safe. Not happy. Not to be with him. Just safe. Even at eighteen, he knew he

d yearne

hetic w

r-my bloody oath, my bygone

to the drainage gra

the sewers. I let the fragments fall, watching them drift down like dead leave

ery last scrap vanish

ewer, exactly wh

cked up t

still remembered that night clearly-the way he looked

he was seeing me, not just hear

nto my palm. "It was my grandmother's. She always sai

ad worn it eve

luck before his surgery. On the nights he didn't come hom

n-for the first

forgotten it was there. It was a picture of us ta

very tree. He was laughing at something I was s

d the lo

ree and dug a new ho

silver chain

hoved the dirt back in and packed it down with my hands. I patte

st burying

rying El

rl who wrote oaths in blood. The girl w

was

kill

ked in mud and blood, my arm ached dully, and my cheek stung wi

e I

ne vib

remember dropping it, but there it was, a spiderw

ay? Luca said you

d at th

heck on me. It had been three hours since

und with his hand on her thigh, while

ed a

ne. I don'

re I had the ch

f the garden, leaving my heart