She has no specific scenario in mind, because it feels smarter that way, like she's surprising fate, sneaking up on it with tiny footsteps. It's the same reason she never comes out and says it in the book. If she never says it aloud, never writes it down, fate can't know.

Silly logic, she thinks. But some part of her wonders.

Harriet opens her cell phone, and thumbs a button a couple times.

Then she lifts the phone and shows it to Miriam.

It's a blurry camera phone image. It shows the back of a tractor-trailer.

Miriam knows whose it is before Harriet tells her.

"They found your friend. They're trailing him right now. It'll all be over soon."

Eyes. Brain. Rusty fish knife. Lighthouse.

Miriam blinks away the tears, but those fuckers keep on coming.

Harriet holds up the diary. "Nine pages left."

Then she tears out the blank pages, one by one.

Each is like a knife slash across Miriam's heart. Each rip – which Harriet draws out, accentuates as if for its beautiful music – cuts deep.

Harriet flips the blank, ragged pages over her shoulder.

She comes to the last page.

"Dear Diary," Harriet says, as if reading real words on a real page. "This is my last entry. My trucker boyfriend died a painful death at the hands of my new employer. Life is very hard. Fate is fate and blah, blah, blah."

She tears out that page.

It's stupid, but Miriam can't bear to watch.

Miriam hears, but does not see, the flap of the page as Harriet throws it into the air. Then the sound of the book dropped to the floor.

She opens her eyes. Harriet's right in her face, holding a gun and a small lockback knife.

"What are you doing?" Miriam asks.

"Time to get docile."

In one swift motion, Harriet reaches up and cuts the zip-tie binding Miriam's hands above the showerhead. Miriam's not ready. Her still-bound feet – on tip-toes, always on the tip-toes – can't get balance, and she launches forward. The way her muscles ache, the way they've been stretched and tingle from the lack of blood, doesn't give her enough feeling or movement for her to stop her fall –

Wham.

She cracks her head on the side of the faucet and tumbles, belly-down, into the tub. Her eyes go blurry. Dark spots float in her vision. She feels her feet lift up, not of her own volition, and something tugs at them – snick. Then her feet hit the porcelain, the zip-tie between them cut in twain.

"I–" Miriam stammers. "I don't unner-understand."

She hears Harriet's voice at her ear: "I said, I need you docile."

The butt of the pistol cracks down on Miriam's collarbone. Pain explodes. Harriet flips Miriam over and starts hammering her with the gun – literally. Harriet's got the gun barrel in her pudgy doll's hand, and she brings the butt down again and again like she's trying to bash nails through boards. The gun-butt slams into Miriam's ribs, her stomach, the side of her neck, everywhere. Her body is a thousand nodes of agony.