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It didn’t take too long to acclimatise. My skin turned purple-pink, and I shivered, rushing through the process.

When I was done, I warmed myself with rough swipes of the towel and threw on fresh clothes, crouching to wipe my wet footprints from the floor.

Finger-combing my damp hair, I walked back into the living room and called out, “Ava?”

She didn’t respond, and no movement came from the bedroom. I approached the open door, hand resting on the jamb as I leaned inside. Jeans and a couple of jumpers had been thrown onto a chair in the corner as if she’d started the task and changed her mind halfway through.

A strange tightness grew in my chest as I returned to the living area. She wouldn’t take off for Fairmarsh without me. She just wouldn’t.

“Ava?”

Her bag and axe were right where she’d left them, the front door closed, the car keys still on the kitchen bench. Wherever she’d gone, it wasn’t far.

Maybe she’d forgotten to ask Tim or Varesh something?

The sensation in my chest eased a fraction, and I scrubbed my hands down my face.

When I pulled them away, the wooden knife block next to the kettle caught my eye. Was there an empty slot there when we arrived?

I wandered over to the bench and checked the block. The biggest knife was missing.

Ava’s distracted expression at the dining table came back to me, and adrenaline flooded my body.

No.

Shit, no.

I had the door open in seconds, my bare feet hitting the hallway before the thought had fully sunk in.

With my heart in my throat, I took the stairs two at a time and hoped like hell I wouldn’t get there too late.

Twenty-One

ava

Iraced down the stairs with no backup, no plan, but we’d left Jeremy alive without knowing who he’d hurt next, so I had to do something.

I just didn’t know what.

When I arrived on Tim and Varesh’s floor, I slowed, distracted by the faint light under their door. They’d join me if I asked them for help. Tim might not even question it—and if Varesh tried to talk me out of confronting Dustin, I had a feeling I could bring him around to the idea.

Still, I descended the last two flights alone.

Stupid.

The harsh bite of bleach rose to greet me before I’d even reached the foyer.

When my feet hit the tiles, I crept toward the ground-floor apartment with Sadie’s kitchen knife clutched at my side. The damaged frame created enough of a gap that I should be able to hear him inside, but if he was home, there were no signs.

Just as I leaned closer and trained my ears, a flicker of movement through the rear door caught my eye.

A man in a navy button-up shirt stood on the driver’s side of our car, hunched over and peering through the window. In his slacks and polished dress shoes, he looked as if his world had continued on as normal, his role in it never changing.

He straightened and adjusted his cuffs, then his glasses, sweeping his salt-and-pepper hair to the side as if the sequence had become a ritual.

Dustin. I’d never seen him in person, but his appearance fit with everything Sadie had told me.

He wandered around the car park next and scanned it with disapproval, taking in the bodies we’d left lying there. As he walked toward the building with a small shake of his head, I had a feeling he might have delivered a lecture if he’d had an audience.