Page 71 of Hunter or Hunted

“Can I have a minute with her?” I asked Sebastian, peering into the empty room. “Would you mind waiting here?”

“Of course, baby.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I’ll be right outside.”

I gave his hand a squeeze in thanks, and I walked to her. My steps were lighter than they’d been yesterday. It wasn’t so hard to face her, knowing I’d brought her a small piece of justice.

At the casket, I took her hand. So cold, so waxy beneath my touch. It wasn’t her anymore, and I knew that, but maybe she was here. Maybe she could hear me.

“I’m not gonna call you Delilah anymore,” I whispered. “I’ll try to call you Allie, because you didn’t need to punish yourself like that. I get why you did. It’d kill me to leave Honey, but I know you had to. Just like you had to say your piece. You had to hit him where it hurt. And I’m so sorry for the price you paid for that.”

She didn’t stir. No magical, ghostly voice whispered in my ear. But I kept going.

“You’re Allie to me now.” I squeezed her hand. “Because I got him, Allie. Samson’s with me. He won’t die in that house. You didn’t kill him.”

Warring with the lump in my throat, a shaking breath trembled from my lips. I raised her hand to my lips. A soft squeeze, and a gentle kiss.

“But I’ll kill Evan.” So low no one else would hear, I said, “It won’t bring you back. But it’ll keep Ava safe.”

“...just telling her goodbye before we head out,” Sebastian’s voice carried from the entrance.

Carefully resting Allie’s hand back on her chest, I looked over my shoulder.

Ava brushed past Sebastian, pushing up her glasses behind her teary eyes. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I just—We didn’t get to talk much yesterday, and I have so many questions, Zoey.”

More than I had time for. More than I could explain, I was sure. But I would try.

I wiped the salty water beneath my eyes with both pointer fingers. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to run out yesterday. I just—Well, everyone here knew her better than I did. I wanted to give you guys some space.”

“That’s okay.” She wiped at some tears of her own, forcing a smile. “I guess I just don’t unders—What happened? How did she get to this point?”

The truth could incriminate what I would soon do. But everyone else manipulated this girl with half-truths and lies. I wouldn’t be one of them.

“She and I had dinner together the night before, and she was fine.” I swallowed hard. “She was happy. She had just started college, and she was looking forward to the future, and I—I don’t believe what they’re saying, Ava.”

Face scrunching up with confusion, she shook her head. “But the cops said⁠—”

“I know.” Clearing my throat, I lifted my shoulders. “That’s the world we live in. The cops don’t care because somewhere between a quarter to half of them are just as violent as the situations me and Allie ran from.”

With brows so deep in her eyes I could barely make out their color, she blinked rapidly. “What’re you talking about?”

“Why do you think she ran in the middle of the night without even a suitcase?” I asked. “Who do you think gave her that black eye?”

She just kept giving me that look. Perplexed, maybe angry.

When she stayed quiet, I shook my head. “Look, I’m just a stranger. You don’t know me, so you don’t trust me. But I knew your sister, and I think she’d want for you what she didn’t get for herself.” I wiped some snot from my nose with the back of my hand. “She got out of this town for a reason. She stopped talking to your parents for the same one. Not because they’re evil, but because they thought the best thing she could be was Evan’s wife someday.

“Living with the pain of that wasn’t easy. But she did, because she knew there was more to life than this town and these people. She wanted a career. She wanted something of her own before she shared it with someone else.” I gently squeezed her shoulder. “And I think she’d want the same for her baby sister.”

Her lip trembled, and her eyes flooded.

“Does that sound like Allie?” I asked. “Is that something she would’ve told you?”

Ava’s shoulders quaked on a sob. She nodded, and I did too. I tucked my arms around her, and I squeezed, and she squeezed back, and for a moment, I was sure she would walk the path that’d burned before her sister could walk it.

But I would scorch the trail she was walking whether she liked it or not. Just as Allie would’ve wanted.

The service was as beautiful as it could’ve been. They reopened the room, and the preacher spoke about life and death and eternity behind pearly gates. Family dabbed at the corners of their eyes, and friends breathed slowly through O-shaped lips, eyes narrowed at the man who sat beside Allie’s little sister. He didn’t toss an arm around her shoulders, but his thigh stayed wedged against hers the whole ceremony. Even when she angled herself closer to Charlotte on her other side.

I noted it, but all that rage, the mountain of disgust that’d compounded in my gut, vanished.