It is the closet downstairs. Just how I know it’s downstairs I’m not sure. There is something in the

floor she pulls up, and some of my stuffed animals have been jammed into the square hole, along

with blankets and a pillow from her and Daddy’s bed. She scoops me up again and settles me in the

hole, and I begin to feel a faint alarm. “Mommy?”

“We’re going to play the game, Dru. You hide here and wait for Daddy to come home from work.”

I know what will happen. Daddy will come home and find me, but things will never be the same.

Because that was the night Sergej came, the night he killed her, but he did not find me.

And it is all my fault.

The dream turns to rotting cheesecloth veils, strangling me. Wrapping around wrist and ankle and

hip with clammy-cold touch and I struggle up, screaming, desperate for air. I don’t want to see, I

don’t want to see—

“—don’t want to see stop it I don’t want to see!” I fought, blindly, screaming and sweating and

shaking. Struck out with fists and feet, starfishing. Hit nothing but empty air.

“It’s just a dream!” Graves said urgently. “Just a dream!”

No, it’s not, I wanted to scream. It’s real. It happened; it keeps happening.

Someone was pounding at the door. I choked, stared up at Graves. Blinked furiously. I must’ve been

crying in my sleep; my cheeks were wet and my nose was full. The scream died in my throat. I

gulped in a breath. My T-shirt was twisted all around, and my new boxers were all bunched up, too.

They get that way when you thrash.

Dusk was filling the window with purple. It was my first day of actual classes. And someone was

hammering at the door, yelling my name.

“Dru.” Graves had my shoulders. “It’s just a dream, okay? Okay? You’re here, I’m here, everything’s okay. You’re safe, I promise.”

I wiped at my cheeks with shaking hands. It was Benjamin at the door. “Oh,” I whispered. “Jesus.

I . . . I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Green eyes burning, Graves was almost nose-to-nose with me. I could see the fine golden threads in his irises, and a little crusty from sleep caught in his right eye. It was enough to make

me cry with relief, because he was safe and real. His sleeping bag lay wadded up on the floor. “You

were moving around a lot, and then you started screaming. Really yelling, like you were . . .”

“Sorry.” My heart pounded, I sniffed cry-snot back up. The door was actually shivering against the

bar. “That’s Benjamin.”

“I better let him in. Guess we’re going to class.” But he still held my shoulders, his long callused