I waited for him to wake. I sat at his side, watching the the muscles on his face and neck start to tense. His eyes flickered open, then shot to me. He unthinkingly tested every restraint I had put in place; I found I was glad that I had overdone it. Realizing that there was no way out, he looked at me, less bewildered or scared than he should have been.

"You know why you're here?" I asked quietly.

He didn't answer. I found that I cared little. A calm fell over me; I stood, feeling as if I had all the time in the world.

"You don't beg enough for someone in your situation," I said, bland.

"Sorry to disappoint," he said, his eyes following me as I paced at the foot of the iron bedframe.

"I doubt that." I flashed him a smile—a smile?—and stilled, leaning on the bedframe. "Now is a good time to convince me you're innocent."

I began to circle the bed, never taking my eyes off of him.

"You don't look like you are easily convinced of anything," Morgan replied, as calm as I was.

"You're not dead," I answered reasonably.

"You kill me, you're going to do it without any proof of my guilt—of whatever it is you think I'm guilty of." He nodded to me. "My gift to you."

"You have no confidence that you could persuade me of your innocence, then." I watched his chest; he breathed a little bit faster than someone at rest.

"What do you accuse me of?" he asked, his eyes still following me as I paced.

"Of killing Mal Stevens."

"I didn't do it. There, are you convinced?"

"Do you want to die?" I snarled.

Something in his look changed. "That makes it harder, doesn't it?" he asked quietly.

I ignored that. "Why did you do it?" I demanded evenly.

He watched me for a moment. What was he considering? He was going to die, but I could make his last minutes much more painful if he chose not to answer.

Finally, he spoke. "Because he killed the Maybell Center children."

My brother had died for a false blame. I had stopped pacing. Trembling too hard to think straight. "You fool," I whispered. "Someone was convicted. He went to a goddamned asylum."

"They caught the wrong man. He was insane, a homeless drunk, but he didn't rape and murder those children."

"My brother certainly didn't."

"He did. I saw him with one of their bodies. I found his traces on her skin."

I fell to all fours and vomited. It took me a few minutes before I could stand again. "You're lying. If that had been so, why was the case never brought to him?"

"Because Carson had already been convicted."

"And that kind of evidence wouldn't have stood up in court?"

"Not with your father in the way," he answered, watching my face. My father, the police chief.

"My father didn't set anyone up," I said unflinchingly.

"Public prejudice and someone's faulty vision were not enough to convict him."

I dismissed that, unable to process anything else. "It couldn't have been Mal. He didn't have it in him." My brother. My brother.

"But you still know it."

Every muscle in my body tensed. I snatched up my knife, wanting his blood on the floor. Standing over him, I stilled, everything froze. He watched me, silent, waiting.

I let the knife drop to the floor and staggered backwards, leaning against the wall for support.

Every body that had been found in the woods behind our house had shaken Mal. It hurt him, my fragile brother, whose rawness he only ever showed to me. What had happened to him before he came to live with us I'll never know, but these children had reawakened those memories. I've never seen anyone as shaken.

Morgan was right. I knew it. I could not possibly believe it, accept it, but I already knew.

Blank, I sank to the floor, staring blindly ahead.

Time passed.

What was I going to do? All drive to kill this man in front of me was gone; I could barely move.

But what would happen if I did not? How could I free Morgan without him overpowering me? Would he kill me, too?

I woke up somewhere dark. I tried to move, but my hands were behind my back, tied. So were my feet. I struggled violently, screaming—muffled through the duct tape covering my mouth.

I was in a car, I thought—on the move. In the trunk? Would I suffocate? I tried to slow my breathing. How had the bastard gotten me? Was it even him? What had happened?