“Myth,” Kit says.

Fine. As it should be. Every city in every county in every state has a local legend. Hell, even some streets have legends the people on the next street don’t know about.

This should make Kit feel better. It doesn’t. Because sometimes new information, or coming to a conclusion, tells the truth in an indirect way: it’s not the information itself but how you feel upon receiving it. Does Kit feel confident about writing it off as a myth? Does it feel right? Or does some deeper instinct tell her Daphne is real?

None of this feels right. Like glancing behind a curtain, seeing there this name, realizing it was always there and that she knew it was there but never thought to peek.

As if the entire city, Kit included, ultimately ostracized this outsider: deciding, subconsciously or not, never to speak of her again.

Kit looks to her journal. It’s funny: she’s never considered herself a writer, yet she does it almost every day. She identifies, first, with being an athlete. And like most girls her age, the two worlds don’t entirely mix. Who has time for everything? Either you focus on your body or your mind, and Kit’s fantasies never include the written word. Yet it helps. Always has. And whether she feels like writing or not, when she forces herself to do it, anxious thoughts can’t quite touch her until she’s done.

The concept of the Coming Doom is long gone. Doom is here. It’s a constant hum now. And justifiably so: too much has happened in recent days. Success on the basketball court. The deaths of two teammates. Questions by the police, parents, friends.

It’s a wonder she hasn’t cracked.

Or maybe I have…

But her thoughts are interrupted: static voices from the police radio outside. The officers below must have their windows open. She moves quick to her own. Kit wants to hear this.

Outside, it’s dark. The streets extend into individual black horizons. Kit eyes the officers.

Are they prepared? Would they be able to stop whoever comes?

Because she is coming, Kit thinks. And with the thought, that heat at the base of her neck.

She can’t make out the words on the police radio. The tone of the dispatcher’s voice could go either way: emphatic calm or a calm deadly seriousness. No way to tell.

She considers shouting down to them. Flat-out asking them for any news. Is Natasha okay? Is Dana? How many officers from Chaps are here to help? Any Goblin police? Chowder?

You’re thinking too much.

Sure, but when is she not?

Back on the end of the bed, she does take her journal. And she writes. And while it doesn’t quell the anxiety, it feels like the right thing to do. Above her desk (and above her desk drawer, yes, where pills await, yes, pills that, if she takes enough of them, could make it so she doesn’t care at all anymore, isn’t scared), flat to the wall, is her vanity mirror. It’s shaped something like a heart, and Mom got it for her when she was much younger and Kit has always gone back and forth on it: it’s the kind of mirror that a kid would have in her room, yet it’s also a landmark of her own, a fixture in one of the only safe havens in Kit’s life: her bedroom.