“Thanks,” I tell him, my voice solemn. I walk through clouds of heat to the front door and pull it open. I feel weighted and worthless and adrift. A Walker who doesn’t know what she should do next. Who to trust.

Before I can escape out into the cold, Mr. Perkins clears his throat, now standing behind me. “A moth follows you,” he says.

My eyes lift to see a white bone moth skimming along the porch roof.

My heart stills in my chest—afraid to move.

“I’ve seen it many times now,” I say softly, the cold cutting through me. The truth I can’t avoid.

“And you know what it means?” he asks from the doorway.

My jaw clenches, and when I open my mouth to speak, I feel the stiff edge along each word. “Death is coming.”

Mr. Perkins’s hands begin to tremble again. “It means you don’t have much time.”

I swallow and look back at him, his expression grim, as if I were the one who was closer to death, not him. A sharp chill settled in the air between us.

“Be careful,” he says at last, turning his gaze to the fireplace—nothing else to be said. That could be said. My fate already decided.

Death is coming for me.

I watch the moth wheel away into the forest beyond Mr. Perkins’s home, vanishing into the rays of sunlight peeking through the dense trees. “Leave me alone,” I hiss up at it, but it’s already gone.

Death lingers. Death is already here.

OLIVER

The pocket watch is gone from my coat.

Nora found it. She knows.

I stand at the window, my heart caving in, and I know nothing will be the same now. She fled the house. Escaped into the dull morning light. And I lied to her. Told her I didn’t know how Max died, didn’t remember. But I had his watch in my pocket.

And she’ll never trust me again.

The wolf is gone too, and when I walk downstairs, Suzy is still passed out on the couch, snoring softly, muttering to herself. I leave through the front door, because I don’t belong here. Not now. Maybe I never did—only fooled myself into believing it. Fooled myself into thinking I could sleep in her home, in the loft, the scent of her pillows like jasmine and rainwater, the feeling of her hand in mine. That I could stay and my memories wouldn’t find me. I could stay and the dark would be kept at bay. Always the dark. Knocking at my skull, finding a way in.

Nora’s footprints pass through the trees, a trail in the snow. But I don’t follow.