“She didn’t even ask about you,” Coop says, as if that justified her death. “Samantha Boyd, your fellow Final Girl, was so interested in getting into my pants that she never bothered to ask how you were doing.”

“And how was I doing, Coop?” I say, my words as bitter as my tears. “Was I doing okay?”

He puts the gun away, sliding it gently back into its holster. Then he comes closer, sidestepping Tina’s body, kneeling down until his blue eyes are looking directly into mine.

“You were doing great.”

“And now?”

I tremble, afraid he’ll touch me. Not wanting to know what kind of touch that will be.

“You can still be great,” Coop says. “You can forget everything. About tonight. About ten years ago. You forgot it once. You can forget it again.”

On the floor, something pokes into my leg. Something sharp.

“What if I can’t?” I ask.

“You will. I’ll help you do it.”

I risk a glance away from Coop to look down, seeing that it’s a knife jabbing me. The same knife that dropped from Rocky Ruiz’s pocket. Tina had kept it for safekeeping. Now she pushes it toward me, somehow still alive, staring up at me with one bloody eye.

The tattoo peeks out from the sleeve of her jacket. Although it’s upside down, the word remains clear.

SURVIVOR.

“We can go somewhere,” Coop tells me. “Just the two of us. We’ll start new lives. Together.”

He sounds so earnest. Like he almost believes it’s possible. But it’s not. We both know that.

Yet I continue the charade. I nod. Slowly at first but picking up speed as Coop leans in and touches my cheek.

“Yes,” I say. “I’d like that.”

I keep nodding until Coop kisses me. First on the forehead, then on both cheeks. When his lips touch mine, I will myself not to wretch or yelp or squirm. I kiss him back while dropping my right hand to the floor.

“Quincy,” Coop whispers. “My sweet, beautiful Quincy.”

Then his hands are around my neck, squeezing gently, trying not to hurt me too much. He’s crying, too. His tears mix with mine as his grip tightens around my throat.

My thumb brushes the knife blade, sliding across its shivery edge.

Coop keeps squeezing my neck. His thumbs slide against my trachea, pushing. Then he kisses me again. Breathing air into my lungs even as he’s squeezing it out. He keeps crying, too. Moaning words into my mouth.

“Quincy. Sweet, sweet Quincy.”

My fingers find the knife’s handle. They curl around it.

There’s no more breath in me. It’s all gone, even though Coop continues to kiss me, puffing apologies past my lips.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

I raise the knife.

Coop’s still squeezing, still kissing, still apologizing. “I’m so, so sorry.”

I expect Coop’s body to put up a fight, as if he’s made of more than just skin and tissue. Yet the knife plunges into his side with ease, shocking him into stillness.

“Quincy.”

There’s shock in that single word. Shock and betrayal and, I suspect, a little admiration.

His hands don’t fall from my neck until I remove the knife. Blood spews from the wound, sticky and hot. Coop tries to pull away from me, but I’m too fast. The knife goes in again, this time in the center of his stomach.

I twist it and Coop’s body spasms. Flecks of blood and spittle fly from his mouth.

He puts his hands on mine, trying to remove the blade. I grit my teeth, grunt, hold the knife in place. When Coop’s grip weakens, I give the blade a final twist.

“Quincy,” he says again, blood bubbling at the back of his throat.

I give a single nod, making sure he sees it before his eyes roll back in his head. I want him to know that I’m more than a survivor, more than the fighter he always imagined me to be.

I’m his creation, forged from blood and pain and the cold steel of a blade.

I’m a fucking Final Girl.

Four Months After Pine Cottage

Beige wasn’t Tina’s color. It washed her out, fabric and skin almost indistinguishable from one another. Other than her pallor, she looked good. Same taut features. Same prickly body language. Only her hair was different. It was shorter, and deep brown instead of raven black.

“You’ll look like a different person when you get out,” Quincy told her.

“We’ll see,” Tina said. “Fifteen months is a long time.”

They both knew it could be shorter than that. Or not. It was an unusual situation. Anything was possible. Although Quincy was surprised by the length of the sentence, Tina wasn’t. It’s amazing the ways police can get you when you’re pretending to be someone else. Criminal impersonation. Identity theft. A dozen different types of fraud. The charges against Tina were so varied, stretching across several states, that Jeff warned she could spend up to two years in jail.

Quincy hoped it was less. Tina had been through enough, although she swore it was all worth it.

Some of it might have been. Mostly the part about clearing Joe Hannen’s name. His innocence had been proclaimed to the world, which is what she wanted all along.

Yet Tina had almost died, thanks to Him, the new person whose name Quincy could no longer utter. The bullet He fired missed her left lung by a few millimeters. It missed her heart by even less. The blood loss was enough to give doctors some concern, but all in all she recovered nicely. She healed up just in time to be sent to prison.