And now she’s fleeing Pastoral, a bullet inside her, and I might never see her again.
I should turn away from Levi and run into the trees toward the farmhouse, toward the road—I could still catch up to them if I go now. But Levi moves swiftly, stepping forward, and he grabs both my arms, as if he senses my urge to bolt. My muscles stiffen at his touch, recoiling, when days ago I would have softened in his arms, sunk closer. Pressed my skin to his.
But not now.
He pushes me back against the wall of the garden shed—my spine digging into the horizontal logs. The gash along my temple throbs, blood hardened like a shell on my skin. I know I’m outweighed, and he leans into me, breathing into my hair, yet I can’t tell if he’s going to bend close and kiss me or wrap his hands around my throat and push the life clean out of me.
“I could have killed her when she first arrived—Maggie St. James. I could have killed Travis too. I could have done it and no one would have known.” He makes a sound through his throat. “But I couldn’t allow the others to see that an outsider had passed through our forest without catching the pox, so I made them forget.” He says this as if he is merciful, as if he has done a good thing. A man with a moral compass. “I barely had to push them together—Travis and Maggie. I gave them a few memories, and soon they believed everything. You all did. You wanted to believe the world I created for you.” He deepens the pressure against my throat, his eyes widening. “The mind is a weak, pliable thing, so loose and full of holes, easily manipulated. You wanted to believe Calla and Theo had been here all along, since the beginning.” He stops and brushes a strand of hair away from my eyes. “Sometimes I wonder how far it could go. What I could make you believe.”
I turn my face away from him, disgusted, afraid. “Like tricking me into loving you,” I say.
“If I wanted to, maybe.”
It wasn’t only the hypnosis that made us all believe, it was him. Levi had a way of convincing us, cajoling us with his words—he told stories that we wanted to believe. We were the dumbest of sheep, following a monster toward the carving knife.
I squirm away from his arms, but he presses tighter against me, his mouth only a few inches from mine. “But instead, I’ll use you to help the others believe my story. I will tell them that you became sick, infected with the pox, just like Ash and Turk. I will tell them how you tried to leave with Colette and the baby, how you went into the trees. You died quickly, before the ceremony could be performed, so I buried you in the cemetery. A kindness, really. And the others will know without question that they cannot leave; they will know how dangerous it is inside our woods. Your death will make them understand, once and for all.”
He slides a hand up my stomach, where our child grows inside me, pausing there, as if he could feel the life against his palm. But then he lifts his hand to my chest, to my throat, his eyes following the movements, savoring each moment, each final breath I take. “You always were my favorite,” he says. “I always did love you, even when we were kids.” His fingers slip easily around my neck, feeling the pulse beating there, the blood pumping through me. Keeping our child alive.
“No, Levi,” I mutter, struggling to find my voice. “You’ll kill our baby too.”
His eyes harden for a moment, lips puckered together. “I will make you both martyrs,” he says. “I will sacrifice your lives to save the others.” Some part of him has always feared me, feared that someday I would remember, that my sight would return—that I would tell the others what he’s done, who he really is. He was afraid he’d lose control. And now he’s taking it back.
Without blinking, he presses his palm against my throat, flesh against flesh, fingers pinching into my vocal cords, and he squeezes.
It only takes a few seconds for my lungs to burn. For my body to start fighting it, convulsing against his weight, struggling for air. For just one more gulp.
“You don’t need to feel any pain,” he coos softly, using the voice I remember now—the soothing tenor of his words spilling into my ears, becoming truth. The voice he uses to hypnotize, to get what he wants. But I wince away from it: I don’t want his words inside me, slick with lies. My fingers claw at his chest, his neck, trying to push him off, but the world has gone dizzy, flecked with little sparks of light.
Fear flames up inside me, burning away the hurt and the pain until there is only terror.
I drop my hands—remembering—and my fingers search for something I know is there, tucked into the waistband of my dress. I find it easily, the hard wood handle, the smooth weight of it, and I pull it free, tightening my grip around the base of the knife. I try to swallow, to summon what strength I have left—while the pressure of Levi’s hands deepens against my throat—and I thrust the knife forward.
The blade sinks through fabric, through flesh, down into the soft place of his torso.
Warmth seeps over my hand.
Time slows, stretches outward. Levi’s eyes go wide, a quick expansion of his pupils before they narrow to pinpricks.
His hands release from my throat, a sudden giving way of pressure, and he staggers back, his mouth hanging open, fingers twitching in front of him in shock. I cough, sucking in gulps of air, but I don’t let myself sink to the ground, I don’t let my legs give out. I take a step forward and wrap my hand around the handle of the knife once again, keeping Levi from pulling it out. My eyes settle on the small scar along his chin, the scar I’ve touched and kissed ever since we were teenagers, and I think: I will give you another scar. One you won’t heal from. And I press the blade in deeper, watching as he winces away from the motion.