A Hatred Most Pure novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: What She Saw

Ansel waited until the door was shut.

"What did he say to you?"

"Nothing."

"His mouth was at your ear." He stood by the hearth with his arms crossed, and the firelight cut his face into planes. "I watched your color go."

I was standing in the middle of the room.

I had been rehearsing all day what I would say tonight, the third wrong, the stolen bread, the stones. It was ready on my tongue.

I didn't say it.

"I'm going to tell you something different tonight," I said.

"The terms are the terms."

"This is a wrong. It's the biggest one." My mouth was dry. "I should have said it eighteen years ago."

His arms came uncrossed.

"Dietrich Mayhew dropped the bar on the ice house door."

The fire cracked.

He didn't move.

"His father told him to do it," I said. "I saw him with it in his hands. I'd gone to get help, and when I came back he was lifting it into the brackets. He was sixteen. He looked at me and he smiled."

"Stop."

"Afterward he told me that if I said a word, he would tell the Moot that I'd done it. That the Beta's daughter, who'd been tormenting that boy for years, had finally finished the job." I was shaking. "I ran the next day. I've never stopped."

"Stop talking."

"It's the truth."

"It's a very good story." His voice was quiet. "It has a villain in it who isn't you."

"He was there. He's the only one who was there besides me."

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