His arms wound around me, and he shook with silent sobs. He buried his face in my hair, and his words came out haltingly, stumbling over tears he was obviously fighting. “We’re not pretending anymore, are we?”

“We never were. We never have, Tod.” My fingers slid into his hair, and I tried to memorize the softness. The curls. “You and I have been real from the start. Don’t ever forget that.”

“I can’t stop you, can I?” His breath was warm on my ear, and his grip almost bruised. “No one ever could stop you once you made up your mind.”

I closed my eyes and inhaled his scent. “I want...” I held him as tight as I could. “We don’t have much time left. I want to be with you. Please. You can’t change any of this, so let’s just...let’s just be together, okay?” My tears fell on his shoulder. “Will you just be with me?”

“You don’t even have to ask....” He pulled far enough away that he could see me, and beneath unshed tears, his irises burst into a tight twist of colors that made my head spin and my heart ache.

We sat on the edge of his bed and he leaned in to kiss me, and I buried myself in the feel and taste of him. I pushed everything else from my mind as silent tears trailed down my cheeks and landed in my hair.

We took our time, lingering in touches and kisses that echoed in my heart and haunted my memory. When all our clothes were gone, and most of our time was gone, and my chest ached so badly I could hardly stand it, I pulled him close and whispered into his ear. “I need you to trust me, even after I’m gone. Even after you’ve forgotten all of this. Do you trust me, Tod?”

“With everything I have and everything I am. With all my soul.”

I lost control of a sob. Just one, and Tod kissed the tears from my cheeks.

“And would you wait for me, if it came to that?” I shouldn’t have said it, but he wouldn’t remember, and I needed to know.

I could handle whatever lay ahead if I had that one answer.

“Until the end of time. Love doesn’t expire, Kaylee. And love never, ever dies.”

With every last beat of my heart and every single bit of my own soul, I hoped that he was right.

* * *

Afterward, Tod and I lay side by side, breathing in sync, his arm wrapped around me while he fought sleep and the oblivion it would bring for him. I never wanted that moment to end, but it was doomed from the very beginning. That was a moment stolen from eternity, and those moments were never meant to last.

When I sat up, his arm retreated slowly, and he exhaled so heavily that I almost changed my mind. I almost took the coward’s way out. But then I remembered that in the end, the easy way would only be harder. For all of us.

I stood and pulled on my clothes, and I could feel him watching me. In the bathroom doorway, I turned tolook at him, gripping the doorframe. “I love you.”

He sat up, wearing just his shorts, his feet peeking out beneath the sheet draped over the floor. “I...” He stopped, then started over. “Words don’t do it justice, Kaylee.” But that was okay, because I could see how he felt. He was showing me, in his eyes. In his soul.

“I know. Words were never enough, were they?”

“None of it was enough.” He stood, and a second later I was in his arms, and his hands were in my hair, and he was kissing me, and holding me, and trying to hold on to me, and I knew I should push him away. That I should make a clean break. But I needed to feel him. I needed to kiss him. One last time. “I will never, ever have enough of you, Kaylee.”

Then, slowly he let me go.

That time I didn’t look back, because I knew that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to leave. I closed the bathroom door behind me, and silent tears rolled down my cheeks as I pulled my shoes on. I put my hand flat on the closed door for a moment, wondering if he could feel it from the other side. Then I blinked out of Tod’s room and out of his life.

I materialized in my father’s empty bedroom and fell to my knees on the floor, crying uncontrollably. Sobbing so hard my whole body shook. Tears poured down my face. I clutched my chest, desperate to ease an ache unlike anything I’d ever felt. My sternum hurt like my heart had been ripped from my body, leaving behind an empty, gaping cavity.

I don’t know how long I stayed like that, hunched over on the floor, shaking and sniffling and broken in more ways than I’d known a person could be broken. I stayed there until I had no more tears to cry. Until I had no other choice but to stand up, and grow up, and give up the only thing that would finally put my friends and family out of evil’s reach.

My soul.

Nash and Sabine were curled up on Emma’s twin bed, fully clothed for once. Holding each other.

The living room was quiet, so I peeked in to find Sophie and Luca asleep on the couch, together, and Em passed out in the recliner. Then I went back into my dad’s room and closed the door. I sat on his bed and picked up the notepad on his nightstand, then dug through the drawer for a pen, my jaw clenched against any more tears.

The note to my father was the hardest. It took a long time. More time than I could afford. More time than he could afford.

The note to my friends wasn’t much easier, but the words were flowing by then.

The third note was the most important. The words were critical; they had to be just right.

When I was done, I folded the pages and wrote their names on the outside.

I left the first two notes on my dad’s nightstand where—with any luck—they wouldn’t be discovered until after Levi had played his part.