Maybe it was a good thing Dad turned it off. She missed that shot bad.

A joke. Kind of. Self-deprecation anyway. See? Still got it. Despite the death, the anxiety, the fact there’s not only a killer but one who will eventually come for Natasha too. Because she’s tried, oh yes! She’s tried to come up with other ways Tammy and Melanie and Kennedy are linked (and Emily now, too, Emily Holt; and wasn’t there a suggestion of Beck Nelson in one of the responses from one of her teammates’ mothers in the text thread?). Yes, Natasha’s looked everywhere for an uncommon bond. Did they all have dark hair? No. All the same age? No. And so many more makeshift, hopeful connections in an effort to tell herself she is not on the killer’s radar, she has nothing to do with the events unfolding, she’s not the killer’s type.

But no. There’s nothing.

And so…

What to do but pace? What to do but wonder what this is doing to her? Because this is trauma; you’d have to be made of ice for it not to be. Natasha has pretended to go through the few books on the shelves in the house. She’s even pretended to be interested in what she sees online while truly trying to stay away from anything Samhattan-related. And now, right now, as the police stand sentry in the driveway, as Mom and Dad occupy themselves in their own efforts to manage their own trauma, she pretends to find calm in what she does.

Which is sitting on the end of her bed, reminding herself none of this is her fault.

Right? Right. Because to believe in Daphne in that way is to believe in a lot of things.

Ghosts.

Demons.

Witches.

Cities that are curs—

A sudden knock at her door and she doesn’t pretend it didn’t scare her.

“Jesus. Yeah?”

“Natasha.”

It’s one of the officers. Why? News? Is it Beck Nelson, after all?

Is it Kit?

“I checked up on your friend,” he says through the wooden door. So, yes, it’s about Kit.

“And?”

“And no word yet. They said they’d check.”

“You came to tell me that?”

Silence from him for a beat.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I hear.”

“Yeah. Okay. Good idea. Probably smarter to come with news than nothing. The last thing I need is more nothing.”

Silence. Then, his footsteps receding up the hall.

Natasha checks the thread on her phone.

Kit hasn’t responded. Worse, Kit still hasn’t even read Natasha’s messages.

Is her phone off? Is that how Kit’s dealing with her own trauma?

Natasha writes the others, asking if they’ve heard from Kit. She isn’t answering her phone, she tells them. Isn’t reading any messages. Has someone called her parents? Is she okay?

Is Kit freaking out?

Why isn’t anybody as scared about Kit as she is?

Down the hall, movement. Like a shoe falling to the carpet.

“Mom? You good?”

It’s not hard to imagine Quincy falling onto her bed. Or onto the floor for that matter. Natasha has witnessed both.