Kate struggled out of the chair, knees popping, her left hip warning her that if she didn’t adjust her position fast, it was going to slip free from its socket. Careful to avoid making a noise or bumping into Andrew or Nikki, she crept to the kitchen. She was so parched, her tongue kept sticking to the roof of her mouth. The refrigerator was still cold, but meat and dairy would start to go bad by the afternoon. She found a can of soda and draped a dishtowel over the top to muffle the sound of the tab when she pulled it open. As she drank half the can in one pull, her throat burned from the carbonation.

Just what I need, more pain.

It would be so easy to just curl into a ball and cry, waking Andrew and begging for Percocet and her nerve blockers. A fresh fentanyl patch would be welcome as well.

No! If I take them, I’ll eventually go under, and I’m not leaving Andrew to face this without me. I have to face reality, no matter how unreal it seems.

This cottage, Ryker’s infected face, the warnings from her heart – this was her reality. And like always, it fucking sucked.

Drinking the rest of the soda, she pulled the blinds over the kitchen sink open with her fingers.

The can tumbled out of her hand, rolling on the floor.

The car looked as if it had been hit by a semi, then run through a compactor. The wheels faced the sky, the rubber frayed, every window blown out, bits of glass sparkling in the morning sun. The forest floor looked as if it were covered in diamonds.

One of the doors had been bent over on itself and cast into the flower bed. The bulk of the car was covered in muddy dents, as if the monster had beaten it like a drum with feet and fists. It wasn’t even fit for a junkyard, much less driving.

“Are you okay?”

Andrew’s voice startled her. She jerked her hand back, the blinds clapping closed.

“The car,” she said.

He slipped a hand around her waist and leaned over to look for himself.

“Holy cow. How did it do that?” he said.

She looked at the junk stacked against the doors, then back out at the car. A realization hit her more forcefully than the hammer blows to her chest.

“It doesn’t want to come in here.”

He tore his gaze away from their demolished car. “What?”

They kept their voices down so as not to wake Ryker and Nikki.

“If it wanted to get us, it could,” she said. The resigned look on his face told her he’d thought the same thing. “I think it wants to keep us in here. It wants us afraid.”