A loud, low sound shook the bathroom. The water in the toilet bubbled and fizzed. Something red floated through the water toward the surface.

It was Delilah’s lip gloss tube. The bloodstains on the plastic still looked as fresh as they had the night Lily found her in the grass.

Lily screamed.

The lip gloss sank back into the water. In its place, Lily’s phone floated to the top of the toilet bowl, the screen facing up. It blinked back on with another text.

TURN AROUND, LILY.

She turned.

Streaks of blood dripped down the bathroom mirror.

Lily turned again, ready to run, but the bathroom door swung closed. The old brass lock slid into place.

“Leave me alone!” Lily pounded on the bathroom door, even though she knew if no one had heard her before, they wouldn’t hear her now. “I’m sorry! Just let me go, please!”

The faucet in the sink cut off. The shower came on in its place. Burning-hot water splashed out past the shower curtain, stinging Lily’s skin.

She turned away to hide her face. The sink was overflowing, even though the water had stopped running. Her cell phone floated on the surface of the flooding water in the basin. A new text had appeared on the phone’s screen.

BLOOD WILL HAVE BLOOD.

Lily reached into the water. It was boiling hot. Welts were already forming on her skin. She grabbed the phone and yanked back the shower curtain, ready to hurl the phone at the hard tile of the shower walls.

Behind the curtain, a pair of bulging red eyes glowed out at Lily from the dark.

Lily screamed. She screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

She turned and grabbed the brass doorknob, ignoring the way it burned her skin. It wouldn’t move. She pounded on the door, on the counter, on anything she could reach. She banged her boiling-hot phone onto the ceramic of the overflowing sink. Anything that might stop this. Anything that might bring help.

No help came.

Instead, she felt a heavy presence behind her.

She turned slowly. All she could see was steam rising from the shower. There was no sign of those glowing red eyes.

Then the steam was coming toward her. Enveloping her.

A deep gash appeared on the back of Lily’s hand. Blood dripped down her skin onto the white tile.

She sank down to the floor, every bit of her hurting. She bent her head into her knees.

“Leave me alone,” she begged.

A six-inch razor blade she’d never seen before appeared in her hand.

A slash bit into her left wrist. Then her right. She tried to drop the razor, but it stayed in place, grasped tightly between her fingers.

“Please,” she said.

The next slash came to the side of Lily’s neck.

“Please.” Lily wrapped her arms around her knees. Blood seeped into the fabric of her sweatpants. “Somebody help me.”