She reached the fence, shoved the camera in her purse, looped the strap over her shoulder, and started up.

Climbing was harder than it looked. The spaces where the wires crisscrossed were slightly smaller than the tips of her shoes, making it more difficult to catch a foothold. Cold wires pinched her fingers, and the fence was built on an inward slope, all of which was no doubt deliberate to keep the monkeys inside the monkey house. She listened to the soft jingling and ringing of fence wires and metal posts as she pulled herself up, hand over hand, and didn’t look back.

Far above, a new pile of clouds floated back over the moon, sucking up the light.

Below her, she heard the door squeak open.

Clinging to the fence, Jolie peered down into the darkness of the basketball court, her eyes flicking frantically for a trace of movement in the imperfect light. Without losing her grip she managed to reach down and take the camera from her purse, aiming it and hitting the button.

There was a flash, and in its brief pulse she glimpsed a figure in orange halfway across the court, smeared by motion.

Jolie pressed the button again. The flash burst, illuminating the exercise court below.

The orange-clad figure was gone.

She looked down at the camera.

His face covered the screen, as if zoomed in close. Its lopsided grin filled the blue rectangle, the corner of its mouth and one crazed eye.

Something grabbed her ankle.

Screaming, yanking her leg free, she dropped the camera and clawed at the fence, wrenching her body upward in spastic jerks and jolts. Now she didn’t even feel the wire as it bit into the tender webbing between her fingers. The only thing that existed was the fence; the only thing that mattered was getting over it.

Below her, the flash pulsed over and over, taking pictures of her.

Jolie climbed faster. Bright sacs of heretofore unfelt chemicals ruptured through her bloodstream, and without realizing it she was moving effortlessly, chugging past pain and exhaustion, every muscle synchronized, able to climb forever if she had to. Her body felt weightless, rising up on its own momentum.

Far below her now, the camera’s flash blazed again and again, convulsively. She could hear him down there chuckling.

Jolie jerked her head up toward the top of the fence, amazed to see how close she was. Within seconds she would be at the top, swinging her leg over, lowering herself down the other side.

She didn’t notice that the camera had stopped flashing, or the faint jingling sounds of chain link against steel poles as Snow climbed along behind her. She just looked through the fence and thought how she would get down. It was twenty feet, maybe more; for an instant she considered jumping, but if she twisted her ankle on the other side and couldn’t run, then—

Something brushed the top of her head and she looked up, startled at the feeling of ropes against her face from above.