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.

Oh God. No. NO—

The basketball court was covered, after all.

Not by metal bars or fence, but a mesh of thin black netting that went from one side to the other. Its shadow in the moonlight lay across Jolie’s cheek like a widow’s veil. She hadn’t been able to see it from down below, the netting being so dark and so fine, but of course it was there, it would have to be there, to keep the would-be suicides from climbing over.

Snow’s hand found her calf and squeezed.

Jolie screamed again, the toes of her work sneakers squeaking off, losing their hold, leaving her dangling momentarily by one hand. Catching her grip, she felt a long ice cube drip of sweat between her shoulder blades as she struggled to pull away.

Then he was on her, pinning her body tight to the fence with his own. She could smell and feel the powerful flow of his breath over her shoulder, flooding her nose with every imaginable odor of decay.

“Please.” Through her fright she hardly heard what he was saying. “God, please…please, you don’t have to do this. Please, let me—”

Through the prism of tears she saw him release his grip on the chain link on the right side of her head, leaning back so the only thing keeping him upright was his left hand.

Oh, thank you.