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"I did? Well. It's as close to it as it gets."

"I wouldn't really know, she seemed…nice when I saw her." She tilts her head, studying me in that way she does, like she's reading the fine print. "But with how you say her name and the warning you gave, I'm guessing I'm wrong."

I should leave it there. I know I should. But my jaw's already tightening and the words come anyway.

"Just trust me on this. You don't want to get tangled up with Melina."

"So there's history."

I've opened a can of worms here that I know I won't be able to shut. Melina's moans and the feel of her new toy's hands caressing me slip into my mind, but then I hear Amora clear her throat. And suddenly, the only thing I can think of is her.

"There's history." I let out a breath that's almost a laugh, except there's nothing funny about it. "Long, ugly, completely fucking stupid history."

She doesn't push, doesn't lean in, just waits with that patience that's somehow worse than if she'd demanded it out of me. The quiet does more work than any question could.

"We grew up together. Her, Vincent, Jarrod, me. I was eight when I got here, she was six. For a long time, she was the only good thing about this place." I twist the ring on my finger, around and around, the metal warm now from my own hand. "Then we got older. Then it stopped being good."

"What happened?"

"I tried to leave once." The words land heavier than I mean them to, settling into the cold air between us. "Four years ago."

"But you didn't."

Why the fuck am I telling her this? Giving her a part of my past I'd long buried?

"No." I stare out at the dark garden below, at the maze I used to run through as a kid pretending it was somewhere else. "She knew. Whether she told Vincent outright or just let it slip where he'd hear it, I still don't know. Doesn't matter much in the end. He found out before I made it past the gates."

Amora's quiet for a second, and when she speaks again, her voice has gone soft in a way that catches me off guard. "What did he do?"

I don't answer that. Some things don't need saying out loud; not to her, not tonight. She doesn't ask twice—she just watches me, and something in her face tells me she's filling in the blanks herself, getting close enough to the truth that it doesn't matter that I stayed silent.

"So she's the reason you're still here."

"She's a reason." I shrug, like it costs nothing, even though it costs everything. "Vincent's the rest of it. Jarrod's the rest of it too, if I'm honest. But yeah. Her too."

"That's…" she stops herself, shakes her head slightly.

"Go on."

"That's a horrible thing. To love someone and have them be the reason you're trapped."

I almost flinch at the word love, like she's reached into my chest and pulled something out I hadn't agreed to show her. "Loved," I correct, too fast. "Past tense."

"Sure," she says it gently, no argument in it, but there's something in her eyes that says she doesn't quite believe me. And worse, that she might be right not to.

I clear my throat, desperate to steer us somewhere else, anywhere else. "Your turn. Tell me something stupid about yourself. Equal trade."

That gets a small laugh out of her, surprised, like she didn't expect to find one in herself tonight. "Stupid how?"

"I don't know. Embarrassing. Something that has nothing to do with any of this." I gesture vaguely at the manor, the balcony, the whole rotten shape of the night.

She thinks about it, really thinks, like it's a harder question than anything else I've asked her. "Um...I still can't ride a bike."

"That's it? That's your shameful secret?"

She rolls her eyes, but I see the twitching at the side of her lips.

"Fine. In my last year of high school, I had some…issues with a guy." She pauses, a small laugh rumbling in her throat. "So one afternoon when me and Rosa saw him in the park walking his dog, we kind of…took it."