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My heart hammers so hard I feel it where the barrel touches my skin. One twitch of his finger, and I’m gone. But he needs me alive.

Or he wants me alive.

Neither option is comforting, but it is useful.

His jaw shifts. Irritation. Calculation. Decision.

Then Poppy gasps behind me. “No!”

I don’t turn fast enough.

Pain explodes across the back of my skull.

White light bursts behind my eyes.

My knees buckle.

Poppy screams my name, and the sound tears through me as the ground rushes up.

I hit the leaves, cheek pressed into dirt that smells like earth and iron. My vision swims. Boots move around me. Voices blur together.

“Careful with that one.”

“She killed Roy.”

“Rhea, calm down.”

Hands grab my arms.

I try to fight.

My fingers scrape through leaves, searching for the knife at my belt, for the rock, for anything. Someone kicks my hand away. Pain bursts through my knuckles.

Poppy is still screaming.

I force my eyes open.

She’s fighting them again, teeth bared, hair wild, little body twisting with everything she has.

My brave girl.

My fierce, impossible girl.

I try to say her name.

Nothing comes out.

The woods tilt sideways.

The last thing I see is Poppy’s bow lying in the leaves, one arrow snapped beneath a boot.

Then the darkness takes me.

PART THREE

GUTS

CANNED GOOD DIVA: RECIPES TO MAKE EVERYONE STOP COMPLAINING