Just like in the Solemn Woods that surround Sorrowsong’s crumbling walls, the forest snatches all five of my senses from me. I lose my sense of direction, fumbling blindly through the cracked tree trunks until I hear a second set of footsteps in front of me.
Or are they behind me?
Every sound reverberates through the forest, coming at me from every direction.
I head toward the footsteps, knife in hand, and just when they sound like they could be walking alongside mine, the forest falls silent and still.
A cold sweat sticks to my skin.
I feel it again now, just like I did in those woods with Bancroft: a nauseating, crushing sort of dread.
But somehow, I feel stronger than I did then.
“Gotcha,” mutters Brendan, making me jump. “Last year, the car was registered in Inverness to one Ms. L—”
Something—someone—slams into my back, sending my phone flying. The earth comes to greet me with a hard thud, the taste of blood and damp earth invading my mouth. I hold on to my knife, slashing it behind me as a pair of knees come crashing down on my lower back.
But I know as soon as those knees land on my back that this isn’t a fair fight.
No weight accompanies them. When my hand encircles the forearm that snakes its way across my neck, it’s nothing more than skin and bone.
The voice that comes is hoarse with sickness and frailty, but the Scottish accent is familiar. “I hate you, Ophelia.”
I shut my eyes against the thorns and the dirt and curse my own stupidity.
I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.
There is only one person I know who wanted Green to crumble with the same intensity that I did.
“Laura,” I choke out.
“I gave you my father’s tape,” she hisses, the thin line of her forearm pressing harder into my neck. “You tricked me into giving you my final piece of him.”
I remember her home, her desperation as she handed me the confession tape that would give us the vengeance we’d both dreamed of for so long. It was crucial information in my caseagainst Cain Green. It was her prized possession, and I promised her that giving it up would be worth it.
But I chased a happily ever after instead.
And barely thought about her again.
“It wasn’t like that,” I wheeze, through my compressed airway. I clutch my knife, but I might as well throw it into the bushes.
I won’t kill Laura. I can’t kill her.
“How did your boyfriend bribe you to steal the final piece of evidence against his family? You begged me for it, pretended that you hate the Corbeau-Greens.” She laughs maniacally, bony knees digging into my spine. “I sent you that tape, and you wentsilent. And I thought maybe you’d forgotten about me, like everyone does. But I found Alex online. Laughing with you, spending Christmas with you.”
“No, no, no,” I plead, trying to get her to see, trying to starve the flames of guilt that are burning me alive.
“I came to you. I watched you. I came to Sorrowsong because surely,surely, that girl who came to my house wasn’t truly bad. Surely it was all a misunderstanding. And what do I find? You and him, burying that man. Was he like me, too? Did you trick him?”
“Laura, please,” I choke out “I wasn’t trying to trick you, I fell for him after, I swear. I always intended on bringing Green down.”
“All you ever do islie.”
I buck her off me just enough to roll onto my back. It’s too dark to make out her features, but the silhouette of her greasy hair is lank and limp against the moonlit treetops. “I posted it back. The tape.” I pant. “You can have it back.”
“I sold the house to pay a hacker to finish whatyoupromised me you’d start!” she shouts, hands grappling for my neck. Thin fingersdig into my flesh, but there’s no threat, no strength behind her movements.
I hear a mechanicalclicksomewhere beside us and freeze, eyes widening in dismay. “Belladonna, don’t shoot!”
