Dying to Marry Him novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Copy

The girl in green stood in my doorway with her hands shaking.

"She said she'd give me a fourth night," she whispered. "I said yes, and then I couldn't do it."

"Come in," I said.

I had half expected Rook to leave. He stayed in his chair with his bare hand on the arm.

Behind the girl, the corridor filled with footsteps.

"Kerensa?" Loretta shoved the door wider. "I heard crying, so I woke up the whole hall. Don't be mad."

The nurse and the girl in gray crowded in behind her.

Loretta stopped dead in the middle of the room.

"Honey," she said, pointing. "He has a mouth."

"I wrote it," I said.

"You wrote it." She put her glasses on and took them off again.

"Thirty-one years of driving buses, and that's the best news I ever got."

I laughed, and Rook's mouth moved at one corner.

Then I locked the door, and I told them everything.

The girl in green wept for most of it. When it was over she wiped her face on her sleeve.

"I took the vow Alyssa told me to," she said. "Faithful, until death. I'm going to die at dawn, aren't I?"

"Not if you're in the story," I said.

The nurse leaned forward. "Then write us in now, before Alyssa finds a way to stop you."

I looked at Rook. "Will it hold?"

"It will hold," he said, "if you write it plainly."

Nobody spoke. The candle I had lit stood very straight.

"I'm in," the nurse said.

The girl in gray nodded.

"Me too," the girl in green said. "Please."

I opened the notebook to a clean page and wrote it first, because I was not going to trust my memory.

Then I said it aloud, slowly, so Rook could not misread a word.

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