“Scar!” yelled Much as Rob lunged for me.

I swung my leg down and kicked his out so he fell. The knife skittered and Much ran for it. I jumped on Rob, pinning his arms down. “Robin!” I shrieked. “Rob!”

He roared like a gutted animal. He twisted his leg up and kicked me hard in the belly. I fell off him and he followed, slamming his bear paw on my face again. I rolled him, punching him back and hitting him so hard in the face it made pain rush up my arm.

“Scar, get him outside!” Much yelled.

Rob rolled me again, but I were ready this time and tucked both my legs up to push him hard back. I leapt up, dizzy and swimming, and grabbed Much’s good hand and ran.

We ran for the door and the night and the snow, and Rob followed us, grabbing my hair as we opened the door.

I swallowed a scream but fought tooth and nail to get outside, letting him crush me into the snow.

The moment the snow hit us he sucked in a hard gasp and rolled off of me. “Scar?” Much called. “Scar?”

I pushed up off the snow, and it were stained with red where my face were. I were shaking hard and when I tried, my legs wouldn’t hold me none, and I fell to the stone in the cloisters.

Much stripped off his overshirt and stuffed it with snow, bringing it back to me and pressing it to my face. Rob were down the row, huffing and trying to breathe and I couldn’t help him. My bones were shaking so hard I thought they’d tear straight apart.

“Don’t let him see,” I mumbled to Much. “Please.”

Much were whiter than the snow, but he nodded.

Rob turned toward us. “Scar,” he said, like his mouth were half full of rocks.

Much stood over me, blocking me from him. “Just go inside, Rob,” he said quiet.

“Where’s John?”

“I don’t know,” Much answered. “Please, go inside.”

I heard Rob’s breath still huffing out hard. Then I heard his feet scuff over the stone and the door creak open.

Much turned back to me, but I were bent over my body, heartbroken and bleeding and letting rivers run from my eyes, cursing the day they tortured Rob and brought back whatever phantom he were fighting now. They had tortured him and now it were torturing me too.

Much went back in after a while. The monks filed past me for their prayers at sunup. Then John came along and found me, and his face went flat and he went into the warming room.

I heard raised voices and smacks and thuds. Heat and shame rushed up and I stood, wobbling on my legs, wavering toward the door that didn’t look so fearful in the daylight. My body hollered at me, my stomach turning and rolling. I went into the warming room to find John and Rob with their shirtfronts caught up in each other’s fists, bellowing in each other’s faces.

“Stop,” I said, and they both fair shocked me by obeying. Rob saw me and he went slack and more than a bit green.

John let him go, and Rob just hung there like God were a puppet master making a toy with his body. John could bare contain himself; he were huffing through his nose like a bull in pasture.

“You have to go,” Rob said. I knew he said it to me; he were looking right at me, but I couldn’t imagine he meant it for me.

We all looked at him. “What?” I squeaked.

“You have to go,” he said again, swallowing whatever were stuck in his pipes. He looked at me and away. “All of you. I want you to go to Tuck’s and stay there.”

“No,” I spat. “Don’t be daft.”

“Daft?” he growled. “Daft? I beat you within an inch of your life and you’d stay here, but I’m crazy? You want me to do it again, is that it?” His voice raised. “Do you want me to kill you?”

John pushed Rob hard, and he hit the wall.

“Rob!” I yelled, and it made me hurt everywhere. “We don’t leave each other. You made me promise to stay when all I wanted to do was run, Rob, and that were the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Don’t make me break that oath.”

Rob straightened up, staying farther from me. “No,” he said. “No. This isn’t the same. This is your safety and my sanity, so you leave or I will, Scar. Tuck will take you in, but I don’t trust myself there.” He swallowed again. “I don’t trust myself anywhere.”

“I won’t go, Rob,” I told him. “Why can’t we fight this together?”

“Because it’s not your fight, Scar!” he yelled. “You can’t fight this for me. And I can’t fight this with you.”

His eyes stared at me, wide and lost, and I felt like every rope tied between us were snapping. I felt bloodless, like I hadn’t anything inside me but bones and air.

Rob’s eyes dashed away from me. “John, you’ll take her to Tuck’s.”

“I won’t come back here, Rob,” he told him. “Not for a few nights at the least. I can’t even look at you right now.”

My eyes dropped to the floor like my gaze were weighted with stone. There were nothing between us all but quiet.

“Much, go with them,” Rob said.

Much swallowed, but he nodded.

John’s big feet shuffled close to me, and he let me lean on him. “Come on,” he told me. “We’re going now. Much, can you gather everything up?”

Much nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”

I wanted to yell—to scream that I would stay, that I wouldn’t leave him, that I didn’t much care if it killed me.