He turned around, his back immense with power, and walked away.

“Please don’t kill her. Please…she’s all I have.”

He stilled at my words, standing tall with his shoulders back, his hands tightening into fists once more, knuckles turning white.

My breath stopped, my lungs full of hope.

He turned back around, and I had been wrong before; he could look angrier. A lot angrier. “The camp has been rebuilt. She will work every day to earn back every goddamn coin that I lost.” His dark eyes shifted back and forth as he looked into mine, impaling me from front to back. In the darkness, he looked as if he had stepped out of the underworld, his flames invisible because they existed beneath his flesh. “Now, leave—and don’t come back.”

I went to work because I had to.

I’d be homeless if I didn’t.

But I was a worse worker than I had been before, constantly distracted.

Without Raven, the apartment was unbearable. It was inhospitable, like a haunted house filled with spirits that stared at me as I slept. If Raven was condemned to work at the camp for the rest of her life, at least she would live.

But she’d probably rather die.

My only option was to take the road to the camp and try to free her myself.

They would probably expect it and send me packing.

There was no probably, no chance that I would ever succeed.

So, what was I to do? Live here in Paris forever? Go back to America and crash with a friend until I figured out what to do? How would I ever carry this guilt for the rest of my life? How would I ever move on?

Fender’s face had burned in my mind every moment of every day since I’d left.

I’d never forget the way he looked at me.

He hated me.

I did what was necessary to keep my sister and myself alive, but I still felt guilty for what I’d done.

That man loved me…and now he hated me.

My eyes drifted to the window, and I stared at the apartment across the street. My neighbor was in his usual spot, on his laptop at the dining table, living a normal life of work and home…ordinary.

Don’t touch her. Don’t look at her. You know what the boss said.

He already knew I’d burned down the camp with Raven, but he spared me.

When I’d left with Raven, he’d let me go. Goodbye, chérie.

And when Raven burned down his most prized possession…

He didn’t kill her.

He…didn’t kill her.