The house had settled again.
Not quiet.
Not empty.
Just… still in a way that meant everything was where it needed to be.
Kane stood near the end of the upstairs hallway, just outside the room, the door left slightly ajar behind him. He hadn’t bothered to close it fully. There hadn’t been a reason to. Mira would handle what needed to be handled there. She always did.
His attention wasn’t on the room anymore.
It was on the house.
Listening.
The floorboards carried sound differently up here. You could feel it before you heard it—small shifts through the structure, weight transferring, steps moving from one space into another.
He heard it now.
Footsteps.
Coming up.
Kane didn’t move.
He just listened.
Not rushed.
Not tense.
Just… adjusting.
Too early.
The thought came clean.
Flat.
Not surprised.
Just noted.
The steps were steady.
Not cautious.
Not searching.
Purposeful.
That narrowed it down.
Kane shifted slightly, his weight adjusting just enough to change his angle in the hallway. One shoulder brushed the wall, placing him half in shadow, half in the thin stretch of light spilling from the window at the far end.
He didn’t reach for anything at first.
Didn’t need to.
Not yet.
The footsteps got closer.
The wood creaked once under the added weight.
Then—
the top step.
No pause.
No hesitation.
Whoever it was came straight onto the landing.
Kane’s gaze lifted slightly.
Noah.
Of course.
The timing lined up.
Ymir bleeding downstairs. Noise. Movement. Someone coming to check.
It made sense.
It just wasn’t useful.
Noah stepped into the hallway fully, his attention already moving ahead of him, scanning without fully slowing down.
“Mira?” he called.
His voice carried easily.
Clear.
Uncertain, but not afraid.
Kane didn’t answer.
He watched.
Noah took a few more steps forward before his focus shifted.
Before he saw him.
The moment was small.
But it mattered.
Noah slowed.
Not stopped.
Just enough to register.
“Hey,” he said, a little sharper now, attention locking in. “Have you—”
He didn’t finish.
Kane’s gaze didn’t shift.
Didn’t flicker.
He stepped forward instead.
One step.
Then another.
Closing the distance without rushing it.
Noah’s expression changed.
Not fear.
Not yet.
Confusion first.
Then something else.
Something that tried to place what he was seeing and couldn’t quite do it in time.
Kane’s hand moved then.
Not fast.
Not sudden.
Just deliberate.
His fingers closed around the handle of the scissors resting on the small hallway table beside him—something left there carelessly, something that didn’t belong to the moment until it did.
He lifted them.
Tested the weight.
Adjusted his grip.
Noah’s eyes dropped to the movement.
Then snapped back up.
“Kane—?”
There it was.
The shift.
Too late.
Kane took another step forward.
And the space between them closed.
Noah’s body reacted before his words did.
Not fear.
Not fully.
Just instinct.
His shoulders shifted, weight redistributing slightly as if bracing for something he hadn’t yet named. His eyes stayed locked on Kane’s face, trying to read it, trying to place what was off about the moment before it tipped into something worse.
“What are you—” he started.
Kane didn’t let him finish.
He stepped in.
Close.
Too close for space to matter.
His free hand caught Noah’s shoulder first—not violently, not with wasted motion, just enough to control where he went next. The contact snapped the rest of Noah’s awareness into place all at once.
Too late.
The scissors drove forward.
Fast.
Direct.
No flourish.
No hesitation.
The impact was close enough that it barely made a sound at first—just a dull, resisted push as metal met resistance, then gave.
Noah’s breath cut off.
Not a scream.
Not even a word.
Just a sharp, involuntary intake that never fully released.
His hands came up immediately.
One grabbing at Kane’s arm.
The other—
too slow.
Kane pulled back and drove forward again.
Closer this time.
More controlled.
Noah staggered backward a step, his shoulder hitting the wall hard enough to knock the breath out of him in a broken exhale. His grip tightened on Kane’s arm, fingers digging in, trying to push him away, trying to create space that wasn’t there.
“Wait—” he tried.
The word came out strangled.
Unsteady.
His eyes flicked again—face, hand, the scissors—trying to make sense of it.
Kane didn’t give him time.
He adjusted his angle, shifting his weight forward to keep him pinned, one foot stepping into Noah’s space to block any backward movement. The hallway narrowed around them, walls too close, air too tight.
Noah tried to shove him.
There was strength in it.
Real strength.
But it wasn’t enough.
Not with the position.
Not with the timing.
Kane moved with it instead of against it, letting the motion redirect before closing in again, the scissors coming down at a tighter angle this time.
Noah made a sound then.
Low.
Cut short.
His grip slipped.
His balance went with it.
He hit the wall again, harder, then slid slightly to one side, trying to stay upright, trying to keep his footing under him as the hallway tilted in a way that didn’t make sense.
“Kane—” he forced out.
Kane didn’t respond.
Didn’t react to it.
He stepped in again, closing what little space had opened, his movements tightening, becoming more efficient as Noah’s resistance started to falter.
There was no rush in it.
No escalation.
Just continuation.
Each movement followed the last cleanly, without hesitation, without reconsideration.
Noah’s hands fell away from his arm.
Not all at once.
Gradually.
Like his body was trying to keep up with something it couldn’t quite process anymore.
His back hit the wall fully this time.
And stayed there.
His head tipped slightly to the side, breath coming in uneven pulls that didn’t quite align with each other.
Kane stopped.
Not because of him.
Because there was no reason to continue.
The hallway went quiet again.
Fast.
Like the house itself had decided the interruption was over.
Noah’s body sagged forward.
His shoulder slipped off the wall first.
Then the rest followed.
He hit the floor without catching himself.
The sound was heavier than it should have been.
Final in a way that echoed for a second longer than anything else had.
Kane looked down at him.
Not long.
Just enough.
His grip on the scissors loosened slightly, then adjusted again, repositioning the handle in his palm until it sat comfortably.
There was a faint smear of red across his knuckles now.
He wiped it absently against his sleeve.
Not thoroughly.
Just enough.
“Messy,” he said under his breath.
Not annoyed.
Just noting it.
The house creaked again somewhere below.
A shift.
Movement.
Kane’s attention lifted.
Not back to Noah.
Forward.
Toward the stairs.
He listened for a second longer.
Then turned.
And started down.
The house had a different kind of quiet after killing.
Not silence.
Silence implied emptiness, and the house was not empty. It held too much for that now—blood in the upstairs hall, a body cooling against the floorboards, Mira moving somewhere in the shape of her next performance. The quiet here was heavier. Contained. Like the walls were listening.
Kane moved one hand lightly along the banister as he descended, not because he needed the balance, but because the old wood carried vibration better than the air did. A house like this always told on itself if you let it. Footsteps. Shifts in weight. Doors opening and closing. The small involuntary sounds people made when they thought they were alone.
He heard one now.
Not far.
From the kitchen.
Breathing.
Ragged, uneven, dragged through pain.
Ymir.
Kane stepped lower, each stair creaking under his weight in a steady, unhurried rhythm. He did not bother softening his steps. There was no point anymore. If Ymir heard him, he heard him. If he didn’t, that was useful too.
Halfway down, the angle of the stairs opened the kitchen into view in pieces—the edge of the doorway first, then the corner of the table, then the spill of pale afternoon light across the tile.
And then Ymir himself.
He was not where Kane had expected him to be.
Not collapsed fully against the back door.
Not unconscious.
He was standing.
Barely.
One hand braced hard against the counter, the other hovering close to the bandaged wrap at his stomach as if his body still hadn’t decided whether it needed to keep pressure there or not. Noah had done more than the kitchen kit should have allowed. The wrap sat tight around Ymir’s middle, already darkening at one side where blood had started working through it again. Not catastrophic yet. But not stable either.
His posture had gone strange in the way hurt people’s posture always did—careful and forced, like every movement had to be argued with before it happened. He stood slightly hunched, shoulders drawn in, not because he wanted to but because his body had adjusted around the pain and refused to stand normally anymore. The bright blue of his eyes looked wrong now too. Less focused. The pupils a little too wide. His face had gone pale under the freckles and warmth it usually carried, sweat dampening his hairline enough that the curls near his temples were darker.
He shouldn’t have been on his feet.
But he was.
Kane paused on the last step and watched him for half a second.
Not out of hesitation.
Out of assessment.
How much blood had he lost? How much could adrenaline still fake? How long had Noah kept him conscious before going upstairs?
Enough, apparently.
Ymir turned at the sound of the stair beneath Kane’s foot.
The movement was slower than it should have been, his body lagging half a beat behind the instinct to react. He looked toward the staircase with the kind of urgency that only existed when someone had been waiting to see a specific person and was terrified of seeing someone else.
Relief got there first.
Kane saw it happen.
The tension in Ymir’s face broke before his mind had time to catch up to anything else. His shoulders loosened by a fraction. His mouth parted around a breath that almost looked like gratitude.
“Kane,” he said.
The name came out frayed at the edges, dragged over pain and dizziness, but there was unmistakable relief inside it. Trust, even now. Stupid, human, predictable trust.
Kane stepped off the stairs and into the kitchen.
The scissors were still in his hand.
Held low.
Unremarkable if you weren’t looking for them.
Ymir was not looking for them.
His focus stayed fixed on Kane’s face, trying to anchor itself there like that would solve the shape of the room, the blood, the silence, the fact that Noah had gone upstairs and not come back.
“Jesus Christ,” Ymir muttered, and the words broke into a rough exhale afterward. “I was—”
He stopped to breathe.
One hand pressed more firmly into the counter as the room tilted under him.
Kane kept walking.
Ymir didn’t seem to notice the lack of answer yet.
“I was worried,” he said, trying again, voice unsteady. “About you. I—” He swallowed, jaw tightening as a wave of pain moved through him. “Mira—”
That got Kane’s attention more cleanly than anything else had.
Not visible, perhaps, to anyone who didn’t know where to look.
But it shifted.
Ymir kept talking.
Even broken open and bleeding through his clothes, Ymir still tried to use words like they could outrun the truth if he piled enough of them in front of it.
“She did something,” he said, faster now, the need to say it finally overtaking the effort it took to stay standing. “Something’s wrong with her, man, I swear to God. I thought—” He dragged in another breath. “I thought she was scared. She came out and she said you—”
His face changed there, confusion and pain knotting together. Even now, even after the knife, the betrayal itself seemed to trouble him more than the wound.
“She said you killed Katarin,” he finished.
Kane did not answer.
He had come within a few feet of him now. Close enough to see the pulse fluttering hard in Ymir’s throat. Close enough to smell blood thick in the kitchen air, layered over dish soap, old wood, and the dampness everyone had tracked in from the lake.
Ymir pushed himself more upright, either mistaking Kane’s silence for shock or needing it to be. His vision was not holding steady anymore; Kane could see it in the way his focus slipped and corrected, slipped and corrected, like he had to work to keep one face from becoming two.
“She stabbed me,” Ymir said, lower now, as if repeating it made it no more believable than before. “She—” A weak, humorless laugh almost escaped him and died on the way out. “She smiled at me.”
He looked at Kane like that sentence should have changed everything.
It had.
Just not in the way he thought.
Ymir’s hand came away from the counter for a second, lifted vaguely in Kane’s direction like he meant to grab his arm or his shoulder or simply prove through contact that this part of the room still made sense.
He didn’t reach far enough.
Pain dragged him short, forcing him to catch himself again on the edge of the counter with a hiss between his teeth.
“Noah went up,” he said. “I told him not to. I tried to tell him—”
His eyes flicked briefly toward the stairs.
Still no Noah.
Still no understanding.
“I couldn’t make him listen,” Ymir muttered, sounding angrier at that than at the knife in him. “I think he thought I was losing it.”
Kane stopped directly in front of him.
The kitchen light from the window hit Ymir’s face fully now, bleaching him out in a way that made the blood at his side look darker by contrast. His skin had gone almost gray around the mouth. Sweat traced down from his hairline to the curve of his jaw. His pupils were slow now when they adjusted, but they still tried. Still worked to keep Kane in focus.
And still he did not see the scissors.
Ymir’s gaze kept returning to Kane’s face.
Searching there.
Trusting there.
“We have to get them out,” he said, voice roughening again with urgency. “Madaline. Ethan. Everybody. She’s—”
He swallowed hard, the effort visible.
“She’s not right.”
The sentence hung there, unfinished in the dumbest possible way.
Not right.
As if any of this had words soft enough for that.
Kane looked at him.
Not with cruelty.
Not with sympathy either.
Just with a kind of plain regard, as if he were watching someone arrive very late to a conclusion that should have been obvious much earlier.
Ymir seemed to finally register the silence.
Really register it.
His brow pulled faintly. The relief that had lit him when Kane first appeared had already thinned under the strain of pain and exhaustion, but now something else moved in to take its place. Not fear yet. Not clearly.
Uncertainty.
He licked bloodless lips and tried again, slower now.
“Kane?”
There was a question in the name this time.
A smaller one than there should have been.
Because some part of him still refused to think the next thought.
Kane’s gaze dropped at last.
Not to Ymir’s face.
To the hand he had wrapped around the counter so tightly the knuckles had gone pale.
Then to the bandage.
Then to the blood slowly working through it.
“Noah wrapped it badly,” Kane said.
The calm in his voice landed like a change in weather.
Ymir stared at him.
“What?”
Kane lifted his eyes again.
“You’re still bleeding.”
That, somehow, was what finally made the room tilt for Ymir in a different way.
Not the words themselves.
The tone.
Too even. Too detached. Too absent of everything it should have carried—alarm, anger, confusion, anything at all.
Ymir’s attention dropped, just for one disastrous second.
To Kane’s hand.
To the metal there.
The scissors caught light.
Dull along one blade.
Dark near the hinge.
Something in Ymir’s face changed before his body had the strength to.
Not disbelief.
That had already had its turn today.
This was worse.
Recognition.
And in the tiny pause that followed—in that one suspended, awful second when his eyes snapped back up to Kane’s and the truth fully reached him at last—
Kane saw exactly when trust died.