Epilogue – Camille
Ididn’t get the ending we planned.
But it was still an ending I was happy with.
Driving the knife into Reed’s heart shocked me. I don’t know where the strength came from—but it was enough. His eyes met my own once, just before the end, and he whispered my name.
“Cami.”
I collapsed, sobbing, trying to scrub the blood from my hands into the rug until my palms burned raw.
Erich didn’t rush me. Didn’t tell me to hurry. He only waited.
Then he lifted me from the floor and held me until I could breathe again—until I understood what it meant.
I was free.
It was nearly two in the morning when he poured gasoline across the dining room. He wiped down the lighter, careful, precise, holding it through his sleeve before passing it to me.
“Don’t touch it directly.”
I wrapped my sleeve over my hand, took it—and threw it.
It struck Reed’s body and fell into his lap. The fire caught quickly on his piss-covered slacks, climbing over him in seconds.
We watched from the Rolls-Royce as the flames spread, glowing through the windows. When smoke began to pour out and the walls darkened, we drove.
We didn’t stop until dawn touched the hills outside Birmingham. We pulled into a quiet state park and rested.
No words. No sex. No passionate kissing. Quiet.
Erich held me in the backseat while I traced absent patterns along his chest, trying to process everything.
This wasn’t like Thomas.
This wasn’t an accident.
“Why did it bother you?” I asked eventually. “What he said?”
Erich didn’t answer at first. His fingers were running through my hair, straightening it out and flattening it back from my forehead. I opened my mouth to ask another question, but he cut me off.
“Are you asking for a philosophical answer,” he said, “or the real one?”
I let out a soft laugh despite everything. “The real one.”
His hand stilled. He tilted my face up to his.
“He said you belonged to him,” he said simply. “I didn’t like that.”
I didn’t know what to say.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead and pulled me back against him.
“Get some sleep.”
I exhaled, letting myself sink into him, the faint scent of smoke and gasoline clinging to his shirt.
“I love you,” I whispered.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then his quiet laugh brushed against my hair.
“Marry me.”