Private Finished I can only make you see the moon. You can touch it, but that's up to you.

Lochlann rammed the shovel into the frozen soil. He pushed down on the cold blade with a booted foot and pressed with every ounce of weight he had. The earth grunted and protested against his onslaught but eventually started to crumble. He hefted the shovel up, tossed the dirt to the side, and continued.

After the longest car ride in his entire life, Lochlann brought the groceries inside and was relieved when Lillianna agreed to put them away. He left Guinevere and his sister standing in the kitchen.

He needed to get out.

The walls of the house were closing in on him. Every time he felt Guinevere's eyes on him, Lochlann felt like his skin was on fire.

The only thing that might cool him off was jumping into the river, but he couldn't do that, not with Guinevere here like this.

So, he threw himself into his work. He was out there for close to an hour now and his shirt was starting to cling to his back, even with the chill December air. It was stupid to do this kind of work in December, but the soil had to be churned up so they could replace the broken fence posts that separated this pasture from the river.

He was on the side closest to the river and Lochlann felt like he was starting work on a barrier between himself and what it was like to be human. A barrier between himself and her.

He tried to pretend Guinevere Haze was standing on the other side of the fence. If he took a deep breath and narrowed this vision on the fence post, he could almost pretend she wasn't there.

But it didn't work that way.

Real horses had great vision for scouring the distance for predators, but Lochlann was a predator. He had depth perception and, worse than that, he seemed to have a sense that told him when she was near. She made his chest ache.

Her question.

He almost threw the shovel but threw his weight onto it instead and pulled out another chunk of dirt.

Sharon.

Sharon was the question and the answer was Guinevere.

Lochlann had been sitting on that beach, trying to clear his head, trying not to think of Sharon when he met Guinevere. Sharon was the reason he came to Starlight Academy to begin with.

Sharon was the one he'd tried the hardest not to kill.

He'd failed anyway.

How could he explain that to someone like Guinevere haze?

He ignored her.

If he ignored her, maybe she would go away.

She told him to talk to him and Lochlann was about to.

He couldn't disobey her. Instead, he rested his hands on the top of the shovel and gave her the once over. The river was right behind him. He had that on his side. He left the shovel leaning against the fence and he left Guinevere.

He walked to the waters edge and kneeled down before it as though he was in worship or, as if he was kneeling before Guinevere. He cupped his hands into the icey water and brought it to his mouth and Lochlann took a drink.

It tasted cold.

It tasted like her lips.

"I have work to do," he finally said. He didn't turn to face her."I'll see you at the house later. I can't talk until it's all finished."

"Digging your grave," Lochlann said, but that was a stupid answer, because if he killed her, he would eat her. They both knew that.

He didn't know why she was still here. He didn't want to look at her. It hurt him to look at her. Everything about her was like a knife sliding into his skin and twisting around his organs. He was tired being eviscerated every time she looked at him.

He didn't want to reclaim the shovel because it was too close to her, so Lochlann walked to the wheel barrow just out of sight and grabbed another one.

He moved several feet away from her and started working again. Everything about his posture said fuck off. He was trying to build up walls around himself.

Lochlann took a deep breath.

He was exhausted.

He needed to sleep. He felt weakened from the car ride, torn to pieces by Guinevere, ripped to shreds by his past, and overwhelmed by the knowledge that there was no where he could go.

But could he?

Would she follow him if he went to the bottom of a lake and never came up again?

He didn't tell her to go away.

he didn't want to talk to her.

Lochlann looked up at Guinevere was diggging in the dirt next to him.

"What are you doing?" he said. "Go back to the house. I don't want you here. I don't want you here, either."

He meant the house at first but, truth be told, Lochlann didn't want her on the farm. He didn't want her in his life.

"Go away."

He came here to escape and he couldn't. He felt the walls closing in even in this wide open space and Lochlann lashed out. It was the only way he knew to protect himself.

"I don't want you here," Lochlann said. "And I don't care that you own me. I don't want you here, in my house, in my life. I didn't ask for this, Guinevere."

Lochlann wouldn't look at her and even saying her name hurt him. He bit his tongue and felt blood well up. His hands were shaking.

Lochlann stabbed at the ground again and worked further away from her still, even though the area between them was what needed his attention.

"I didn't ask for you, either. Why don't you go back and find someone else to torment? Do you do this to everyone before you kill them?"

Then, when the shovel scraped against a rock and came back out and hit him on the shin, Lochlann snapped. "Or do you only do that to the men? Because you certainly had no problem killing Dani."

"No, I did not get it all of my chest," Lochlann spat. "Dani was not a fucking assassin. She was my girlfriend. She loved me, Guinevere, and you fucking took that away from me. You took my whole fucking future from me, and now you're throwing some fucking excuse about your dad?"

He was really tearing into the ground now.

He should be wearing gloves. The skin on his palm was starting to tear. Hands were such fragile things.

"I'm not going to tell you anything," Lochlann said. "You already know every fucking thing about me. Why don't you just go find this out? You had no problem doing that for everything else in my life."

Mumbling.

Lochlann was ready to start screaming.

He tore at the soil surrounding the rock.

It didn't budge.

"Get out of my life, Guinevere. It's fucked up enough without you having to ruin it for me, too."

Lochlann lifted up the rock the same time Guinevere said his name.

He tossed it over his shoulder and it thumped, but then there was a thump next to him. Lochlann didn't pay too much attention to it. Guinevere was finally silent and he could fucking work in peace.

He worked so hard to avoid looking at her that when he was finally forced to turn into her direction, he was both surprised and relieved to see that she was gone.

And, then, he realized she wasn't gone.

Guinevere was on the ground.

He didn't quite comprehend what he was seeing. He eyed her warily, expecting a trap, but if something was wrong, Lochlann couldn't risk having a dead girl on his property.

He wanted to leave her there.

He really did.

He wanted to just jump into that lake and finally escape before she could even figure out where he went.

But--

She was just there.

She looked like something washed up on the shore after a storm. He could kill her, probably. He could do it now. He could snatch her up in his jaws and drag her to the river and she couldn't fight back.

He took a few steps over to her and Lochlann used that as his excuse to even touch her.

That's what he was doing.

He was getting ready to kill her.

It made it easier to roll her onto her side in the recovery position and to hold the flat of his hand before her to see if she was breathing. It made it easy for him to run his hands over her head to check for any obvious injuries from her fall. He didn't really know what happened. He didn't really know what to do.

The river was so close to them.

He picked his jacket up from the ground and covered her with it. Then, after a moment, he took off his shirt and balled it up under her head.

He went down to the river.

He cupped the water in his hands.

He could do this.

he could take her into the water.

He could end it all right here.

He returned to Guinevere, dripping from the elbow down, and then splashed it on her face.

When Guinevere didn't stir, Lochlann sighed. He bent down next to her, scooped her tiny frame up in her arms, and made the trek back to the house.

Lillianna was leaving when he walked by with Guinevere and though his sister arched an eyebrow, she didn't say anything. She held the door open for her while they came inside the house.

her skin was cool to the touch and Lochlann didn't know what else to do. The house was cold, too, so Lochlann worked at grabbing the excess blankets and spreading them out on the kitchen table. He rested Guinevere on the top of it, brought her legs up and propped them on a chair so they were elevated above her.

He draped another blanket over her, stacked pillows around her so she couldn't roll off, and then went downstairs to throw a log in the wood burner. When he came back up, he turned the oven on to let it heat and put a pot on the stove.

He washed his hands and started to prepare dinner with Guinevere resting on his table.

His heart was doing something strange.

His hands were shaking.

He felt like he should be freaking out about this, but that was too hard. It was easier to just go through the motions of getting her in a safe place.

It was hard, though, to feel like he hated her. Especially when she was prone and cold and unconscious. It made her look so human. He knew better, though, and he wanted to hate her even more because of it, but he couldn't.

Instead, she just made him feel tired. he was so tired of hating her. He was so tired of everything.

Lochlann chopped a pepper. He added tomato paste to the pot. He poured a glass of water and set it to the side, along with a plate of bread and honey.

he watched her.

He waited.

He was worn out from her questions. He was tired from trying not to yell. He felt the knife twist inside his gut and he let her eviscerate him after all.

"Don't try to sit up yet," Lochlann said. He had two fingertips on her shoulder as though that would be enough to stop her from getting up again.

He pulled his hand back and returned to the stove.

He continued making salsa. He continued trying to pretend that Guinevere Haze was stretched out on his table because she was his next meal.

He was tired.

"You passed out," he said.

It was a strange anomaly to him.

"Do you think you can drink something?"