The four of them walked through every room together, more quietly than Izabel expected. She thought maybe they’d be claiming objects and spaces, calling out and being silly. But it wasn’t like a hotel, like vacationing with her mother, who would always claim the chair with wheels and then scoot around the room in it, showing it off, even taking it into the bathroom, raising it up to wash her hands without getting to her feet. Izabel would alternate between laughing and acting like she was embarrassed of her, even though she wasn’t, even though no one else was in the room.

This place felt too much like someone else’s house, like they were trespassers. And it was clear to all of them—this wasn’t how people moved. This was how they fled.

Izabel set to work with Kaito, taking the sheets from the beds, getting the loads going in the washing machine. They looked at the dishes and decided they didn’t need to be washed. They looked at the pillows and wished they’d brought their own. They fluffed them, trying to rid them of the shapes of other people’s heads.

There were a few empty boxes the last family had left near the entrance, and Izabel used them to clear the surfaces of picture frames, jewelry boxes, small vases—anything too personal left scattered about the house.

She started in what would be Jana’s room, and when she was finished, she told Jana she could come and start unpacking her own things into it. Cami ran after Jana to help.

Izabel cleared Cami’s room next, but they’d have to wait for their things before they could make it into a space for her. Izabel was sure Cami would give her a hard time about that later, but she also knew that she could be appeased, easily, simply, with chocolate and an apology and a plan to fix it.

It took the longest to clear what would be Izabel and Kaito’s new bedroom. There were postcards and drawings hung on the side of an armoire, and empty spots where more precious pictures must have been. There was a faux tree covered in sets of earrings. Imagining the woman’s ears made Izabel feel lightheaded. That woman’s ears were soft and safe somewhere, unlike Izabel’s family.

Until that moment, it felt like she was bringing her family to safety, with this safe house, a house the killer did not specifically know was hers. But seeing how scared this family had been, remembering the randomness of the killings, seeing the earrings left sparkling on the tree—Izabel fell with a thud, her back slamming into a dresser of drawers.

Kaito rushed in.

“We’re not safe,” she said.

“We are,” he said.