But right now, it’s time for a change. Kit must step outside herself if she’s going to do what she came here to do.

She turns her back to the basket. She holds the ball about stomach-high.

“Can I think Melanie back to life too?”

She hurls the ball over her head, spins to see it miss everything. For as much as this hurts, it’s what she was expecting. Sometimes you’ve got to gauge the rim that way. Ask it something you think you know the answer to, then take a shot with almost no chance. If it goes in? It could mean the rim is lying.

Kit fetches the ball.

She looks it over in her hands. To her, a perfect shape. Not round so much as…basketball.

It’s time.

She steps to the line.

She steadies herself.

“Is Daphne dead?”

The name sounds hollow, like a long shaft through the center of the world.

She shoots.

Swish.

Okay, no question about that one.

She fetches the ball, brings it back to the line.

“Is Natasha dead?”

She shoots.

Swishes.

Kit looks to her phone at the foot of the baseline wall padding.

“Okay,” she says. Because she’s past trying to rewrite history. She’s past fooling herself into believing this situation is somehow better than it actually is.

Still, she cries as she gets the ball.

She steps to the line.

“Can I kill Daphne?”

She shoots.

It’s a clunker, rockets off the rim, bounces hard right.

She knows she asked an interpretable question. Just because Kit can’t kill Daphne, doesn’t mean someone else can’t. And besides, how do you kill something that’s dead?

“Can I stop Daphne?”

Her voice shakes. She shoots.

The ball circles the rim before rolling out.

Kit nods. Okay. This is meaningful. The rim is telling her that maybe she worded the question poorly, maybe there’s a tighter way to ask it. But to stop Daphne? To fully stop her?

No.

Kit fetches the ball. Steps to the line.

“Is Daphne coming for me, right now?”

Her words echo down through that shaft.

She shoots.

Swishes.

The echo of the net and the ball striking the floor resolve into silence. Kit begins breathing harder. She thinks of Patricia Maxwell. She thinks of Natasha.

But despite the tears for her friends and the near paralytic fear she feels in every joint in her body, Kit isn’t here to be afraid.

She gets the ball. She breathes deep.

“Is she close?”

She shoots.

Swishes.

Very close. Kit’s old friend the rim says so.

Kit nods. Wipes tears away. Fetches the make.

She steps to the line.

“Is she right outside the gym?”

She spins the ball once. Fires. Makes it.

A sound then. From somewhere deep in the school: the crashing of a door slamming open.

Kit doesn’t want to stop. Doesn’t want to run. Doesn’t want to stand here and die like her friends either.

She tries to control her breathing. Tries to slow it down long enough to fetch the ball.