Now all she had left was the collar she’d bought for her cat and a bitterness that refused to leave her alone.

Her father had never admitted to what he’d done, and Megan had never confronted him. But she’d known it was him.

She had been sickened when she’d discovered her little cat there, filled with rage. But her next step had been misdirected, she realized now. Misguided. It wasn’t Violet’s fault that Megan’s life wasn’t what she wanted it to be. It wasn’t Violet she should loathe.

It was him. It was her father she hated.

Megan recognized the sound of his footsteps making their way back down the creaking staircase from the loft.

Her stomach clenched tightly as she launched herself beneath her covers, expertly feigning sleep as she had so many nights before.

But it wasn’t her room he visited.

She listened while, not as silently as Violet, her father moved gracelessly through the cabin and out the back door.

She hurried to look through the frosted panes of her window as she watched him awkwardly making his way through the snow, a shotgun in his hand.

Following in Violet’s footsteps.

Chapter 31

Violet cringed as the ax struck the frozen earth, sending a tingling sensation up her arms. The ax felt too heavy in her hands, the weight too solid for the task.

She’d positioned the flashlight in the snow so that it was shining over the spot where she was trying to dig.

She was having a hard time holding on to coherent thoughts. They were vaporous, drifting like opaque threads of smoke, only to vanish like shadows whenever she tried to grasp them. This particular echo had an indefinable intoxicating effect on her that seemed to suddenly intensify . . . its grip on her tightening, clutching her in its embrace.

But she was already here, answering its call; why would it get stronger now? Unless . . .

His voice, deep and haggard, confirmed what she’d guessed—she was no longer alone.

She wasn’t sure how he’d managed to sneak up on her—if it was the lack of clarity that plagued her brain or if it was the lingering pain filtering in around the edges. Or simply that she was too absorbed in trying to find her way below the surface of the icy ground to notice that something had changed in her surroundings.

That something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

“How did you know?” The man’s words grated harshly through the night.

Violet’s head cleared briefly as she jerked back from her task, fear temporarily jolting her from her stupor. She didn’t need to ask who he was; when she saw him standing there, the broken bursts of light emanating from beneath the hood of his coat gave her that answer. She noticed it was raining again, that she could hear the same heavy drops that had awakened her.

No, she realized belatedly. It isn’t raining; it’s too cold to rain. It was only the sound she heard.

She glanced down at her gloved hands, at the ax she held there. She wasn’t sure what to say. Terror blocked her throat, strangling her.

He spoke again, this time quieter, his voice ravaged by something that sounded like sorrow. Maybe even regret. “How did you find her?”

His questions didn’t make any sense, and Violet struggled to pay attention.

Her? Violet tried to remember what she knew—which wasn’t much—about hunting, about the laws that hunters were expected to abide by. Weren’t they supposed to hunt only the males? Wasn’t it illegal to kill the females?

She clenched her teeth, forcing herself not to succumb to the alluring pull of the echo, the venom that promised to deaden her senses.

He stumbled as he took another step toward her, and Violet could see his red-rimmed eyes behind the flickering light, and the dark circles beneath them. From this close, he looked so much older. And so very tired.

He stared back at her without seeing.

Violet remembered that he’d been out—presumably drinking—and she wondered if he felt half as blurry as she did.

She thought about moving away from it, from the echo beneath her feet, in an effort to gather her wits. But the prospect of facing that pain again, amplified by the presence of the man who carried the matching imprint, was unbearable. She preferred to remain drugged.

His voice, when he spoke again, was riddled with anguish. “I loved her. And a long, long time ago, she loved me too. I didn’t want to do it.”

Violet was losing the battle to understand what he was telling her. His words felt like nothing more than pieces of an unsolvable riddle to her addled mind.

She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, but she couldn’t seem to formulate the thoughts into words, and instead she sat there, gaping dully.

“She promised to love me forever. She made a vow. . . .” His voice became bitter, angry. Spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth, and Violet could tell that he was no longer talking to her. He gazed over her head, lost in his memories. “But she lied. And then she told me she didn’t love me anymore. She said she . . .” His voice broke. “. . . she said she wanted him. He ruined my life.” His jaw clenched.

Violet’s eyes dropped down to his hand, which dangled limply at his side. She saw the shotgun he leaned against, clutched in his palm.

Her head started to clear as she shivered. Her blood felt electric within her veins and she was suddenly, lucidly, aware of her surroundings . . . and of the man standing before her. She was terrified by what she was witnessing, even though she still wasn’t certain what it was that he was confessing. But she knew, deep down in her heart, that he was telling her something she probably didn’t want to hear. That no one should ever have to hear.