He drags the stool another inch closer, until his knee bumps the side of the mattress. He’s close enough now that I can see the fine stubble under his jaw. He still smells like a forest river, even here in this land of disinfectant and plastic.
“I’ll ask you one more time,” he murmurs, those blue-black eyes fixed on me even though I refuse to look back at him. “I want you to tell me who did this to you. You asked for honesty, so I’ll give it to you: Once you tell me, I’m going to hurt him. I’m going to hurt them very badly. Because you were right that the world is cruel and unfair. But I am the one who makes it that way, and I intend to make it crueler and more unfair to the ones who’ve made it that way for you. Let me do that, Cassandra.”
My eyes fill up. I try to keep them closed, to h
