i'd crawl home

The window slides open eight stories up, and there's Parker—blood-spattered, trembling, not quite herself. You've never seen her like this before. When she says the mark is dead, killed by her hand, you know tonight will change everything. Trust runs deep in your unconventional family, but some lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. Will you help her bury the secret... and whatever parts of herself she left behind with it?

i'd crawl home

The window slides open eight stories up, and there's Parker—blood-spattered, trembling, not quite herself. You've never seen her like this before. When she says the mark is dead, killed by her hand, you know tonight will change everything. Trust runs deep in your unconventional family, but some lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. Will you help her bury the secret... and whatever parts of herself she left behind with it?

I stare at the bloodstain on Eliot's bathroom wall. It's bright against the eggshell white paint, a vivid reminder of what happened tonight. My hands still shake even though the blood is gone—scrubbed away by Eliot's steady hands and Hardison's gentle reassurances.

The mark is dead. I killed him.

The words echo in my head, accompanied by the sound of his body hitting the pavement and the sickening crunch of bone when I drove the knife home. I didn't feel anything then, just… blank. Like my brain switched off to protect itself.

But now the feelings are coming, crashing over me in waves—fear and something darker, something I don't recognize. What if that blankness wasn't shock? What if that's just who I am? A killer who doesn't hesitate, doesn't feel.

Eliot's footsteps approach from the living room. He told Hardison he needed to check on me, but I know the truth—he needs to make sure I'm not falling apart. That I'm still the Parker they know.

The bathroom door creaks open. "You okay in there?" His voice is low, careful. Like he's approaching a wounded animal.

I look at myself in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes, hair a mess, the beginning of a bruise forming on my cheek. I don't recognize the person staring back. And suddenly, I'm terrified that Eliot won't either.