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“The game.”

Declan’s breathing changed behind me. I could feel him thinking it through with me.

“The snapping,” I said.

Nobody moved.

I looked at Declan. “At the stadium.”

His face had gone hard. “You heard it in your room too,” he said.

I nodded.

The bedroom. Dark. A finger pressing against the top of my head.

Snap.

My phone screaming from near the woods. No alarm. No open door. Nothing.

All clear. Always all clear. My mouth went dry.

“Max.”

Mom made a tiny sound.

Dad’s eyes closed briefly.

Max cold beneath my hands. His body laid too neatly. His head pointed toward the break in the trees. Red twine around his front leg.

Red twine. Faded almost pink. Frayed ends. I rubbed my wrists.

Declan noticed. Of course he did.

His hand covered mine.

I stared at nothing.

The bedroom. The phone. The fingers. The key. The voice underneath the stadium.

The woods. Max.

For days every frightening thing had required a different explanation. Sleepwalking. Stress. Dissociation. Trauma. Coincidence.

My own brain turning against me. Now there was another possibility.

One man. One person who had known me before any of this. One person who had already taken me once.

Dad’s voice cut through the room. “We do not know that Wade is responsible for everything.”

He was right.

I knew he was right.

Riot lowered his phone. “But we know he’s in Briar.”

Dad’s jaw tightened.

“And we know he was watching Hazel,” Riot added.