What felt like hours passed as we waited. Ciar held onto me as Matilda stood over us, leaning against the wall and watching with unreadable impassivity. Every time a siren wailed by I held my breath, thinking it might stop.

One of them has to stop.

Then, the soft crunch of gravel. It was like a gunshot in the eerie stillness, and it had Tilda's attention in an instant. She pushed away from the wall, peering through the window above our heads, and spun on her heel.

"Stay here."

Ciar glared at the door as it closed behind her. "Not like I have a fucking choice."

He jerked his cuffed hand, hitting the end of the chain. The radiator rattled like bars on a cage.

The door swung shut, and in her absence, everything hit me at once. "She's alive," I murmured, disbelief dulling the words.

"Yeah." Ciar threw himself back against the wall with a thump. "Alive. Fuck me, I guess. Fuck both of us."

"Aren't you glad?"

"I'm—"

He grimaced, containing the bitter words inside.

"Of course I am. But it doesn't change the fact that we suffered, and it wasn't even true."

I didn't answer. Voices rose outside, a man's clear among them. Donovan. I imagined his shock as he saw her. Would he mistake her for me at first? Would she tell him everything? How much time did we have before they came inside?

I shuffled around to Ciar's other side, clawing at the cuff around his wrist. My fingernails caught in the metal, bending back, and I bit down hard on both of my lips to keep from wincing.

"Maisye, stop." He grabbed one of my arms in his free hand, but I kept at it with the other. "Stop! You're going to hurt yourself!"

"We're both going to die if they come back in here," I growled.

"No," he said. "I don't believe that. Tillie said it herself. She wants to help you. Like all the other pregnant women."

"I'm not pregnant, Ciar. I can't have kids."

He let go. The muffled hum of voices continued outside, and I kept my attention on his shackled wrist, but I was only fiddling with the cuff now.

"Christ. I'm sorry, Maisye."

"It's fine. It's great, even, right? Nothing to worry about."

The weight of his gaze pierced me, even though I refused to look at him. My voice wasn't watery. I wasn't fighting to keep my fingers steady as they picked at the cuff with waning enthusiasm. I didn't care.

I couldn't have kids. It was just what it was. A cold, hard fact.

Ciar's hand twitched as a traitorous tear splashed onto his skin, then another. By the third, he was already reaching for my face to wipe them away. I slapped at his arm, falling back, and curled around myself. The empty space between my knees and my chest whispered familiar comfort.

"Maisye," Ciar said softly. "Maisye, come here."

I shook my head, pressing my palms hard into my temples as everything crashed down like a waterfall.

I was broken. The last two years of my life were a lie. Ciar was stuck, Donovan was outside, and nothing was stopping him from killing either one of us once he found out how useless I was.

Ciar shifted, straining as far from the radiator as he could. "Tell me what to do."

Kill me. Bash my head against the floor and don't stop until I'm beyond saving. Just look away and pretend I don't exist.

I cried harder.

Touch me. Tell me everything is okay.

"Just because you're used to being alone, doesn't mean you are. It doesn't mean you have to be."

My shuddering gasp silenced him. I was crumbling, pieces of me scattering onto the scabbed floor. I fell forward, onto my hands and knees, splinters pricking my palms as I shuffled toward him again.

You don't have to be.

The second I was within reach, he grabbed me by the shoulder and hauled me forward. I collapsed against him and buried my face in him, ashamed of my uselessness in the face of death.

You goddamn loser. You can't even keep it together so you can survive.

"Stop." Ciar shook me gently. "Stop beating yourself up. Stop pulling away because you think you don't deserve more."

I laughed once at how wrong he was. "Shut up."

"No way. I've annoyed you since we met, right? Why would I stop now?"

I heard the tiny smile he was fighting as I finally looked up, and I couldn't help but return it through my tears. But it quickly melted as I also saw the shabby walls behind him, a jarring reminder of where we were.

I had just started to pull away, perhaps to get up and search the small room for tools, when the door opened and Donovan appeared, followed closely by the muzzle of Tilda's gun. His eyes were wild, his face ghostly pale, and his gaze latched immediately on me, as if I was proof that the woman behind him was real.

Oh god, I practically heard him thinking. There are two of them.

Then he zeroed in on Ciar, who still held onto me. "You lied to me," he said through his teeth, rushing forward with alarming speed. "You told me you saw her jump! You said she was dead! What, did you want her all to yourself?"

Ciar scowled, rattling his cuff. "Do I look like a willing participant?"

Donovan's mouth tightened. "Maisye, come here."

I sat up, my tears drying at his tone. Like he could control me. Like he could control any of this.

"Don't touch me," I said as he reached out.

Tilda stepped forward, reminding us all of her presence. "You heard her," she said, gun steady in her right hand. She twitched it to the left, and he obeyed, backing off reluctantly.

"Tillie, please." He dropped to his knees as she placed herself between us and him. "Please don't do this. I love you."

"I know." A forceful, derisive breath left her nose at the hope that flickered in his eyes. "But you love hurting people more."

He shook his head frantically. "No—"

"Hurting people, and money," she said loudly, turning away.

He looked at me past her legs. "She's insane," he said, eyes boring into mine. "Absolutely crazy. You know that, right? She doesn't know what she's—"

"Shut up!" she shouted, startling him into silence.

I stared at Donovan with hooded eyes. He hadn't looked away, and he pled silently with me to believe him. He saw nothing wrong with flipping between the two of us—from me to her and back again—the second one seemed hopeless. Like we were interchangeable. Identical toys made from identical molds and placed on a shelf in identical plastic packages. One was as good as the next.

Except that I wasn't.

I blinked, and the corner of my mouth gave one small, ironic twitch. "I'm infertile."

I wanted to laugh as I watched him process the information. I wanted to pretend I didn't notice that Tilda had turned toward me, her mouth open. I wanted to revel in quiet vindication at the fact that everything both of them had done to me was for nothing.

Nothing.

That was all I felt.

Donovan's eyes flicked to Tilda and then back again, like he regretted his decision but was afraid of getting called out if he went back on it. I watched him with half a smile I didn't even feel, waiting for him to pick her again.

I raised my eyebrows.

He leaned away, a long sigh breaking the silence. I settled myself back against the wall. Ciar's hand landed on my knee, but it was nothing more than weight. No warmth, no comfort.

Nothing.

Blood pounded in my ears, muting everything in rhythmic chunks as Matilda stepped toward Donovan and raised the gun.

"Stop!"

I barely heard Ciar's shout. His fingers tightened against my skin, pressing almost painfully, but I felt them like an observer—watching from outside my own body, knowing how it should feel but not really feeling.

Tilda's head whipped around to face him, her hair fanning and falling like dancers' skirts as they twirled. "After everything I told you?" she hissed. "Everything he's done?"

"He doesn't deserve to die."

Their voices came from far away, like I was hurtling through a tunnel. Its darkness pressed in on the edges of my vision, enveloping me like an old friend.

"Neither did Maddie!" Tilda screamed, but the echo of her shriek continued even after she'd stopped speaking.

Suddenly Ciar seized my shoulder, shaking me. A confused shuffle of sounds floated between the pulses in my ears. A clatter. A quiet curse. An unintelligible mutter. As my lungs ran out of oxygen, the lingering scream stuttered and died.

Someone pulled me against them. I kicked blindly, hitting nothing, and then a soft breath met my ear.

"Maisye."

It was Ciar. Just like it had been last night. Him, whispering my name. My name.

"Maisye."

I flinched away, clapping my hands to my ears even though it didn't matter. He could call me anything he wanted, and it wouldn't change a damn thing.

"Maisye!" he said louder, his free arm cinched tight around my waist.

I laughed, a cackle that seemed far too big for the tiny shed. That trick had only worked when I could pretend the thing inside was Tilda, but now she stood in front of us—a demon, perhaps, but not a ghost—and I couldn't turn away from the truth anymore.

It was me.