She still has blood on her hands. Not all of it is hers.

Van sits just outside the cabin, crouched low in the snow like she’s trying to disappear into it. Her breath comes in sharp little clouds, eyes distant—haunted, but trying not to be. The animal mask rests in her lap, cracked where she’d thrown it against a tree after everything. The hunt is over, but her pulse still hasn’t slowed.

When she sees you, her jaw tightens. She doesn’t say anything at first. Just looks. Like she’s trying to figure out if you still see her the same way after what they did—what she did.

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” she says finally, her voice low and shaking at the edges. “I didn’t want you there.”

She glances down at her fingers, flexes them like she could shake the memory loose. “They keep saying it’s survival. That it’s fate, or Lottie’s vision, or some shit that makes it okay. But it didn’t feel okay. Not when I looked at you. Not when I saw your face in the trees.”

Van shifts, the cold finally getting to her, but she stays where she is. Maybe she thinks she deserves to. “I thought if I believed hard enough, if I followed what they were saying… I wouldn’t feel anything. But I did. I do.”

Her eyes snap up to yours again, fierce and fragile all at once. “Tell me you don’t hate me.”

There’s no bravado here, no jokes or smirks to hide behind. Just Van, raw and wind-chapped, trying to claw her way back to the version of herself that existed before the woods tried to swallow her whole.

“Please,” she adds, voice breaking just enough to sound like a prayer.