The air outside the house felt wrong.
Not in a way Ymir could name at first. Not cold, not quiet—there were still sounds, the low movement of the trees, the distant ripple of the lake somewhere beyond the path—but something about the space between those sounds felt stretched thinner than it should have been. Like the world had pulled back just slightly and left everything else too exposed.
He stood near the side of the house, one hand braced briefly against the siding as he looked out toward the tree line again, trying to decide if it was worth looping around one more time.
“This is dumb,” he muttered under his breath.
It didn’t feel dumb.
That was the problem.
Inside, things had already felt off. Too quiet. Too still. The kind of quiet that didn’t belong in a house full of people. And now outside—
it felt like something had followed them out.
He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply. “He probably just left,” he said to no one. “Or passed out somewhere. Or—”
The back door slammed open.
The sound cut through everything so sharply it made his chest jolt.
Ymir spun around instinctively—
just in time to see her.
Mira stumbled out onto the back steps.
Not walking.
Not steady.
Stumbling.
Her hand caught the doorframe like it was the only thing holding her upright, fingers slipping slightly before finding enough grip to keep her from going down entirely.
A sound left her.
Short.
Sharp.
Not quite a scream—like it had been cut off before it could fully form.
“Mira—?”
He was already moving before the name finished.
Something in his chest dropped hard and immediate, instinct snapping into place faster than thought. There was no hesitation, no second-guessing—just the clear, sudden understanding that something was wrong.
Very wrong.
She barely made it down the steps.
Her foot caught the last one and she stumbled forward into the yard, body pitching off-balance—
straight into him.
Ymir caught her without thinking.
His arms came up fast, wrapping around her shoulders and upper back to keep her from falling completely, pulling her in against him in one sharp, protective motion. The impact knocked the breath out of both of them for half a second, her weight hitting him hard enough that he had to brace his stance to keep them upright.
She grabbed onto him immediately.
Not gently.
Her hands fisted into the front of his shirt, clutching like she needed something solid to hold onto, something real, something that wasn’t whatever she had just run from.
Her whole body was shaking.
Not subtle.
Not contained.
It ran through her in sharp, uneven bursts that he could feel through the contact, through the fabric, through the way she pressed into him like letting go wasn’t an option.
“Hey—hey—” he said quickly, his voice dropping instinctively, trying to ground the moment even as his own pulse started climbing. “Mira—what—what happened?”
She didn’t answer right away.
Her face was buried against his chest, breath uneven and too fast, like she couldn’t quite get enough air in to speak. He felt it—each shallow inhale, each hitch—felt the way her grip tightened every time she tried to steady herself and couldn’t.
“Hey,” he said again, softer now, one hand coming up to the back of her head almost without thinking, fingers brushing into her hair to steady her there. “You’re okay. You’re okay. Just—breathe for a second.”
She shook her head against him.
A small, broken motion.
“No—” she tried, but the word came out thin, barely holding together.
Ymir pulled back just enough to look at her.
And that’s when he saw it.
The blood.
It wasn’t subtle.
It streaked across the front of her sweater, dark and uneven, soaked into the fabric in a way that made his stomach drop instantly. Not a small smear. Not something she could have brushed against.
Too much.
Too deliberate.
“What the—” His voice cut off mid-breath. “Mira—what happened?”
Her eyes lifted to his.
Wide.
Shiny with tears that hadn’t fully fallen yet.
Her face looked… wrong.
Not injured.
Not physically.
But like something had hit her hard enough from the inside that she hadn’t caught up to it yet.
Her lips parted.
Closed.
Then opened again.
“He—” she tried, voice catching.
Ymir’s grip tightened slightly on her shoulders, grounding her. “Hey—slow down. You’re okay. Just tell me.”
She swallowed.
Hard.
“I—” Her breath hitched again, sharper this time. “I didn’t—”
She broke off.
Her fingers tightened in his shirt again, like she needed to make sure he was still there.
“Mira,” he said, more firmly now, though his voice stayed soft. “Look at me.”
She did.
Barely.
But enough.
“What happened?” he asked again.
And this time—
she answered.
“Kane.”
The name came out so small at first that Ymir almost didn’t hear it.
Almost.
But then Mira’s fingers twisted harder into the front of his shirt, and she said it again, like saying it louder made it worse, like the truth was cutting her open on the way out.
“Kane killed her.”
For half a second, Ymir didn’t understand.
The words hit him, but they didn’t sink in. They hovered there, wrong and impossible, floating somewhere between her shaking body and the blood soaked into her sweater. His brain tried to correct them before they could become real.
Kane killed her.
Killed who?
No.
That wasn’t—
“What?” he asked, and the word came out flat with shock.
Mira shook her head, tears spilling now, leaving thin tracks down her face. She looked smaller than she was, swallowed by the sweater and the blood and the panic that seemed to be holding her together badly. Her mouth trembled once before she forced the words out again.
“Katarin,” she said. “He—he killed Katarin.”
Something cold moved through Ymir’s chest.
Not fear.
Not yet.
Something before fear. The blank, stunned place where the body understood danger before the mind had built a story around it.
His eyes snapped toward the open back door behind her.
The house stood there, quiet and ordinary, the doorway dark around the edges from where the inside light didn’t quite reach. Nothing moved in it. No shout. No footsteps. No Kane appearing behind her with blood on his hands.
Nothing.
That made it worse.
“Where?” Ymir asked, voice rougher now. “Where is she?”
Mira let out a small, broken sound and shook her head again. “Upstairs.”
“Where upstairs?”
“Our room. Mine and Madaline’s. Katarin came in and she was talking and then—” Mira’s breath broke hard enough that her whole chest hitched. “He came up behind her. I didn’t even—I didn’t see him until—”
She cut off, one hand flying up to cover her mouth.
Ymir stared at her.
The blood on the sweater suddenly looked darker.
Fresher.
Real.
His heart started hammering now, too fast and too hard, each beat carrying the words with it.
Kane killed Katarin.
Kane.
Kane, who had been quiet all morning. Kane, who had stood at the edge of rooms like he was listening to things other people didn’t. Kane, who had watched Mira with that strange, steady attention Ymir had always brushed off as sibling protectiveness because, honestly, what else was it supposed to be?
He looked back at the house again.
The open door didn’t move.
“Where’s Kane now?” he asked.
Mira’s eyes widened further, like the question had only just fully occurred to her.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
That was worse than anything else she could’ve said.
Ymir swore under his breath and tightened his hold on her without meaning to. Not hard. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to keep her there, to keep her upright, to keep himself from doing something stupid like running into the house without thinking.
“Okay,” he said quickly, though nothing was okay. Not even close. “Okay, listen to me. We need to get away from the house.”
Mira nodded too fast, still trembling.
“Where’s everyone else?” she asked.
“Around back,” he said. “They were checking—” He stopped, his stomach twisting. “They’re around back. Ethan, Madaline, Noah. I think Kane—”
No.
Kane wasn’t with them.
Had he been?
Ymir tried to replay it and found the memory scattered. The house had felt wrong. The hallway. The mark on the floor. Katarin going upstairs. Mira following. Kane near the back. Kane moving with them.
Or not.
Had he seen him come outside?
Had he watched him leave the room?
“Fuck,” he breathed.
Mira flinched at the word, or maybe at the fear behind it.
Ymir forced himself to look back at her. Her face was pale under the tear tracks, eyes glassy and fixed on him like he was the only solid thing left in the world. That did something to him. It pushed through the panic, through the disbelief, straight into the part of him that had always been stupidly, helplessly protective of people who looked like they were about to fall apart.
He cupped her face before he thought too hard about it.
Both hands, gentle but firm, thumbs near the curve of her cheeks, forcing her attention fully onto him.
“Hey,” he said. “Look at me. Just look at me.”
She did.
Her breath came in small, uneven pulls.
“It’s okay,” he said.
The words felt absurd as soon as he said them.
But he said them anyway.
Because what else did you say to someone standing in front of you covered in blood?
“It’s okay,” he repeated, softer now, steadier. “I’ve got you. We’re gonna get away from the house, we’re gonna find the others, and we’re gonna call for help.”
Mira’s lower lip trembled.
“Ymir—”
“No, listen to me. We’re not going back inside. Not yet. Not alone.” His thumbs moved slightly against her cheeks, wiping through the wet tracks there without really thinking about it. “You’re safe with me, okay?”
She stared up at him, eyes huge and broken.
God.
She looked terrified.
And it made him angry in a way he couldn’t even aim properly yet.
At Kane.
At the house.
At himself for not noticing something earlier, for brushing off every wrong feeling, every quiet glance, every moment that had made his skin prickle and then pretending it was nothing because that was easier.
“I won’t let him touch you,” Ymir said.
Mira’s breath caught.
He tightened his jaw and leaned a little closer, trying to make sure she heard him over whatever panic was roaring in her head.
“I mean it. I’ll keep you safe. You don’t have to be scared. We’re calling for help, and then we’re getting everyone out of here.”
Her eyes searched his.
For one second, Ymir thought she might cry harder.
Instead, something in her expression went very still.
So still he almost missed the change.
The tears were still there. Her cheeks were still wet. Her face was still pale, still soft, still shaped into the fear he had reacted to so quickly that he hadn’t questioned it.
But her eyes—
Something moved behind them.
Not relief.
Not panic.
Something quieter.
Sharper.
Ymir’s hands were still on her face when her mouth changed.
Just a little.
The tremble left first.
Then the sadness.
Then, slowly, impossibly, the corner of her mouth lifted.
Small.
Sinister.
Wrong.
His body understood before his mind did.
His hands loosened against her face.
“Mira?”
She tilted her head.
The gesture was soft.
Almost curious.
And with tears still wet on her face, blood dark across her sweater, and his concern still hanging stupidly between them—
she smiled wider.
“You think I’m scared?”
For one impossible second, Ymir didn’t understand the question.
Not the words themselves. He heard them clearly. He knew what they meant. But they did not fit the face in front of him, or the tears still wet on her cheeks, or the blood darkening the front of her sweater, or the shaking body he had just caught against his own like something fragile and terrified. His brain reached for the version of Mira he knew—soft voice, drifting smile, the way she laughed under her breath when someone else was loud enough for both of them—and found nothing to attach it to.
Because the girl standing in front of him now did not look soft.
She looked amused.
The realization hit him with a force stranger than fear.
Wrong.
That was the first clean thought he had.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
His hands fell away from her face on instinct, fingers loosening as though his body had finally caught up to something his mind was still refusing. He took half a step back without deciding to. The movement was small, almost nothing, but it was enough to change the air between them.
Mira noticed.
Her head stayed tilted, just slightly, the tears still tracking silver over her skin in the sunlight. That was somehow the worst part. She still looked like someone who had been crying. Her eyes were still bright. Her lashes were still wet. The blood on her sweater had not changed. Nothing visible had changed except that smile, that tiny upward curve of her mouth that transformed everything else around it into something grotesque.
Ymir stared at her.
“What?” he heard himself say.
The word came out rougher than he meant it to. Not angry. Not yet. More stunned than anything else, like he was still giving her the chance to turn it into a joke, into shock, into anything other than what it clearly was.
Mira’s eyes moved across his face slowly, reading him.
There was no panic in her now.
No scrambling breath. No broken voice. No desperation.
Just attention.
Calm, sharp, and oddly curious, like she was interested in the exact second he would understand.
The yard around them suddenly felt too bright.
The back of the house glowed pale in the daylight, innocent and ordinary, the open door behind her like a mouth. Somewhere beyond the trees, the lake still existed, the others still existed, the day still existed. But all of it had been pushed farther away in Ymir’s mind until there was only this: Mira standing in front of him, small and bloodstained and smiling like she had been waiting for this exact look on his face.
“Mira,” he said again, and now her name sounded wrong too.
She didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.
The knife flashed in her hand before he fully registered she had moved.
It came up from low at her side, quick and close, not wide enough to give him warning, not clumsy enough to look improvised. One moment her hand was empty or hidden in the folds of her sleeve, and the next there was metal catching light.
Ymir’s body reacted before his thoughts did.
He jerked backward, but he was too late.
The blade drove into his stomach with a force so sudden and intimate that it did not feel real at first. Not pain, not exactly. More like an impossible pressure, something hot and hard punching through the center of him, close enough that his body refused to understand what it was.
Then Mira twisted it.
The world went white.
A sound tore out of him, raw and ugly, more air than voice. His hands flew down instinctively, grabbing for her wrist, for the knife, for anything he could stop, but she was closer than he thought, stronger than she should have been, and the angle of the blade inside him turned every movement into pain so violent it made his knees threaten to fold on the spot.
He looked at her.
He didn’t know why he looked at her.
Maybe because some part of him still couldn’t believe it.
Maybe because he needed to see her face to make this real.
Mira’s expression had not changed back.
There was no hesitation there. No regret. No horror at what she had just done.
Only that same awful, interested calm.
“You talk too much,” she said softly.
The line landed harder than the knife.
Not because it hurt more.
Because it was casual.
Because she said it like they were in the middle of some ordinary argument, like he had annoyed her at lunch, like this was the natural conclusion to a personality trait instead of a blade buried in his gut.
“You’re always talking,” she went on, almost thoughtful. “Always trying to make things lighter. Fill the silence. Say the thing first so nobody else has to.”
Ymir made a broken, furious noise and shoved at her with everything he had left in his upper body.
This time she let go.
The knife ripped free as she stumbled back a step, and the pain that followed was so sharp and immediate he doubled over with a strangled gasp, one hand clamping over his stomach on pure instinct. Heat flooded through his fingers instantly. Too much of it. Wet and sickening and real.
He nearly went down.
But some stubborn, furious piece of him refused.
He staggered backward instead, one foot slipping against the grass, shoulder twisting as he caught himself badly. The yard tilted for a second. His vision blurred at the edges and snapped back hard enough to make him dizzy.
Mira straightened.
Not rushed.
Not frantic.
She looked down at the knife once, blood bright on the blade, then back at him.
And she smiled.
Not wide.
That would have been easier somehow.
This was smaller. Meaner. Like she was enjoying how long it was taking him to understand that the frightened girl who had run into his chest two minutes ago had never been frightened at all.
Ymir stumbled back another step.
The back door.
He needed the door.
The thought rose through the pain and the shock with startling clarity. Not because the house was safe—it clearly wasn’t—but because it was solid. Because it had a lock. Because there was no version of this where he stayed standing in the yard and survived.
He bent harder over the wound, trying to hold himself together physically as much as mentally, his breath coming in hot, shredded pulls that never seemed to fill his lungs properly. Blood pushed hot and slick between his fingers every time his body moved. Every step sent a brutal pull through his abdomen, something deep inside him shifting the wrong way.
“Oh my God,” he said, though it wasn’t said to anyone. Maybe not even aloud. “Oh my God—”
Mira watched him with her head tilted again.
“See?” she said, almost pleasantly. “This is what I mean. You never stop.”
He looked at her with something that might have been hatred if it weren’t drowning in disbelief.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he managed.
The words came out ragged, but they were words.
Mira laughed.
Actually laughed.
Softly. Breathily. As if he’d said something ridiculous.
“There you are,” she murmured. “I was wondering when you’d get there.”
He lurched toward the house.
Not running. He could not have run if the world were ending behind him. But he moved, hunched over, one hand still clamped tight against the wound while the other reached blindly toward the siding, the railing, the doorframe, anything that would keep him upright long enough to make it inside.
Mira followed.
Slowly.
That was what made it unbearable.
She did not chase him. She did not lunge or scramble or lose control.
She walked behind him at an easy pace, knife low at her side, blood on her sweater and tears still drying on her face, like there was nowhere else she needed to be.
“You know what your problem is?” she asked.
Ymir slammed one hand against the doorframe hard enough to jar his shoulder and nearly black out from the pain that followed.
He didn’t answer.
He couldn’t spare the breath.
Mira didn’t seem bothered by that.
“You think being kind fixes things,” she said. “You think if you’re loud enough and warm enough and good enough, then people will stay simple.”
His fingers slipped against the handle.
Blood.
His blood, slick across the metal, sticky against the wood. He swore and tried again, vision jumping in and out around the edges now, the sunlight flattening strangely around him.
Mira’s voice came from just behind his shoulder.
Too close.
“It’s annoying,” she said. “The way you talk like you know what people need. The way you smile at them like that changes anything.”
The handle gave.
The door lurched inward.
Ymir half fell, half threw himself through it, his shoulder clipping the frame hard as he stumbled over the threshold. The kitchen floor came at him too fast, and he hit one knee with a pain that almost made him black out right there. Somehow—somehow—he got one hand back on the door.
Mira stood just outside it.
Still calm.
Still watching.
She didn’t lunge for the gap.
Didn’t grab the edge.
She only looked down at him with that same small, awful smile and said, almost conversationally, “I can’t wait for those lips to stay shut forever.”
Ymir slammed the door.
The impact sent a shock through his entire body, pain exploding fresh and hot through his middle. He gritted his teeth hard enough his jaw ached and fumbled for the lock, fingers clumsy, slick, uncooperative. For one nightmare second they could not close around it properly.
Then the lock clicked.
He sagged against the door with a broken gasp, hand still pressed over the wound, blood already dripping down to the floor in thick, uneven beats.
His whole body shook now.
Not fear. Not only fear.
Shock.
Loss of blood.
The impossible effort of trying to stay conscious while the entire world had split in half around him.
Outside the door, Mira was quiet for a second.
Then he heard her lean in just enough for her voice to carry through the wood.
“You’ll die anyway,” she said.
No heat.
No rush.
Just certainty.
Ymir squeezed his eyes shut, breathing through clenched teeth, one shoulder braced hard against the door in case she changed her mind and decided to push after all. His heart hammered in frantic, painful bursts, each beat making the wound pulse harder beneath his hand.
He needed help.
He needed Ethan. Madaline. Anybody. He needed—
Her footsteps moved away from the door.
Not running.
Just a slow retreat over the porch boards.
Ymir forced his eyes open.
The kitchen swam around him, too bright, edges gone soft. He could smell iron now, sharp and thick and everywhere. His hand had started slipping again over the wound no matter how hard he pressed.
Outside, there was the faint sound of fabric shifting.
Then a pause.
Then Mira’s voice again—but changed now.
Lighter.
Breathless.
Frayed in exactly the right places.
Ymir’s head snapped weakly toward the window over the sink, though he couldn’t see her from where he’d collapsed against the door.
A phone.
He heard it in the shape of the sound before he heard words.
She was making a call.
The realization hit him so hard it hurt worse than the knife for one awful instant.
Not panic.
Planning.
She was already building the story.
Mira’s voice trembled beautifully.
“Please,” she said into the phone, and the fear in it was so perfect that if Ymir hadn’t felt the blade himself, he would have believed every word. “Please, you have to help us—”
He stared at the floor, at the blood spreading under him, at the red smearing into the seams between the boards.
And as Mira kept talking outside in that broken, terrified voice—
Ymir understood, all at once, exactly how dead he might already be.