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Maybe I should be glad, but I’m not. He’d seemed almost frantic when I’d been brought in from the snow, but then he’d taken himself away. Does he feel like the job is done now I’m trapped here? He no longer needs to make any effort with me. Not that Levi has ever made any real effort, not in the traditional sense.

At some point, I fall into a deep sleep. I have extra blankets for my bed, and I’m snug and warm, burrowed into them like a hibernating dormouse. I know I’m lucky not to have suffered any permanent damage from either the car crash or the hypothermia. If Dov hadn’t come after me, I most likely would have lost fingers and toes from the frostbite, if not lost my life entirely.

I have no idea what time it is when I open my eyes again, but the room is still in darkness, the world beyond my windows cloaked with night. Is the snow still falling? The temperature of the room feels several degrees cooler than it had when I’d fallen asleep, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s normal for the ambient temperature to drop overnight.

I’m not alone.

My nighttime visitor has returned.

Maybe I should be more afraid than I am. He killed Tobias—something I have to keep reminding myself of to make it feel real. But I don’t feel any threat from him. I know the reason he watches is me is because he wants to keep me safe. If Tobias hadn’t been such a nasty piece of work, Dov would never have felt the need to do what he had.

No movement comes from the corner of the room, but I know he’s there.

Blake wouldn’t have locked my bedroom door when he left—not that a lock ever seems to make a difference as to who can come in here. He would have wanted easy access to me to check on me through the night, in case I took a turn for the worse.

My heart contracts with pain at the thought of him checking on me. He wouldn’t bother if he didn’t care about me. But even if he cares, I can’t just forgive him for the horrific lie he told me. That he led me to believe something so awful about myself… someone who truly loves another person would never allow that to happen.

“You should go, Dov,” I say.

A voice comes out of the darkness. “I don’t want to leave you.”

I sense his caution, perhaps wondering how I’ll react to him now I know the truth.

He killed Tobias.

It’s crazy that I’m more upset with Blake for lying to me and making me believe I was responsible than I am with Dov for being the actual killer.

My heart patters against the cage of my ribs. I’d be crazy not to be at least a little alarmed, right? I’m alone with this huge man, who I know has the capacity for violence and who I’ve been warned struggles to control himself since his brain injury. He could easily hurt me right now, or worse.

So why do I feel the need to reach out to him? Like I’m the one who should comfort and reassure him? I feel guilty for telling him to go.

“It’s okay, Dov. I’m not angry with you.”

He moves closer, and now my eyes have grown accustomed to the dark, I can make out the shape of him, the bulk of his muscle, square of his jaw, and curl of thick hair.

He’s so big and strong and beautiful. Damaged, too. If Dov was wandering around in the real world, he’d probably have a whole gaggle of women chasing him down the street, swooning if he so much as glanced in their direction.

I try to picture the person he was before the accident. Had he been confident and popular? The star of his school—envy of all the other boys, and fantasy fodder for all the girls? How had his accident affected Levi? I bet Levi had looked up to his big brother when he was younger.

Something occurs to me. Both Levi and I have an older sibling vanishing in common. Maybe Dov didn’t physically vanish, but I guess the part that had made him him back then did. Had Levi been different before the accident, too? Had he been kinder, more gentle, more loving? Had he loved his big brother so much, and then the brother he’d known and looked up to was gone, and a monster was left in his place? Was that why Levi hardened his heart so much? Because he didn’t feel he could risk exposing himself to that kind of hurt again?

I know how it feels to be the child of parents who have lost your sibling, too. The way they seem to almost forget you exist because their grief for their lost loved one is too great for them to remember you. You exist in a shadow of a person who is no longer there, and somehow your own grief and loss become secondary to theirs. My mother had been like that after my sister vanished. It was as though she’d forgotten she had two children, and one still needed her. Her grief had consumed her until she’d finally decided she couldn’t live with it anymore.

The fact that I hadn’t been enough to make her want to live had hurt more than anything.

“You saved my life on the mountain,” I tell Dov. “Thank you.”

My emotions war against each other. I wouldn’t have needed him to save me from the accident if he hadn’t hurt Tobias. But if he hadn’t intervened, how far would Tobias have pushed me?

I suddenly remember something else—the reason I hadn’t woken when the altercation happened between Dov and Tobias.

“You’ve been drugging my water.”

A new understanding sinks in. If I’d been drugged with Tobias still in my room, and Tobias had decided to try again, I wouldn’t have been able to stop him. I’d have been powerless. How much had Dov’s intervention been because he’d known this?

“You can’t do that anymore, Dov. Do you understand? It’s crossing a line.”

So many lines have been crossed. I won’t drink water I haven’t poured fresh for myself from now on. It’s crazy that I’m having to take these steps to protect myself, but since I can’t leave this place, what else can I do?