PROLOGUE

Six months previously

October

LISTEN.

“No.”

Listen.

“I don’t want to hear.” She kept her eyes down, staring at her bare feet. Her toenails were painted pink. Only not here. Here, they were gray, like everything else.

Everything except the blood. The blood was always red.

She had forgotten that.

You have to listen to us.

“No, I don’t. Not anymore.”

We can help you.

“No one can help me. Not to do that, what you’re asking me to do. It’s impossible.” At the edge of her vision, she saw the blood creeping toward her and immediately took a step backward. Then another. “I can’t go back now. I can never go back.”

Yes. You can. You have to.

“I was at peace. Why didn’t you leave me there?” She felt something solid and hard against her back and pressed herself against it, her gaze still on her toes, so much of her awareness on the blood inching ever closer.

Because it isn’t finished,

“It was finished a long time ago.”

Not for you. Not for her.