She’s always too quick to act and too slow to think, Linnett Kivone. I’ve known about her ways all my life (obviously, why would I not?), but her boyfriend or crush or whoever seems to agree with me.

Hardly trigger-happy, but she’ll go in guns blazing, scared for her safety — and ours. Sure, they’re Cruor, the lot of them, and it’s the most dangerous for her to stay with them, but murder will never keep her safe.

“Come on!” Gray yells, throwing open the door to reveal a girl I can’t recognise. Her hair is tangled and damp with sweat, eyes crazed, a lens from her glasses entirely missing. Blood drips from cuts all across her face and forearms, dark stains marked upon pale skin. Black stains.

I falter, but Gray does not. He walks up to the stranger, takes her hands in his own.

“Drop the gun, Lin,” he murmurs, and as the weapon crashes to the floor I realise that I didn’t even notice that she was holding one. “I’m here for you.”

“It’s not safe. Gray, please, please — I don’t want you hurt!” she sobs.

“I can’t-“ He swallows his words, trying again. “Linnett, I can defend myself. I know that you can too. Just come with us.”

“I have to do this.” As calm as a windless day, she speaks, and it’s not a sentence I should be hearing.

“For who?”

“For you! You and Evie!” She pauses. “I love you. You know that.”

“And you know that I love you. That’s why you need to come with us,” Gray said quietly. “I can’t lose someone else.”

Linnett looks away from him, glancing at me. “You’d lose me anyway.”

“We call the police.”

“They won’t believe us.”

He could say nothing to that.

Romance is hardly my strong suit.