“Let’s go through a drive-thru or something and get a coffee,” Chasm suggests as he meets Kimber in the hallway after class. “Dakota can catch a ride with Maxx, so we can have some peace.” He lets a warm, inviting smile slide across his lips, and I feel myself shifting uncomfortably.

“I’d like that Chas,” she offers up, returning his smile with one of her own. Hers is about as false as his, tinted with melancholy and pain, but neither of them acknowledges the other’s performance. Instead, Chasm walks me outside where X is already waiting outside of his orange Jeep Gladiator, arms crossed over his chest, his mouth turned down in a deep frown. Not unsurprising, considering the way the two of us spent our morning.

Anyway, I’m just glad that I managed to convince Chas to let me go with X to the house; I appreciate the boys’ help, but this whole situation very clearly rests on me and my ability to perform the Slayer’s wishes. Chas can’t save me from everything, and poking around a vacation home near a lake isn’t a big ask.

He grabs my arm just before I peel away from him and Kimber.

“Be careful, Little Sister. Don’t get yourself into trouble.” Chasm releases me, but I can’t respond with Kimber stepping closer to listen, so I just nod and move over to X instead.

He opens my door for me before climbing in, that stupid podcast playing as he turns the car on. I very quickly turn the volume down to zero.

“How was school today?” he asks, his voice tight and strained. We both know why, but there’s no point in talking about it. We did what we had to do; Parrish will be unchained from the bed and given a chance to shower. What next? What the actual fuck are we going to have to do to buy more time?

“I was jumped again this morning,” I offer up, and Maxx slams on the brakes at the gate so hard that I almost go flying, bracing myself against the dash with my right hand. I glance over to see him staring at me. “Keep driving, please.”

With an even sharper frown, he does, taking off out the gate and onto the road.

“What do you mean by ‘jumped’?” he clarifies. Dressed in a black wifebeater and jeans, Maxx looks … really, really fucking good. I make myself not notice any of it and turn back to look out the windshield. My mind drifts to my sister as it always seems to do in every single freaking down moment that I have. If I didn’t have so many balls up in the air right now, I’d be obsessing about it.

“A bunch of girls tried to throw me off the third floor of the parking garage,” I explain as calmly as I can, trying and failing to not be afraid of that statement. Would they have actually hurt me or was it all for show? I have no idea. It shouldn’t be a hard question to ask, should it?

“Are you fucking kidding me?” X growls out, his voice darkening in the way it did when he was worried about me trying to pull one over on the Vanguards. A protective streak. For me. I bite my lower lip and then find myself even more annoyed because I’m doing it.

“Lumen’s got them on the attack, apparently,” I explain. I didn’t see her or Danyella once today, but that’s the only explanation that I have. Why else would they come after me so suddenly and so aggressively? The whole school now knows that one, I set the fire. And two, that Parrish and I slept together the night before he went missing.

A rumor that only Danyella or Lumen could spread.

Gods help me if they learn about the car situation, too.

“This is getting dangerous, Kota,” X tells me, his expression grim as he stares out the window. Rain begins to fall, spattering gently against the windshield as Maxx flicks on the wipers. “Parrish is important, but so are you.”

“What does that even mean?” I ask him, glancing over to see him clenching his jaw.

“It means that you need to be more careful.” He gets that sort of, like, dad voice or whatever the hell it is on again.

“You’re nineteen, not ninety. You’re supposed to my ally, not my parent. Chill out.” I turn back to the windshield, but if Maxx is that worried, and Chasm is that worried, I should probably be worried, too, shouldn’t I?

He grits his teeth at me but decides to keep the rest of his thoughts to himself.

“Let’s do the lake house first,” I suggest, and he nods, heading in that direction.

More specifically, we drive to the skatepark I’ve pulled up on my phone’s GPS. I can see why Chasm wasn’t aware of it. It might be close to his property, but it’s in a completely different direction than anyone would normally drive if they were heading to Whitehall or Medina proper. It’s off the main road, buried in a small neighborhood at the edge of the woods.

As Maxx pulls up to the curb beside the park, I look out the window and catch sight of the house with the wind chimes.

“Holy shit,” I breathe, staring at the home across the way before turning back to the park. “I was here that night. I was …” The words die off as I stare at the scene out the window and wonder why I didn’t think to look this up before. If I had, and I’d known that my dream wasn’t really a dream at all, how different would things have been? Would Parrish be safe? Would he be here with us even now?

“Kota.” Maxx’s soft voice draws my attention back over to him. He’s watching me, his face drawn up with genuine concern. I try not to notice how muscular his arms are and fail miserably. The entire cab of that car is permeated with his scent, that fresh grass and drinks-by-the-pool smell that makes me fidgety. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“I’m not,” I protest, but then that weird urge to tell Maxx the truth grabs hold of me and refuses to let go. “But how can I not? I mean, I woke up in the woods and didn’t think twice about it. X, I was here. I was at this park. If I’d pulled up a map on my phone at any point and searched for a skatepark nearby, I might’ve been able to answer my own questions.”

“Why would that be your first conclusion? You said your pajamas were clean when you woke up,” he explains calmly, and that’s when it occurs to me how strange that scenario was in regards to my clothing.

So … someone stripped my pj’s down after and replaced them with an identical pair?

Or else they washed them, and then redressed me. Either scenario is, quite frankly, horrifying.

“Figuring this insanity out,” X continues, circling his finger around. “Isn’t something any normal person would ever be able to do.”

He’s right. I know that. But it doesn’t make it any easier to accept. Guilt sweeps over me as we make the drive to Chasm’s lake house. He’s given us the code to get in the front door, but we can only do that if the place is unoccupied.

When we first pull into the circular gravel driveway, it appears to be. There aren’t any other cars parked there, and all of the lights are off. Maxx pulls up to the house and then leans his forearms on the steering wheel, his mouth downturned in thought.

“Do we go in?” he asks, glancing over at me. “The chances of Parrish being in there are pretty slim. You’d think Chasm would know if his house had a wine cellar in it.”

“We have to go in,” I tell him, aching and wanting so badly for Parrish to be inside this building. It can’t be that easy, I know, but I also can’t stop myself from hoping so hard that my chest aches. “We’ll make it quick.”

I climb out and Maxx follows, catching up to me and grabbing me by the upper arm in a similar way to how he did in the parking garage this morning. I look down at his hand before lifting my gaze to his face. His expressions are always open and honest, even when they’re brutal.

The look on his face now is the same way: determined, resolute, immovable.

“We can go in there together, but if something bad happens, I want you to run.”

I give him a look, dropping my gaze to his hand where it’s wrapped around my arm again. Chasm’s words come filtering back to me. Stop touching me. I’d say that to Maxx right now, if the words weren’t also an admission of something else.

Of interest.

It hits me hard and fast then, something that I’ve known all along but that I didn’t care to admit to myself.

I have a crush on Maxx Wright.

I have a crush on my sister’s boyfriend.

Reaching out with my left hand—but careful to avoid my broken fingers—I extricate X’s grip from my arm in a manner similar to the one he used on me at the café. I go still with my three good fingers on his skin, heat pulsing through me.

The way he looked at me in the bathroom, with wide eyes and an impossible expression on his handsome face. Is he … is he feeling the same way right now?

Our eyes meet as X cautiously extracts his hand from mine.

“I can be dense sometimes,” I admit, and he gives me a strange look before hooking one of those all-American smiles of his.

“I highly doubt that. If anything, you’re too smart for your own good. Maybe you just overthink things?” he offers, looking up at the house. I’m not keen on the idea of going in there with some unknown guest supposedly in residence, but it’s too big of a clue to look past.

The skatepark is nearby. The woods are familiar. Chasm’s father knew (knows?) my bio dad.

Shaking out my hands, I start for the front door, rolling my eyes a bit as X takes the lead. If it makes him feel better, I’ll let him do it. He’s bigger and stronger than me anyway, particularly with the broken fingers, nose, and myriad bruises I’m sporting currently.

X pounds his fist on the door like a cop or something.

“Is there anyone in there?” he calls out, raising his voice enough that it echoes around the quiet, wooded property. Birds trill, and insects buzz, but those are the only sounds beside the gentle patter of the rain as it starts up again. I scoot closer to Maxx beneath the safety of the awning as he tries again. “If you’re inside, just let us know. We’re coming in.”

He punches in the door code and opens the door.

An unfamiliar living room stretches before us. The house itself has a Pacific Northwest vibe: lots of raw wood, cool colors, and stone elements. But the furniture is decidedly modern, very mid-century and out of place. It’s fancy as hell, too, all that white leather and glass.

Last time I was here, I came in the side door, so I didn’t get a great view of the house.

Everything looks normal though, like you’d expect a freshly made-up vacation rental would look. There’s a binder on the coffee table that I flick open with a single finger, noticing laminated pages filled with information about local hiking trails, restaurants, and activities.

There are no coats on the coatrack, no shoes tucked beside the front door. The kitchen is clean, the sink free of dishes, and the back door is locked. X moves with pure confidence, lacking any scrap of the anxiety that pumps through my blood like poison.

He moves like the world is his to conquer, like he doesn’t owe anyone a damn thing. Make space for yourself. That’s what he told me at the waterfall. He isn’t worried about what might happen if someone stumbles on us here, not in the way that I am anyway. His only concern is our actual safety, but here I am wondering what I’d say to Chasm’s father’s friend if they were to show up unexpectedly. I’m worried about awkward social interactions.

Annoying. Get it together, Dakota.

I follow Maxx up the stairs, catching a glimpse of those family photos in the hallway that I took note of before, the ones of little Kwang-seon with his grandmother. Too cute. We head up, past the potted plant I knocked over last time, and make quick work of the bedrooms. The beds are made, the bathrooms have freshly folded towels on the counters, and the only thing in the entire house that catches my attention is … a white rabbit.

“What the hell?” Maxx asks as he opens the last door at the end of the upstairs hallway. The bunny is in a relatively small cage atop a chest of drawers that sits against the far wall. It looks at us with pretty pink eyes as we step into the room together.

“I take it that Chasm’s family doesn’t keep pets in their rental houses?” I query as Maxx turns a perplexed look in my direction.

“Seamus hates animals. He told me once that he thinks companion animals are better off dead than living as slaves.” X turns back to the bunny as I cringe inwardly. Yikes. Chas’s dad is batshit, isn’t he? “So, no, I don’t think this is his bunny.”

My phone—and not my Tess-phone mind you—buzzes in my blazer, and my eyes go wide. I slip it from my pocket and unlock the screen with my thumb, my eyes narrowing as I remember Maxx grabbing my hand and forcing it against the phone screen. Asshole.

I stare down at the text, but it takes my mind a minute to decipher the words there.

Princess, you are more than I ever could’ve imagined. I’m so proud of you. You’ve made great strides in the last few weeks. Now, you are not to leave the cabin until a bunny lies dead at the bottom of that cage.

X reads the words over my shoulder and starts cursing immediately.

“Shit,” he breathes, lacing his fingers together behind his head. “He wants us to kill the rabbit.”

I lift my head up from the phone to stare at the tiny, innocent animal twitching its whiskers at me from inside the cage. It doesn’t appear to be frightened, more curious than anything else. My stomach twists into impossible knots and my head spins with the implications of that text.

You are not to leave the cabin … until a bunny lies dead at the bottom of that cage.

So many things come crashing down on me all at once, and I end up sitting down on the edge of the bed, the phone still clutched in my right hand.

Spoiler alert: I’m not murdering a fucking bunny.

It feels like … like I’m being primed for something so much bigger than this, and I don’t like it. I don’t like that, this very morning, I let my anger get the better of me and gave into the rage I was feeling. Yes, the cars needed to be destroyed in order to protect Parrish, but did I have to do it with gusto? Did I have to take Mr. Volli’s bait and chuck the plan Maxx, Chasm, and I came up with right out the freaking window?

“I can’t kill a bunny,” I whisper, looking up at Maxx. “I can’t kill anything or anyone. I just can’t do something like that.”

X stares down at me with that gorgeous emerald gaze of his, the color similar to freshly budding sprouts or leaves in spring, alive and vibrant and brimming. He turns his attention to the cage before moving over to unlock it.

I find myself shooting to my feet, still squeezing the phone in my right hand.

“I don’t want you to do it either,” I blurt out as he collects the small, furry creature in gentle hands and holds it against his chest. Maxx strokes his right hand over the rabbit’s ears, flattening them against its delicate skull. It’d be quick, and easy, to end the bunny’s life. In the scheme of things, it wouldn’t exactly stop the world from spinning.

But it would change my world entirely. It would end the bunny’s. It would cause a seismic shift in someone as kind as Maxx.

“What do you want to do then?” he asks me, carefully stroking the rabbit’s head as he watches me. I start to pace, lifting the phone to my lips and tapping it against my mouth.

If it came down to it, between Parrish and the rabbit, of course I’d choose him.

But I really, really don’t want to have to do that. If I give up everything about myself in the pursuit of Parrish, then there won’t be anything of Dakota Banks left to give him when he comes back. I’ll have sacrificed myself in exchange for him.

That isn’t the Slayer’s goal though, is it? He’s mentioned more than once that I need to ask for the things I want, that I think too much about others and not enough about myself.

“The text is worded in just such a way to put distance myself and the actual act of killing.”

Maxx raises his brows as I continue to pace, mulling the words over in my head.

“Until a bunny lies dead at the bottom of that cage,” I breathe, looking up at Maxx again. “So we just need a dead bunny to put inside the cage, right?”

“Without you ever having left the cabin,” X clarifies, thinking on the subject for a minute. “But how do we get a dead bunny without killing one? Isn’t the result the same either way?”

“Not really,” I argue, shooting a quick text over to Chasm. “There are certain lines that should never be crossed; this is one of them.” I look back up at X, but he doesn’t seem convinced. “Pet stores sell frozen rabbits for captive snakes. If Chas can bring us one of those, we’re golden. There’s a bunny lying dead in the bottom of the cage, just as I was instructed. It isn’t my fault if the Slayer isn’t more careful with his words.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Maxx queries, staring down at the bunny. I can see it in his face, that strange, twisted morality that Chasm mentioned. If I don’t convince him right here and now, he will snap that rabbit’s neck to save Parrish. I’m not sure how I feel about that. “Parrish dies because of a bunny.”

“Parrish will not die over this,” I confirm, feeling some of my self-confidence and control come back. These last few weeks have been … gods, they’ve been awful, but I can’t let myself get lost in the minutiae. I have to remember why I’m doing this. A response comes from Chasm almost immediately.

I’ll be there in thirty or less.

“Let’s check out the rest of the house; I’d never forgive myself if I found out we were walking on top of Parrish this whole time.” I take the bunny from Maxx’s arms and cuddle it close while he watches me. I can see that he’s torn on this. He wants to trust me, but he doesn’t know if it’s worth the risk.

To be fair, if he’s right and I’m wrong, the consequences are unimaginable.

“Okay, Kota,” he says finally, and I heave a sigh of relief. He reaches up a hand, like he’s about to tuck some lime-green hair behind my ear and then redirects his course at the last minute, giving the rabbit a scratch behind the ears instead.

The bunny’s presence in this house gives us a much-needed clue.

The Slayer—or his minion, Amin Volli—was here.

So is the Slayer the houseguest that Chasm’s father mentioned? I look around the carefully made-up room as chills creep up my spine like a ghost’s wicked cold fingers. Was he in here, my bio dad? Did he sleep in this bed? Did he walk these halls?

With a shake of my head, I push away the thought and put the bunny back in its cage. Maxx is already at the closet, tearing things out and throwing them on the floor. I give him a look.

“Clearly, the guest that was staying here is gone or else the Slayer is the guest,” he tells me, almost apologetically. “He can clean up the fucking mess.” X doesn’t alter his course, tearing apart the room. But he has a good point.

I move into the next room and do the same, checking under the bed, in the closet, opening the attic access in the hallway and climbing up to peer inside.

There doesn’t appear to be a basement to this house or anything else that might have stone walls and bottles of wine lined up in careful order on wooden racks. We search the house together, and then Maxx scouts the yard while I watch from a window, so as not to violate the specifics of the Slayer’s order. He moves back inside just in time for Chasm to show up.

He’s got a plastic bag in one hand, a frown on his pretty lips.

“Kimber’s in the car,” he says, lifting up the bag as I move over to take it from him. Our eyes meet and my breath releases in a rush. There’s so much tension between us, it feels like the world might snap on the fine, thin length of that garrote. “We grabbed a coffee and headed straight to the pet store; I told her Maxx was bringing home a bunny.”

“I’m assuming she doesn’t know what, exactly, it is that you purchased in that store,” Maxx offers dryly, leaning one elbow against the counter, his body slouched comfortably against it. All around us is a sea of chaos, pillows strewn everywhere, closets torn apart. Chasm lets his eyes trail over it all and then looks back at me.

“Not exactly.” He exhales and releases his grip on the bag. “But I assume you’re going to make the lie right and take the damn rabbit home?”

“Tess won’t like it,” Maxx offers up, giving a loose shrug of his shoulders. “But we’ll make it work. Maybe we’ll name it Kota?”

Chas’ lips twitch as he shakes his head.

“Little Sister seems more apt,” he offers, and I give him a look.

“How about Gamer Girl?” I quip, but as soon as the words leave my mouth, the small, tiny shred of joy we’ve managed to find in the situation is gone. Everything we’re doing is for Parrish and yet, with every day, he drifts farther and farther away from us. The ache for him in my chest has gone from a gushing wound to a throbbing pulse, and I hate that. I hate that time is passing by without him, that I’m forming a new friendship with Maxx, that … whatever Chasm and I sparked before he went missing is starting to burn.

“Gamer Girl,” Chasm agrees, running both of his palms down his face. “I like that.” He drops his hands by his sides. “You’re sure about this, Little Sister?”

“I’m sure about it,” I say, squeezing the handle of the bag and doing my best to distance myself from the dead thing contained inside of it. If I’m wrong, Parrish will be as still and quiet as this rabbit. But I don’t think so. Regardless of who the Slayer actually is—that is, if he truly is my bio dad, a man named Justin Prior—nobody would go to lengths this great without an ulterior motive.

The ulterior motive here is very clearly me.

Killing Parrish over a technicality would destroy everything he’s worked to build with me over the past eleven days. Do I believe he really will kill Parrish if I refuse his demands or break his rules? I do. Because it means that I’m a person who can’t be directed, controlled, or modeled into whatever it is that he wants me to be.

A killer, just like him.

I ignore the thought—even though it’s undoubtedly, undeniably true—and head up the stairs.

Maxx follows me up, getting far too close to me as I approach the cage.

“This is a lot for me, I’ll admit,” he says, his voice low and tense. “For me to trust you like this.”

I turn to look at him, but I don’t know how to respond to that.

“Maxine trusts me, isn’t that enough?” I ask, redirecting his focus back to my sister. To his girlfriend. He waits for a moment and then shakes his head slightly.

“I’m choosing to trust you for you, not because of Maxine,” he admits, and then he takes the bag with the frozen rabbit out of my hand. “Take the bunny and go, I’ve got this.”

I scoop her up in my arms, deciding that we really will call her GG for now—short for Gamer Girl—and worry about Tess’ reaction later.

I wait at the bottom of the stairs, watching out the open door as Chasm turns his car around and takes off down the gravel road that leads to the street. I don’t dare step a foot outside of that cabin until Maxx rejoins me.

“It’s done,” he promises, and I exhale, moving out into the rain and rushing over to the Jeep. He’s right behind me, reaching past me to open the door. I don’t look at or acknowledge him as I climb in. Our world is already messy and broken enough.

Whatever is going on between us is impossible and not worthy of putting words to.

X climbs in with me and off we go. A few minutes later, a text comes in on my phone. I cradle the rabbit with one hand, cringing a bit at the pressure on my broken fingers, and check the message.

Well-played, Princess. As always, you are your mother’s daughter, a master of words.

“Parrish?” Maxx asks, his voice tense and his hands white-knuckled on the wheel.

“Safe … for now,” I offer up, but I can’t shake the feeling that things, as bad as they are, are about to get so much worse.

Luckily for all four of us, Tess is far too distracted with Parrish’s ongoing investigation to get too upset about the fact that we’re about an hour late coming home. She isn’t happy, but the fact that I was with Maxx while Kimber was with Chasm seems to appease her somewhat. The coffees in their hands assure her that the excuse is at least somewhat relevant.

“Thank you for texting to let me know the situation,” she tells Chasm as he slips a hand into the pocket of his blazer and gives a polite nod. “I’m not sure how I feel about … this.”

She looks at the rabbit in such a way that I imagine she’s never had a pet before, like she doesn’t even understand the concept.

“It’s my rabbit,” Maxx says, speaking up and forcing a smile. “After Parrish comes home, and I leave, I’ll take it with me.”

Tess doesn’t look entirely convinced, but again, with her son missing, an unwanted bunny is sort of small potatoes. The words those girls hissed at me this morning, about Tess buying reviews, about getting people to read her books out of sympathy, they echo like nightmares in my skull.

“Well, I suppose if you clean its cage and …” Tess just waves her hand absently at us. “I honestly don’t even have the headspace for this. It’s fine. Just … do whatever you need to do.” She turns and heads back to the living room. There are quite a few people in there, some of whom I recognize from the last two weeks. The pair of FBI agents, a couple detectives, a private investigator that Tess hired.

If their collective efforts can’t locate Parrish, it seems impossible that the three of us could pull off the impossible.

Only … they’re not being groomed by a serial killer. He wants me to find Parrish. I’m being given clues and information that they don’t have.

“Come on, GG,” I say, looking down at the bunny with a smile. “Let’s get you settled.”

Chasm grabs a cage from his car, one that he grabbed while at the pet store, and I find that strange heat permeating my body all over again. I never asked him to grab a cage or food or chew toys for the bunny, but he also figured I wouldn’t leave the rabbit where I found it. So of course it had to come home. Of course we needed supplies.

“This is so weird,” Kimber grumbles, but she follows us up the stairs anyway, watching as we assemble the cage and get it ready. The other kids—Ben, Amelia, and even shy little Henry—join us in Parrish’s room, oohing and aahing over the new pet and stroking gentle fingers along its back.

The entire scenario is … well, it’s warm and comforting in a way that I’ve been wanting since I got here. For once, I actually feel like I’m a part of the family. Considering I just lost my only friends, that I got jumped by my classmates (twice), that Tess is as cold and distant as always, it’s a miracle.

But that miracle, it’s bittersweet and broken on my tongue.

“Can I hold the bunny?” Ben asks, and I nod, scooting over on Parrish’s bed and patting the mattress with my right hand.

“Take a seat.” I pass the rabbit over as he flashes me a huge grin, stroking his hand over its ears. All around us, Parrish’s art hangs on the walls, fills the sketchbooks atop the desk, decorates the silicone hands and feet in the drawers. I can smell him, too, and the words dewy clovers come to mind, and then I start thinking about the conversation we had while lying on this very bed.

“Why do you always wear that perfume?”

“Me? I’m not wearing any perfume. You’re the one that douses himself in freaking dewy clovers and citrus every day.”

“Dewy clovers? I’m not sure what, exactly, a ‘dewy clover’ smells like. But I can promise you this: I’m not wearing anything either.”

“Excuse me,” I blurt suddenly, shoving up to my feet. I end up in his bathroom, slamming the door closed before Chasm or Maxx can stop me. I flick the fan on, turn the sink on full blast, and sit atop the closed lid of the toilet with my face in my hands.

I’d heard that falling in love hurts, but I never realized how badly it could make you ache. Love is a gift that opens up the heart and soul, but it’s also a curse, waiting for one, awful tragedy to turn that beauty into so much glorious decay.

Tomorrow will be day twelve of Parrish’s disappearance; the Slayer’s victims are always found on or after the fourteenth day since they went missing. And, according to that stupid podcast, their time of death—when possible to calculate with any accuracy—always points to day fourteen. Like those teens on the side of the milk carton, a picture, a missing smile, an empty chair at the dinner table.

Covering my face with my hands, I allow myself a moment to shore up.

This time, Parrish isn’t here to grab me, to wrap me in his arms and hold me.

And he never will be again, if I don’t figure this out.

Come on, Gamer Girl, you’ve got this; you can do this.

I lift my head, take a deep breath, and force a smile before stepping out of the bathroom door.