Rhett follows my movements, and for a moment he looks like he might come after me, grab my arm and pull me back into the cemetery. Like I am just the thing he needs to occupy his buzzed mind.

So I hurry through the snow, around the lake, until I can no longer see them through the blowing wind, and I swear I can hear my heart break—the fizz and crack of it.

I stop when I’m almost to the marina and press my hands to my eyes to keep the tears from coming. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.

This isn’t how the story ends.

A deep scar is branding itself inside me—a place that will scab over but never heal. I hold in a breath, I hold it until my chest aches, until my lungs burn for a fresh gulp of air. The storm thrashes overhead and I exhale, long and deep, a chill shuttling down my spine, tucking itself firmly between each rib bone. I’ve always been afraid I wasn’t a real Walker. Afraid I would end up like my mom, cynical and scared of what she is. I always thought I wanted to be alone, alone in these woods. Where I can’t get hurt, where no one can call me moon girl and winter witch and wild.

But I was wrong. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want sleep in my room in the dark and never feel Oliver’s hands on my skin again. I don’t want a life without people in it. Without Oliver. Without my heart rapping wildly inside my chest and knowing someone else’s is doing the same thing.

My life feels spare and thin without it.

I am a Walker who found her nightshade. I am a Walker who wants to be called more than a witch. More than a girl who is feared. I want to be a Walker who can trust her heart, who will chase down this feeling welling up inside me every chance I get. I want to be loved.

Loved.

Loved.

Loved.

Recklessly, foolishly. Without reason or caution or always looking for ways to ruin it.

I want him.

I drop my hands from my eyes and take a step back toward the cemetery, back through the storm. Because I don’t have a choice. Because I have to drag him away and keep him safe and not let him drown. Whether he remembers me or not, I won’t give up on him. Because I am a Walker. And my story doesn’t end like this.

But I only make it a few steps, I only blink once, when I see someone moving up the shore, through the blizzard—an illusion. A boy.

I blink again.

Him.

I stop and a humming begins in my skull.

Doubt and fear make nests beneath my skin. I want to cry.