MY JAW ACHED FROM CLENCHING, MY HEART FROM grieving the unknown. Looking back, the fate I wished on Quinn mirrored my own from the moment the news of Zeke’s murder reached me until that moment when she confessed to it. Until then I flinched at every car backfiring, poured over shadows of clues that weren’t clues at all, chased feelings and hunches as though they might hold the key to unlocking the secret of my beloved’s death. In a way, I died every night upon awakening. The truth is, her confession delivered me from that purgatory in which I lived and relived his Final Moment as though it were my own.

A part of me, even in that moment, was grateful.

Of course, I’d never tell her this—not until I fulfilled my vow to her and brought her to her Final Moment. But that is a story for another time.