Another wave of his gun urges me onward, but it’s hard to move with the kids hanging on my legs like monkeys. I shuffle backward, my heels sliding across the concrete so I don’t step on their toes. I don’t turn around. I don’t dare to. I keep my eyes on the weapon and move back, back, back until there’s nowhere left for us to go. The kids and I are pressed up against the door, no air between us.

The man’s brow quirks. “You’re going to have to actually open it, you know.”

And then what—scream? Our neighbors on either side work big jobs, managing big departments at Fortune 500 companies. The Home Depot, Coca-Cola, Delta. They leave before dawn and come home well after dark, but this is a family-friendly neighborhood. It’s filled with kids and nannies and stay-at-home moms. If I scream loud enough, surely, surely someone will hear.

But first I have to get outside.

I reach behind me with a hand, fumbling for the handle stabbing me in the hip. I have to nudge the kids out of the way first, pushing them toward the patch of wall farthest from the man, between the door and Baxter’s tricycle, its front wheel flush against a giant blue bucket filled with sports equipment. It’s a tight squeeze, and I kick the bike to move it out of the way, but it doesn’t budge. The bucket is too heavy. The space is too tight for all three of us. With my other hand, the one still holding my bag, I shuffle Beatrix to the other side. Her violin case bonks against the wall, an angry sound that makes her flinch.

The flickering lightbulb on the door opener times out, plunging the garage into blackness. Both kids let out a frightened wail. I let go of Beatrix just long enough to feel along the wall for the light switch, and there’s movement all around. The kids flailing. The soft breeze of bodies lurching in the darkness. My bag dragging on an arm.

My fingers find the switch, and the lights pop on, a row of ceiling mounts that fills the space with bright, white light. I blink into the sudden light and—

My lungs fill with a scream.

The man has Beatrix. He squeezes her to his chest with one beefy arm. Beatrix hangs there like a rag doll, her little Converse dangling two feet off the ground. She’s lost her case in the shuffle. A shoe has come untied, the laces long and dirty and frayed on one end, but all of that bleeds away because there’s a gun, the stubby black barrel shoved into a fluffy cloud of Beatrix’s hair. Pressed against her temple.