“Right,” Pru said. “So what the hell do we do now?”

“We need to find some way of, um, disposing of her,” Tim said unassuredly. Edmund thought once again about how simply these phrases were coming to his friend’s mouth. Maybe there was another side to Tim that no one ever saw. Yes, he always liked a problem to solve, but could that really apply to this incredibly morbid situation too? How bad did the problems have to get before he tapped out?

“Christ, Tim,” Pru said, obviously agreeing with Edmund, “can you say that any less creepily? Like get rid of her, or make her disappear, or... No, you know what—they’re all equally bad.”

Tim didn’t react. “I’m just being real,” he said, in that same cold voice he’d adopted since the crash. “I’m seeing what is in front of us, and I’m thinking about how we can resolve the situation. We can’t turn back the clock. We can’t undo this. It happened, and as a result of our actions—” despite his fear, Edmund felt a kinship to him when he said “our” “—this woman is dead. This woman, who happened to be alive and be on that road at the time our car was too. Our world has changed, whatever happens now. We can never go back to a time before it happened. Nothing we ever do is ever going to make this different. Our world has changed. I’m just trying to make it a little brighter.”

“But what can we do?” Edmund said. “How can we ever be the same again? Because—she’s dead. She’s bloody dead. I did that.” Edmund started to sob again.

“No,” Robert said, his face stony. “We did that. We all did.”

“Let’s go upstairs,” Tim said, “we’ll go in one of the back rooms, get Edmund a drink, and we’ll talk about what happens next.”

Rachel nodded. “We’re not going to get very far when our eyes will always go to her—the body, I mean.”

“This is so crazy,” Pru said. “I’m dreaming, right. This is some messed-up nightmare.”

Edmund was staring at the woman. This picture—the one he was seeing—would be imprinted on his mind forever. Her lying there in front of the fire. Blood starting to clot from the wound on her forehead. Her legs bent out of shape.

“Edmund,” someone was saying. Tim.

He looked around. Everyone was staring at him, looking concerned. They should be bloody concerned. He had—Oh God.

“Edmund,” Tim said again, “let’s go upstairs. Away from all this. And let’s think.”