KNOX’S POV

Nathaniel drops to the mud.

Queenie rushes to him, wrapping herself around him, pressing her hands to the marks my fingers left on his throat. He waves her off and gets to his knees again, facing me, head bowed. Waiting.

I turn back to the river. Ember is standing in the shallows, the water around her knees, my violence and Nathaniel’s plea still hanging in the cold air between all of us.

She’s shaking — the heat fading, the cold taking over, her body finally coming down from the compound’s assault.

But her eyes, when they find mine, hold something I haven’t seen directed at me in a...