He held out the tin and she picked up a lemon drop. It felt gummy, as though the box had sat in the sun all day. She forced a smile, daring a glance at the man, who smiled back.

As soon as she put it in her mouth, she knew the lozenge had been doped. She recognized the taste; it was the same horrible syrup her mother drank to help her sleep. So that was how he’d done it. Poisoned candies. With her sister, all he would have had to do was offer her candy, poison or not, and smile kindly, and Abriana would have followed him anywhere.

Pin blinked. He was watching her. If she spat out the candy, he’d know she was up to something. She let the lozenge slip beneath her tongue, tried not to swallow even as her mouth filled with sweet liquid.

“You can have another if you’d like,” he said in the same offhand tone, and popped a second lozenge into his mouth. Were only some of them poisoned? But that wouldn’t make sense. He was bigger, that was all, they would hardly affect him unless he ate the whole tin.

He continued to gaze at her with those shadowed eyes, so she nodded and took another. She clutched it, her palm sticky, sweat trickling between her breasts. The wind gusted, the tree limbs rustled like dry hands rubbing together. Lightning flashed and she steeled herself for the thundercrack that followed seconds later. It came, and she turned her head to spit out the lemon drop.

When she turned back, he was staring fixedly at her. Her hands and arms went cold, she needed to spit again, get rid of the horrible sweet taste on her tongue. She wanted to run, but she’d backed up against the tree, and he was suddenly too near, just inches away. The smoke from his cigarette stung her eyes, and she smelled his breath, lemons and whiskey and cherry cordial. She opened her fingers and the poisoned candy fell to the grass; inched her hand down toward the shiv in her boot, and made the mistake of glancing up.

His face had twisted; he gazed at her as though she were one of the freaks in the Ten-in-One, something disgusting. He knew she meant to fight. Abriana hadn’t fought, it might be better not to fight. He was going to kill her. She was going to die.

Something snapped inside her chest and spun out of her like smoke: she saw herself from above, as though watching a movie, a small white figure pressed against a tree as a shadow engulfed it. She could no longer hear the wind, there was a seashell roar in her ears that drowned out everything except for something, something she needed to remember, someone…

“Henry!” she screamed.