Gretchen’s grip tightened and she pressed Susan’s shoulder to the wall, and simultaneously snapped Susan’s arm forward. Susan howled. The pain bloomed outward from her shoulder, all the way to her scalp and toes. It made her hair stand up and the marrow in her bones dry up. Then, just as suddenly, it was over. The pain was gone. Susan, panting and sweating, tears streaming down her face, cautiously inspected her arm. She lifted it carefully and bent it back and forth at the elbow. She rotated her shoulder. The joint was back in the socket.

Gretchen had returned her attention to Archie. She held his bloodless face in her hands, a sad smile on her lips, her eyes glistening. Then she leaned forward and gently kissed him on the cheek. It was so tender that Susan nearly believed that Gretchen was actually experiencing an emotion.

Something deep in Susan’s stomach twisted.

Was Archie dead?

Susan covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head, not wanting to believe it. Archie couldn’t be dead. But there was so much blood. And he was so still and pale. She looked at Karim, who lay in a fetal position in the doorway. His eyes were also half open. His face was also waxen. A puddle of dark red blood encircled his head.

They were both dead.

Susan turned desperately back to Archie, only to find Gretchen was scrutinizing her again. Blood spatter spotted Gretchen’s cheeks and neck like red freckles. The sadness Susan had thought she’d seen in her eyes was gone, if it had ever been there. Gretchen looked at Susan with the same mix of superiority and queenly detachment that she always did. Susan’s lip trembled as she looked pleadingly at Gretchen, waiting for an answer, and at the same time not wanting to hear it.

Gretchen didn’t offer any answers. Instead, she stood up and began adjusting the skirt of the bloodstained white dress.

Susan reached for Archie’s hand, hoping it would be warm. It was cool to the touch and sticky with blood.

She could still hear the hum of power tools. And something else—the frantic beating of someone banging on a metal door.

“They’ll be here soon,” Gretchen said. “Best get him on his back on the floor and keep his knees up.”

Susan gazed up at Gretchen, confused. A tiny pang of hope fluttered in her chest.

“It’s just a little hypovolemic shock, dear,” Gretchen said.

Archie was alive.