“Mama...?” Summer looked at Lorraine, her eyes wide. There was no way either one of the sisters would let them pass without alerting Taured. Lorraine’s eyes were set, her jaw up and out like she meant business. Summer glanced over her shoulder every few minutes, expecting to see the compound’s occupants pouring outside to stop them, but there was no movement, not even a breeze. Up ahead, she could see the black gates looming, the fence alongside them running endlessly to their left.

“Stop doing that,” her mother snapped the next time she looked over her shoulder. “You’re making me jittery.”

“Sorry.”

When they reached the gate, Lorraine walked to the box on the right-hand side of the road. She flipped up the grate to the keypad and typed something in. They both looked expectantly toward the gate; nothing happened. She touched her necklace as her face pinched in worry.

“I put it in wrong, that’s all...” Lorraine tried again, and this time the gate groaned and swung open. Lorraine grabbed her daughter’s hand and walked her across the threshold. Dawn was waiting for them on the other side.

“Where ya going?” Her voice was deceptively cheerful as she squinted at them. She wasn’t wearing her knockoff Ray-Bans, which were a fixture on her face most days. Lorraine let go of Summer’s hand and went right up to Dawn, her back to Summer.

“Lose your sunglasses? Why don’t you go look for them and mind your business?”

Summer did a double take; had it been her mother who’d said that? But as Lorraine stepped backward, Summer saw that Dawn didn’t look mad; she looked afraid actually. She nodded once, plucking the toothpick from the corner of her mouth and tossing it away before retreating to the guard shed. She was about to ask her mother what that was about when Lorraine’s attention diverted left.

“There it is—hurry!”

A cab gently crested the horizon, the sun seeming to melt the air around it. Summer could feel the sweat on her back and running down her legs. She was too afraid to look back now. She imagined Dawn walked directly into the shed and calling down the wrath of the whole compound.

The cab seemed to take an extraordinarily long amount of time to get there, the air feeling hotter with each second. When it stopped next to them, due to her mother waving her arms, Lorraine shoved her daughter inside the car and slid in beside her. Summer scooted all the way across the seat, taking her mother’s bag with her.

“The airport,” she said. “If you could drive quickly, we’d appreciate it.”