Page 36 of Last Rites

Strangling. Struggling. Watching the world go dark.

Kit cut through that black.

He saved me.

He…

A knot clogged my throat, and I couldn’t breathe all over again.

Or maybe I was breathing too fast, panting and shaking and shuddering because I could have died.

Rosie could have.

But Anders did instead.

It was too long before I saw Kit again. He walked slowly toward the cart, his head hung and arms limp at his sides. In the cool blue cast of the moon, his hands were pink from scrubbing like they were after his days working on the Vessel, and his shirt was spotted with water.

Gulping down a sob, I scrambled past Rosie and Isla who were both too distracted by Kit’s return to stop me. I bounded off the back of the wagon and landed in the dirt barely upright. Racing to Kit, I crashed into him with a force that should have taken us both to the ground, but he managed to hold his feet, and me, too.

I clung onto him like he was the one we almost lost because those had been my final thoughts. My worries were for him and how he would fare without me. Alone again and adrift. I wouldn’t want to live without him. Didn’t want to die without him, either.

He shushed me and smoothed a hand down my back while I shook against him.

He must have needed comfort, too, after what he’d done. Been forced to do. But I couldn’t do anything but hang on uselessly.

Gods, I’d been useless before, too. And poor Rosie with blood on her hands, her clothes…

I buried my face in Kit’s shirt, taking in the smell of him despite my snotty nose.

His voice was a rumble in my ears when he spoke at last. “We can go home now. Anders won’t be a problem anymore.”

Blinking my bleary eyes, I pushed up on my toes to see over Kit’s shoulder, as if I might spot Anders’s body lying there, drained of blood and life. But Kit wouldn’t have done that. He wouldn’t leave a corpse in the woods to be torn apart by wolves or draw vultures. It would rot and stink and draw the townspeople.

Merrick would want the bones to finish his Vessel, but the idea of carting a freshly dead body back to Ashpoint made me squirm. Seeing the lumberman’s sightless eyes staring at the sky, watching his belly bloat and his limbs go stiff…

I was wheezing again, gasping so sharply Kit crushed his arms around me. It seemed counterintuitive, squeezing the air out when I could barely get it in, but the pressure stilled something in me. It trapped my fluttering heart and corralled my thoughts before they got away from me.

And it was Kit, and he was fine, and we were together, and Anders was… gone.

After a long, tight moment, Kit peeled back and looked down at me. I met his gaze, lower lip quivering and neck still aching.

“S-sorry,” I rasped. “About Delilah, and… and…”

Kit shushed me again, then pulled away so he could turn me toward the wagon.

Rosie and Isla had unloaded and were standing near the rear of the cart, holding hands while watching us in mute shock.

“Sit with me,” Kit said. He sounded off, or maybe that was my ears still rushing with blood, making everything seem like it was underwater.

I was barely conscious of my feet moving or Kit ushering me along, passing the girls without another word of explanation, then helping me onto the driver’s bench. I sat, swaying, until he climbed up after me. His strong arm looped around my shoulders, bringing pressure and presence to my suddenly absent mind.

We waited long enough for Rosie and Isla to pile in the back. They were quiet. Everything was as Kit clicked his tongue to goad the horse into motion. We lurched toward the road, and Kit drew me against his soggy shirt.

He was wet, but not with blood. It was water. I’d seen no stream in the woods. The only water source I’d found all day was the town well. Which we were supposed to poison with Delilah’s body.

With Delilah gone, another sacrifice was required.

We were leaving because the job was done. Kit finished it alone, and Anders’s body wasn’t going back to Ashpoint. It wasn’t left to putrefy in the clearing. It was in the well.