The knife block sat on the counter three feet to his left.
Three feet might as well have been a mile with the way his body felt.
Ymir kept one hand pressed against the bandage Noah had wrapped around his middle, though “pressed” was generous now. It was more like holding himself together by instinct, palm flattened hard against the growing wetness beneath the layers of gauze and cloth. Every second he stayed standing felt temporary. Borrowed. Something his body was already trying to take back.
Kane stood between him and the doorway.
Not rushing.
Not breathing hard.
Just there, the scissors hanging low in his hand as though they were no more important than a house key or a lighter. There was blood on his sleeve. More at the edge of one knuckle. His face gave away almost nothing.
That was the worst part.
Ymir could have handled rage. Rage made sense. Rage gave you a target you could understand.
This—this flat, almost bored steadiness—made his skin crawl in a way the pain couldn’t quite touch.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Ymir heard himself say.
The words came out rough, frayed by blood loss and disbelief. They sounded weaker than he wanted them to, but at least they were words. At least he was still getting those.
Kane’s eyes flicked once to the bandage at Ymir’s stomach, where a darker stain was spreading outward in a slow, ugly bloom.
“You’re still talking,” Kane said.
Ymir laughed once.
It hurt so badly he almost folded over from it.
“Yeah, well,” he said through clenched teeth, “I know that annoys the hell out of your sister.”
That got the smallest reaction.
Not much. Not enough for another person to even call it one. But Kane’s focus sharpened for half a second, the shift in it as subtle as a blade turning under light.
Ymir saw it anyway.
And something cold moved through him that had nothing to do with the blood leaving his body.
Your sister.
His grip tightened on the counter edge until his fingers slipped.
Noah was upstairs.
Or had been.
Mira was outside somewhere, turning herself into whatever version of a victim she needed to be.
And Ymir was here, bleeding in a kitchen with the second half of the thing that had been hiding in front of them the whole time.
The knife block sat three feet away.
He moved before he fully chose to.
Not gracefully. Not even fast. Just suddenly.
He shoved off the counter with more force than his body could really afford, one hand shooting out toward the wood block while the other clamped harder over his wound on pure reflex. Pain ripped through him instantly, hot and bright, making the room flash white at the edges, but momentum carried him the rest of the way.
His fingers closed around the first handle they found.
He yanked.
A kitchen knife came free in a quick metal scrape that seemed much louder than it should have been.
Kane moved then.
Fast enough that Ymir’s stomach dropped even through everything else.
No hesitation. No surprise. Just immediate adjustment, like this had always been the next shape the moment would take.
Ymir stumbled back on instinct, knife raised wrong, too high and too loose. He knew it was wrong even as he did it. He wasn’t a fighter. He wasn’t precise. He was a guy half-folded around a stomach wound, trying not to die with a weapon he’d grabbed because it was closer than hope.
The kitchen suddenly felt much smaller.
The table at his side.
The counter at his back.
A chair leg catching his heel.
Every object in the room had edges now. Angles. Things to crash into.
Kane took one step toward him.
Then another.
Still calm.
Scissors low at his side.
Ymir’s hand shook.
Not fear.
Not only fear.
Shock. Blood loss. Adrenaline forcing too much through a body that didn’t have enough left to carry it all.
“Stay the fuck back,” Ymir said.
The line would have sounded better if he hadn’t nearly blacked out on the last word.
Kane didn’t stop.
Of course he didn’t.
Ymir’s breath came fast now, chest pulling in shallow, ragged jerks. The knife felt too heavy and too slippery all at once. His palm was damp. He didn’t know if it was sweat or blood from where his hand had slipped against himself and then the counter and then the handle.
Kane stepped into range.
Ymir lashed out.
It wasn’t skill.
It was panic and pain and the desperate need to keep him off.
The knife went wide at first, cutting through air where Kane’s shoulder had been a second earlier. Kane turned with it instead of away, one hand snapping up to catch Ymir’s wrist. The grip hit hard and exact, locking on before Ymir could jerk back.
Pain shot up his arm.
Ymir swore and twisted, using all the weight he had left to wrench himself sideways.
This time the knife connected.
Not clean.
Not deep enough to end anything.
But enough.
Enough for Kane to shift sharply, enough for the blade to drag across him somewhere along the side and tear a quick breath from between his teeth.
Ymir didn’t even see where he landed it.
He just felt the contact travel up the knife and into his wrist.
Hope hit hard and stupid.
He shoved again.
Harder this time.
Using momentum instead of strength, throwing himself into Kane with enough force to send both of them sideways into the kitchen table. The edge slammed into Ymir’s hip and nearly took his legs out from under him, but Kane hit it too, one hand bracing hard against the surface to keep from going down.
A chair toppled over with a crack against tile.
The sound echoed.
Ymir staggered back, knife still in hand.
His stomach wound flared so violently he saw sparks.
For one awful second he thought he was going to vomit.
Instead he doubled over and dragged in a breath so sharp it felt like swallowing glass.
Kane straightened.
His expression had changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
Less detached now. Less casual. Not angry—Ymir still didn’t think he knew how to look properly angry—but more focused. Narrowed. Whatever small possibility had existed that Ymir might simply fall over and save everyone the effort had clearly passed.
“You should’ve stayed down,” Kane said.
Ymir laughed again, half from adrenaline, half because he genuinely had no better response to that.
“Yeah?” he said, voice shaking. “You should’ve stayed the quiet creepy brother, but here we are.”
The knife trembled worse now.
His hand was getting weaker.
He shifted his grip and immediately regretted it as fresh pain rolled through his middle in a nauseating, hot wave. The bandage had started seeping more heavily. He could feel it again, the slow warmth spreading under the wrap, the wet cling of fabric against skin.
Too much movement.
Too much time.
He was losing this by the minute whether Kane touched him again or not.
Outside, faint and far, something brushed the edge of the house.
Wind, maybe.
Or footsteps in the yard.
Ymir couldn’t tell anymore.
He kept his eyes on Kane.
Had to.
Kane moved first again, stepping around the fallen chair instead of through it, keeping the table between them for half a beat before closing that distance too.
Ymir lashed out a second time.
Not as wild.
Still messy.
Kane caught his forearm this time before the full motion could extend, knocking the angle off just enough that the knife skimmed uselessly past his side. The scissors flashed up in the same movement, and Ymir threw himself backward on instinct, the motion wrenching his stomach hard enough to make his vision blacken at the edges.
He hit the counter with his lower back.
Hard.
A sound left him—short and broken and humiliatingly close to a whimper.
Kane pressed in.
No room now.
No space for swinging wide.
Ymir brought the knife up between them more like a shield than a weapon, his arm shaking violently.
“Don’t—” he gasped, though he wasn’t even sure what he meant by it.
Don’t kill me.
Don’t let Mira get away with this.
Don’t let me die in this fucking kitchen while everyone outside believes the wrong thing.
Kane’s eyes flicked to the knife, then back to Ymir’s face.
“You’re fading,” he said.
The worst part was that he said it like an observation, not a threat.
And because it was true.
Ymir knew it too.
The room had started moving wrong around him again. Light too bright. Sound delayed by a second. Kane’s outline going slightly soft around the edges before snapping back into focus. His own body felt disconnected below the ribs, like everything under the wound belonged to somebody else.
He swallowed hard against the rising dizziness.
“Mira’s going to burn this whole thing down,” he said, the words coming out ragged and too fast. “And you’re just helping her.”
Kane said nothing.
That silence made panic flash hotter than the pain.
“She stabbed me and smiled,” Ymir pushed on. “You know that? You know what she looked like?”
Still nothing.
Ymir’s voice cracked harder. “She’s not right.”
At that, something almost like amusement moved at the edge of Kane’s face.
Almost.
It vanished so quickly Ymir might have imagined it if he weren’t looking straight at him.
Then Kane said, quiet and plain:
“Neither are you anymore.”
And lunged.
Ymir didn’t think.
He reacted.
The knife came up on instinct, his arm jerking hard as Kane closed the last bit of distance between them. The movement was sloppy—too wide, too slow—but it was enough to force Kane to shift his angle again, the scissors glancing past where Ymir’s ribs had been a second earlier.
Metal scraped.
Cloth tore.
Pain followed a heartbeat later, sharp and shallow somewhere along his side, but not deep enough to matter more than the rest of him already did.
Ymir shoved forward with everything he had left.
Not strength.
Momentum.
He drove into Kane’s chest, forcing him back just enough to break the pressure, just enough to create a sliver of space that hadn’t existed a second before. His shoulder slammed into Kane’s sternum, his injured side screaming in protest as the impact jarred through him.
Kane gave half a step.
That was all Ymir needed.
He twisted out of the grip on his arm, wrenching free so abruptly that his vision flared white again. The knife slipped in his hand—almost gone—but he caught it at the last second, tightening his grip until his knuckles went numb.
They broke apart.
For one breath.
One fragile, shaking breath.
Ymir staggered sideways, catching himself on the edge of the counter again. The impact rattled through him, sending another wave of nausea rolling up from his stomach. He swallowed it down hard, jaw clenched tight enough to ache.
Don’t go down.
Not yet.
Kane straightened across from him, adjusting like nothing about that exchange had been unexpected. The small tear Ymir had managed to land earlier had darkened slightly along his side, but it didn’t slow him. Didn’t change him.
If anything—
it refined him.
Ymir could see it now.
The way Kane moved was different.
Less testing.
More certain.
He wasn’t gauging anymore.
He had already decided how this would end.
Ymir’s chest heaved, breath dragging in too fast, too shallow. His ears rang faintly under everything else, a high, distant sound that made it harder to track the room. He shifted his weight again and nearly lost his footing entirely when his knee buckled.
“Shit—” he hissed, catching himself at the last second.
Blood soaked further through the wrap at his stomach.
He could feel it.
Warm.
Constant.
Not slowing.
Kane watched it.
Not with concern.
With calculation.
“You’re not going to last much longer,” he said.
Ymir let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m getting that.”
The knife dipped slightly in his hand.
He forced it back up.
“But you’re still here,” he added, voice rougher now. “Which is kind of my problem.”
Kane stepped forward again.
Slow.
Measured.
Ymir’s eyes tracked him, trying to stay focused, trying to ignore the way the edges of Kane’s outline kept slipping in and out of clarity. He blinked hard once, then again, forcing the room back into something he could still react to.
“You don’t have to do this,” Ymir said suddenly.
The words came out before he could stop them.
Not because he believed them.
Because talking was easier than collapsing.
“Whatever the hell she told you—”
Kane didn’t respond.
Didn’t even slow.
“She’s playing you,” Ymir pushed, voice tightening. “She’s been playing all of us.”
Nothing.
Just that steady approach.
Closer.
Closer.
Ymir’s grip slipped again.
He adjusted too late.
Kane saw it.
Of course he did.
The space between them vanished in a single step.
Ymir brought the knife up—
Kane knocked it aside.
Hard.
The impact jarred through Ymir’s wrist, sending a sharp crack of pain up his arm and nearly ripping the knife from his grip again. The blade glanced off the edge of the counter with a loud metallic clang that echoed through the kitchen.
Before he could recover—
Kane was on him.
One hand catching his shoulder.
The other driving in.
Ymir twisted.
Not enough.
The motion tore something deeper inside him, pain exploding outward so violently it stole the breath from his lungs entirely. His back slammed into the counter again, spine arching involuntarily as his body tried to escape itself.
“Fuck—!” he choked.
The knife wavered in his hand.
Dropped—
No.
He caught it.
Barely.
With a desperate, shaking grip that had no strength behind it.
Kane leaned in closer.
Too close.
The scissors flashed again in the narrow space between them.
Ymir shoved blindly.
The knife connected.
This time he felt it.
Not just the resistance—
the give.
Kane jerked back a fraction.
Just enough.
Ymir used it.
He tore himself sideways, slipping out from under Kane’s grip and stumbling hard toward the center of the kitchen. His foot caught on the overturned chair, sending him lurching forward, barely catching himself before he went down completely.
He couldn’t keep doing this.
His body was already quitting.
His vision blurred again, worse now, the room stretching and snapping back in uneven pulses.
Then—
something cut through it.
Faint.
Distant.
But unmistakable.
Sirens.
Ymir froze for half a second.
Just enough to hear it clearly.
Not imagined.
Not in his head.
Real.
Coming closer.
Something inside him snapped back into place.
Hope.
Ugly and desperate and immediate.
“You hear that?” he rasped, breathless.
Kane didn’t answer.
But his head tilted slightly.
Listening.
He heard it too.
Ymir let out something between a laugh and a choke. “That’s not for you,” he said, even though he wasn’t entirely sure that was true anymore. “That’s for me.”
Kane’s eyes shifted back to him.
Cool.
Unchanged.
If anything—
more focused than before.
“No,” Kane said.
And stepped forward again—
but outside, the sirens were getting louder.
The sound cut through the trees in uneven waves at first, distant enough to feel unreal, then quickly sharper, closer, no longer something that could be mistaken for wind or imagination. Madaline heard it before she fully registered she was listening for anything at all. One second all she could hear was her own breathing and Mira’s ragged gasps beside her and the pounding of her pulse in her ears.
The next—
sirens.
Relief hit so suddenly it almost hurt.
“Oh my God,” she breathed.
Ethan turned fast toward the road beyond the trees, his whole body shifting with the sound. Mira made a small broken noise beside them, one hand flying to her mouth like she was trying to hold herself together and failing.
Then the first police car broke into view.
It came fast up the drive, tires spitting gravel, lights flashing harsh blue and red across the front of the house and the trees and all of them standing there in the yard. Another followed close behind it. Then the ambulance, bigger, slower, but no less urgent.
Everything after that happened too quickly.
Doors opening.
Voices raised.
Boots hitting gravel.
A wave of motion and authority and noise rushing at them before Madaline could properly think.
“Stay where you are!” one of the officers shouted.
Ethan immediately lifted his hands slightly away from his sides, turning just enough to put himself half in front of Madaline and Mira again.
“There’s someone inside,” he called back. “He’s armed.”
That changed the officers instantly.
Madaline saw it happen in real time—their posture sharpening, attention narrowing, hands moving toward weapons and radios and belts without hesitation. One officer kept coming toward them while two others angled immediately toward the house.
“Who is inside?” the officer demanded.
Madaline opened her mouth, but Mira spoke first.
Her voice came out shaking, breathless, frayed in a way that made every word sound torn straight from panic.
“Ymir,” she said. “His name is Ymir. He—he killed my friend.”
The officer’s eyes locked onto her immediately. “He killed someone?”
Mira nodded too quickly, tears still bright on her face. “Katarin. Upstairs. He killed her in front of me.”
Madaline felt sick all over again hearing it said out loud.
It sounded even worse like that.
More real.
More fixed.
The officer took one step closer. “And he’s still inside?”
“Yes,” Mira said. “My brother tried to stop him. They were fighting when I got out.”
The sentence landed hard. Madaline saw it in the officer’s face—the immediate mental picture it created, the shape of the threat locking into place before anyone else could say something different.
“Your brother is inside with him?” she asked.
Mira nodded again, wrapping her arms around herself now like she was trying to hold in the shaking. “Kane. He told me to run.”
Another officer came up from the side, quicker, more urgent. “Description,” he said. “Tell me what he looks like.”
Mira blinked hard, breathing uneven. “He’s tall. Big. Red hair—really curly. Bright blue eyes. Tattoos on his arms, silver rings—” She swallowed and forced herself through it. “Baggy clothes. He was wearing dark pants. A hoodie earlier. I don’t—I don’t know if he still is.”
“Weapon?”
Mira hesitated just enough to look frightened instead of prepared.
“Something sharp,” she said. “I didn’t—I didn’t really see at first.”
The officers were already moving with the information before she finished.
One repeated it into his radio fast, clipped, professional. Male. Tall. Large build. Red curly hair. Tattoos. Armed with an edged weapon. Inside residence.
Madaline’s chest tightened.
The whole thing felt like it was happening too fast to stop and too loudly to interrupt.
The ambulance doors opened behind them. Two paramedics were already stepping out, but the officers held a hand up sharply, stopping them from advancing.
“Not yet,” one barked. “The scene is not yet secure.”
“He’s dangerous,” Ethan said, voice tight but controlled. “Please—Kane’s still in there.”
Mira made another small sound at that, and Madaline felt her body lean instinctively toward Ethan, toward the officers, toward any shape of protection anyone offered.
“We need to know where in the house,” the first officer said.
Mira shook her head. “I don’t know. Upstairs when I ran, but they could’ve moved. I just heard them—I didn’t stay—”
Her voice cracked beautifully on the last words, and Madaline hated herself a little for even noticing it like that.
Because none of this felt like something you were supposed to notice.
You were supposed to be terrified.
You were supposed to trust the person covered in blood.
You were supposed to want help to hurry.
One officer turned to the others, giving quick instructions Madaline only half caught.
“Rear entrance covered—”
“Watch the windows—”
“Armed male inside—”
Everything splintered into movement again.
And as the officers started toward the house, guns drawn, radios crackling, Madaline looked once at Mira.
She was still shaking.
Still frightened.
Still holding the center of all of it with blood on her sweater and terror in her eyes.
And because Mira had been there—
because Mira had seen it—
no one questioned the story.
Not even Madaline.