I’m going to be a psychologist because I want to help people. You and Tim are going to be physicists, running intellectual rings around all of us. Pru’s going to build things we could never dream of and Robert’s going to write things we could never fathom. We will be citizens who give so much.

“And this, this was a terrible thing. But is it really enough to throw that all away? It’d be the world’s loss, her and us.” Hadn’t he thought that exact thing a few minutes ago? “Only one person needs to die out of this, not all of us. And it’ll be hard. It’ll be so hard, Ed, but then, what isn’t? We can still rebuild something for ourselves out of this, and I’m so sorry for her, that she died, but Tim’s right—she was walking along this road without any reflective gear or lights on her. Not all the blame is on you, on us. Some of it lies with her too. And don’t forget about it just because she’s not here to face the music.”

Edmund felt tears gush down his cheeks. And Rachel hugged him again, even harder this time. “You’re one of the greatest people I know, Edmund Sunderland,” she whispered in his ear. “Please, don’t leave me.” And she shifted in his embrace, before kissing him on the lips. And that was that. Edmund was lost to her. She pulled away and ran a finger across Edmund’s cheeks, wiping away the tears. “Okay?”

Edmund still couldn’t speak. He was concentrating on trying not to cry anymore in front of her. He couldn’t understand how she wasn’t. But that’s because she was stronger than him—they always had been, the Claypath twins. They were always people to look up to. And now they were offering a version of the future that didn’t completely unravel. Who would say no? He slowly nodded.

Rachel smiled, against all of the odds. And she held his hand and guided him back to the others. Tim was looking at the woman, and Pru and Robert seemed to be quietly squabbling. They hushed as they saw Rachel and Edmund rejoin them.

“So what’s the plan?” Rachel said.