It was faint—so faint, in fact, at first I thought it might be my imagination. But as I moved deeper into the house, I could hear it more clearly. The sound was coming from down one of the large side halls, and as I got closer to it, I realized it was actually echoing down a stairwell that led up to a cluster of second floor rooms at the end of that wing. Even now, given the distance and barriers between us, I’m not sure how I ever heard that girl at all.

The room was like so many in those houses—large, blank, and largely nondescript aside from some bookshelves built into one wall. What caught my eye immediately, however, was the naked couple huddled on the floor together. When I stepped into the room, the girl looked up immediately, her face red and puffy from crying. I saw bruises on her face and arms as well, and my initial idea of having walked in on a couple looking for adventurous sex began to turn to some sort of crime. Was she being held against her will? Had the man assaulted or raped her?

But she clearly was afraid of me, not him, and for his part, he was lying on his back in a kind of stupor as he stared blankly into the ceiling. Were they both victims here then? The door hadn’t been locked when I came in, had it? If not, why didn’t they just leave? All these questions in just a handful of seconds, but I knew I needed to say something to calm the girl down.

“Miss, I’m not here to hurt you. Are you all right? Is he?”

She began to cry again, her face strangely contorted as she bared her teeth at me. “We know you’re with him. Don’t let him hurt us again. You leave me and my Tommy alone.”

The way she was acting, the way they were both acting, I started thinking more and more they were on something. It didn’t mean they didn’t need help, but I needed to be careful.

“Miss, I’m not going to hurt you or Tommy. I want to help. Who hurt you? Who did this?”

She squinted at me and let out a little terrified laugh. “You know. Oh, you know.” She turned and shoved Tommy, who slowly began to rouse, looking around with an expression that reminded me of Jack a few days earlier. I felt my control of the situation slipping, and so I went ahead and took out my phone, started to call 911. I only took my eyes off of them for a second, but when I looked back up they were charging toward me, knocking me down.

I immediately began to roll away, grabbing for my stun gun as I struggled to get on my knees. But she was on the back of my legs, and suddenly Tommy had me in a bearhug from behind. The girl slid off my legs and walked on all fours around to face me, her face now tight with an angry, insane smile.