Page 55 of A Killing Cold

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“I’ve never told anyone,” I say.

“I’m not anyone. I’m your fiancé. You told me your parents were dead,” he says, voice raw.

“It’s what I tell everyone. I didn’t think it would matter.”

“How could it not matter?” Connor is incredulous.

“Because you weren’t supposed to be real,” I say.

I didn’t want to tell him, because then he would look at me like he is now. With pity and disgust. With horror at the wounded thing in front of him.

“You had to know my family would look into you,” Connor says.

“I was going to tell you,” I say.

“When?” he demands.

I look up at him. He’s angry. Maybe he’s right to be. But I don’t have space for guilt right now. “You lied, too,” I say.

His face goes still. “What?”

“You lied about how we met. You lied about being friends with Harper. You knew who I was and you asked her to introduce us, and then you lied about that and made her lie, too. Why?”

He draws in a long breath through his nose. Then he lets it out, turning his face away. “I can’t do this right now,” he says. “I can’t…” He stands. He steps toward the bedroom, then halts. For a moment I think he’s going to turn, to say something, but instead he moves again, striding into the bedroom. He slams the door shut behind him.

I sit alone on the couch, feeling the pieces of myself slowly cohering again into something approaching human.

All those stories that Joseph told were meant to impart a lesson. Mine is no different. I didn’t always understand the morals that Joseph wanted me to learn, and I don’t think Connor has understood this one, either. The story isn’t about what happened in the attic. It’s about what happened after—what happens when I feel trapped.

It is dangerous to corner a wild animal. Even a wounded one.

You brought me here, Connor. I still don’t understand why.

But I’m going to find out.

26

I am not surprised to find Dragonfly empty—Trevor and Olena surely won’t be out here tonight. Tonight it belongs to me.

This time I don’t go upstairs. I sit against the wall on the ground floor, letting my eyes drift around the space. There is a faint pale splotch high up on the wall, where a trophy might have been hung, long since cleared away; no beast from my nightmares will loom out of the darkness tonight.

Connor brought me here. To a place completely controlled by his family—people who will do anything to protect their secrets. I am cut off here, isolated. He’s never asked about my past before, but now it’s all he seems to want to talk about. Who I am. Where I came from.

What I remember.

I think of the way he set that photo down, turning the conversation on me. He wanted a confession, but is that the confession he wanted?

Surely he didn’t know.

Surely we just happened to meet. We just happened to fall in love, and he just happened to bring me here, and I just happen to be the little girl holding his father’s hand in the snow.

Liam Dalton, the antlered man. His face is no longer indistinct in my mind. I can see it, looming above me. Half-light, half-dark, the way it is in my dream. They covered up his affair. What else did he do that no one can be allowed to know about?

I can see myself approaching the car. I can see those feet sticking out from behind the door. But I don’t want to go forward. I don’t want to see what’s waiting for that little girl.

Run, I think. And I did run, didn’t I? Cold air stinging my throat.I ran and I hid, but he found me. A hand around my wrist. A scream. Dragging me out, away from this place of safety. I’ve risen to my feet without realizing it.

---