Izabel held her tighter. Her eyelids were starting to swell. She lined herself up with an opening between houses and closed her eyes as she ran. Then she opened them and lined herself up again, closing her eyes for the longest stretches she could.

“No!” Jana sobbed.

Izabel made it back to the house, and she put Jana’s feet on the ground without letting go of her. The gun was still in her hand, but only because she didn’t know what else to do with it. She couldn’t imagine the killer getting ahold of that, too.

Kaito rushed out of Cami’s room with her in his arms. Cami was holding onto his neck and Izabel couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep. She’d been crying—Izabel could make out that much.

Izabel pulled Jana into the front room while Kaito grabbed things from the kitchen. He put Cami and a bottle of water and a hand towel on the floor next to Izabel and Jana, who had finally given up fighting Izabel and was slumped against her. Then he pressed the button, sealed the plastic sheet, and turned on the filter.

They moved Jana’s head back, took off her mask, and poured water over her eyes. Izabel took off her own mask and held it high while Kaito poured water over her eyes, too.

The filter finally turned green.

Kaito poured water on the towel and used it to wipe off Jana as she curled her body away from them. There was pollen in her ears, in the creases of her neck and eyelids, all over her hair.

Izabel gestured to Kaito to get her own hair, too, and he did. The towel was yellow now. And they heard the sirens coming.

“Cami said you saw him,” Kaito said.

Izabel nodded.

“She said you had a gun, but I didn’t believe it until I saw you with it.” He looked at it behind her now.

Izabel nodded again.

“Can you talk?”

She shook her head.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded, but also shrugged, because she didn’t really know.

“Did he follow you?”

She shook her head and began to cry again, because she didn’t know that either.

“I called Paz and she said she would come, and Cami said a car was coming, but she was getting more and more upset, and then she said you were coming back, and she hasn’t said anything since.”

Izabel ran her hand over Cami’s hair. She was waiting to hear the rip of their house’s plastic, from the killer having followed her, but instead the people from the ambulance rushed in.