“Right now you’re dead. You might feel alive because you’re breathing and you’re scared and you’re in pain, but you’re not living. You’re trapped at the bottom of a pool, looking up at a world that doesn’t know you’re there and can’t help you until you swim to the top.” Caitlin shook her head. “I don’t have the words to make this pretty. My hands are raw, my feet are covered in piss and shit, and I don’t know how long …”

She stopped, checked the hall again, turned back to Chapman.

“He’s killed the real you, Angela, so you could be his Angel. And when you dared not to be, he hit you, and he cut you, and he raped you. That’s his sickness. Men like him want you to live out their fantasies on a pedestal, to define you according to some image they’ve built in their messed-up minds. And I can’t say this isn’t going to define you—”

Caitlin’s chest spasmed with the need for a sharp breath, and her voice came out with a tremble. “Some Neanderthal did the same thing to me twenty years ago, and sometimes it still feels like I’m dead.” She sniffed up the tears clouding her sinuses. “Like every good thing in my life died right there in the dirt.” She wiped the corner of her eyes and fought through. “But it didn’t. I’m still alive and I’m ready to get back to the surface with everyone else. And you can be too, Angela, if you come with me right now.”

Angela took a sharp breath, then another, then tears came. She moved closer. “You’re real?”

Caitlin nodded and threw her arms around the girl. “In all my fucked-up glory.”

For the first time since Caitlin had opened the door, Chapman’s face broke into a smile. “Is Embower dead?”

“No.” Caitlin put space between them and pulled Angela toward the door. “He’s locked in my room.”

Angela recoiled. “Did you get his keys?”

“His keys?”

She took another step back. “He has a remote for the locks.”

Caitlin looked back down the hall. The door to her room was still closed. She’d started the gas, and Embower didn’t have the benefit of air trapped in Sprite bottles, but with the fan too messed-up to circulate, Caitlin had no idea how long the effects of the gas would last.

She took the girl’s arm, felt nothing but bone. “Chapman, come with me or we both die today.”

“He’ll catch me,” Angela said, shaking. “He always catches me.”

Caitlin grabbed her hand. “Last time you were alone.”

Angela jerked to life, went through the door with Caitlin, then took the lead. “There’s a dumbwaiter on the right.”