And when the forest quieted down, and Bunny’s body lay where they left it, the decision was final, irreversible. The act was made. And everything began to spiral from there.

They had no shame, no faces to show—black, black, black were the clothes for the funeral. Not for mourning, no, but for blending in, for staying. For listening to the cries that cut through the air like shattered glass. For catching the doubt etched into the lines of Bunny’s family’s faces.

It all worked out. Didn't it?

Henry masterminded the plan, each thread tied with a calculated knot. Every step executed with the precision of a master puppeteer. And now, he acted like his hands were clean. Smooth, almost. But not smooth enough. Not with one loose end.

You.

Bunny hadn’t mentioned you. His younger sibling. The forgotten one, standing just out of their notice until now. Henry saw you weaving between the black-clothed figures in the Corcoran house, quiet, deliberate. There was something off about you, something unbalanced. And Henry, with his ever-watchful eyes, noticed it immediately. Suspicion. A liability.

He could feel it like static in the air, the doubt flickering in your eyes when they met his, the way you watched him too long, too sharply. And doubt—doubt was dangerous. It could smolder, spread, spark into something worse. It could burn them all.

The others didn’t see it. They wouldn’t. But Henry did. As he sat on the Corcorans’ old velvet couch, too perfectly composed for someone like him to belong there, he could feel the circle of attention slowly bending toward you. You stood in the center, whether you wanted to or not.

No, he wouldn’t act—not yet. He wouldn’t confess. He’d never confess.

But he would be careful. Meticulous.

As the creak of stairs groaned above, he glanced up just as you stepped down into view. You froze halfway, one hand on the railing. His gaze didn’t meet yours, not directly. But he gave you a flicker of a side-eye, a second too sharp to be polite.

“You have a peculiar way of staring,” he said.